Dependent Neoliberalism, US Aid and Central American Asylum Seekers

Abstract

This article is about Central American asylum seekers from the perspective of dependency theory and Gramscian international relations. It argues that Northern Central American asylum seekers are fleeing the contradictions of the hegemonic US-led neoliberal development model that depends on migration and remittances as its main source of hard currency. This article is grounded in structural/conjectural analysis and supported with quantitative methods. I suggest that the increase in asylum seekers is a function of US aid through the Central American Regional Security Initiative (CARSI), which contributes to the conditions that people flee and to US apprehensions of Guatemalan, Salvadoran, and Honduran nationals, leaving would-be migrants no choice but to apply for asylum. I conclude that the security and development model imposed on the region under the conditions of US hegemony, and US migration control policies designed to apprehend and deport asylum seekers are producing the very crisis they purport to resolve.