The migration of young people from Central America to the USA has increased dramatically in recent years. The main cause to flee is closely related to the chronic violence in the region. At the same time, the border control in the US and Mexico has been intensified, especially due to Trump government’s immigration policy, leading to an enlarged number of deportations of these youth migrants.

These deported youth are facing multiple traumas. In many cases they have fled from violence in their home country, due to gang control, colloquially named «maras», groups known for exploitation, murders and forced recruitment. When they leave their violence-prone countries on the way north, these young people are confronted with deadly threats on the way. Finally, once they reach the borders, they have to cope with detention and deportation by US or Mexican migration officials. They return to their home country broken, frustrated and hopeless. On top of that in their home communities the young returnees often are stigmatized as criminals and seen as «losers». Without systematic reintegration programs, the risks that these young returnees get involved with the widespread criminal youth gangs or in drug traffic are high.

Therefore, terre des hommes schweiz terre des hommes Deutschland in cooperation with their local partner organisation ACISAM are supporting a pilot project on psychosocial support (PSS) for these young migrants in El Salvador . By doing so, they are filling in a crucial gap in state social programs. The projects aims to raise the specific needs of young returnees through a participatory survey and community discussion groups that will contribute breaking the negative stigmatization of young returnees. Likewise, the findings will be the basis for the development of more comprehensive concepts for the reintegration of young people. Psychosocial approaches are key to overcome the multiple traumas. Only with targeted and integrated approaches to social reintegration it can be prevented that these young people get involved in the vicious circle of violence.