El Salvador, a small country in Central America, has started charging a tax in dollars equal to approximately one thousand euros to those arriving at the country’s only international airport with the passport of one of 57 countries: the list includes all African states and India. The tax, officially “for the improvement of airports”, is most likely a way to try to discourage the arrivals of people who then try to enter the United States irregularly. It only affects travelers from rather poor countries, regardless of their place of residence or the city of departure of the flight.
In recent months, migrants arriving at the southern border of the United States have returned to the center of the US political debate: recently US President Joe Biden had asked the governments of Central American countries to “do more” to limit the transit of migrants . According to El Salvador’s civil aviation agency, most of the people affected by the tax pass through the country to go to neighboring Nicaragua, which has less stringent visa rules and where many people from Africa, Cuba and Cuba therefore pass through. and from Haiti who want to come to the United States.
According to some, the government of El Salvador decided to apply the tax to limit criticism from the United States on the decision of the controversial Salvadoran president Nayib Bukele to participate in the 2024 elections, despite the doubts raised by many on the constitutionality of his candidacy. Second Associated Press Bukele’s re-nomination was not particularly criticized by the representatives of the US administration, who in the past had more decisively condemned the erosion of democracy and the violations of human rights carried out in the great campaign ordered by Bukele to combat the criminal gangs that they had made El Salvador an extremely violent country.
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