The Engel List, established pursuant to the United States-Northern Triangle Enhanced Engagement Act (“Act”), was designed as a critical foreign policy tool to identify and target individuals believed to be involved in corruption and actions undermining democratic institutions in Central America. While the Engel List serves an important role in identifying the individuals responsible for corrupt practices in Central America, like many U.S. “lists,” it presents significant challenges from a due process perspective. The criteria for inclusion are broad and often based on untested and non-public allegations not subject to judicial scrutiny or evidentiary testing. Once an individual is named, there is no clear or formal path for removal from the list. This leaves individuals in a nebulous position, indefinitely sanctioned with limited recourse, making this a potent yet controversial instrument of U.S. foreign policy.

The Engel List

On December 27, 2020, the U.S. Congress adopted the omnibus spending bill for 2021.[1] This must-pass bill, exceeding 2,000 pages, included the Act. Section 353 of the Act was entitled “Targeted Sanctions to Fight Corruption in El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras.”[2] Nicaragua was added to the scope of the Act in 2021.[3]

Section 353(b) of the Act requires the president to submit to the foreign relations and judiciary committees of each congressional chamber a public report, at least annually, that identifies “each foreign person who the President determines to have knowingly engaged in actions that undermine democratic processes or institutions, or in significant corruption or obstruction of investigations into such acts of corruption in El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, and Nicaragua.” Such undemocratic or corrupt acts include: “(1) Corruption related to government contracts. (2) Bribery and extortion. (3) The facilitation or transfer of the proceeds of corruption, including through money laundering. (4) Acts of violence, harassment, or intimidation directed at governmental and nongovernmental corruption investigators.” The report can include a classified annex “if necessary.”[4]

The list of persons identified by the president has come to be known as the “Engel List,” named after Eliot L. Engel, chairman of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs when the Act was adopted.

Section 353(c) of the Act requires the president to impose sanctions on the identified individuals.[5] The sanctions are limited to immigration-related actions: individuals placed on the List are ineligible for visas and admission to the United States, and any current visas or other entry documentation are revoked.[6]

Compilation of the List

Authority under the Act is delegated by the president to the secretary of state.[7] The State Department identifies individuals who engaged in the statutory sanctionable conduct “based upon credible information or allegations of the conduct at issue, from media reporting and other sources.”[8] The fact that the secretary can rely on untested allegations, including from “media reporting,” reveals a very low evidentiary threshold for inclusion on the list.

The State Department has thus far issued six reports to Congress under the Act, covering approximately 180 individuals.[9] Notable trends include:

  • For most transactions involving corruption, the report does not identify the person who paid the bribes, only the public official who is alleged to have received them. However, where the transaction was adverse to United States foreign policy interests, more detail is provided. For example, the 2021 report specifies that Ezequiel Milla Guerra, former mayor of the city La Union in El Salvador, “abus[ed] his authority as mayor in the sale of Perico Island to agents of the People’s Republic of China in exchange for personal benefit.”[10] Likewise, Luis Guillermo Wellman Carpio, current magistrate of the Supreme Electoral Tribunal of El Salvador, was specified to have delayed election results tabulations “for his personal benefit” and with the consequence of “allowing Chinese malign influence during the Salvadoran elections.”[11]
  • The list emphasizes cases involving the intersection of political repression and threats to property rights. For example, the Nicaraguan banking and pensions regulators were each included for using their positions “as part of a coordinated government effort to” seize the assets and pensions, respectively, of political adversaries without a legal basis.[12]
  • Private persons without any apparent access to governmental power are sometimes included on the list as well. For example, Raúl Amilcar Falla Ovalle, a lawyer for an anti-terrorism NGO in El Salvador, was included for allegedly “attempt[ing] to delay or obstruct criminal proceedings against former military officials who had committed acts of violence.”[13] It is not specified whether Ovalle attempted to influence the criminal proceedings by using tools available to all private litigants, or illegitimate methods (such as threats of violence).
  • The inquiry can go significantly back in time. For example, the 2022 list includes Juan Carlos ‘‘El Tigre’’ Bonilla Valladares, director of the Honduran National Police from 2012 to 2013, for using his position to “facilitate movement of cocaine through Honduras in exchange for bribes.”[14]
  • The inquiry makes apparent findings on foreign law. For example, five magistrates of the Constitutional Chamber of El Salvador were included for “approving a controversial interpretation of the Constitution authorizing re-election of the President despite an express prohibition in the Constitution forbidding consecutive terms of the Presidency.”[15]

From the foregoing, it is clear that the Engel List is a political/foreign policy tool, at times including individuals whom the U.S. disagrees with on policy issues with limited regard to issues of corruption. Certainly, the evidentiary threshold is less than that needed to bring criminal charges, let alone sustain a conviction. And while the list’s direct impact is limited to the loss of ability to enter the United States, the indirect impacts are more severe. Persons identified in the list face loss of international banking access, reputational harm, and similar “copycat” immigration detriment from other countries.

The above practice shows that the Secretary of State’s inquiry under the Act is very broad in terms of the temporal scope, the status of the individuals listed, and the conduct deemed to violate the statutory requirements.

Section 353(f) of the Act purportedly provides that all sanctions would expire on December 27, 2023.[16] However, the legal effect of this provision is unclear. First, it provides for the expiry of the “authority to impose sanctions under subsection (b), and any sanctions imposed pursuant to such authority,” but the authority to sanction under the Act is found in subsection (c), not (b). Second, the Secretary of State added persons to the list on December 20, 2023; it is unlikely that the administration intended to sanction persons for only seven days, and in any case the new additions were published in the Federal Register on January 10, 2024, after the purported expiry.[17] The list also remains on the State Department website,[18] and no part of the Act has been formally repealed. It is unclear whether a legal challenge could be brought to force the State Department to remove the list from the website by seeking judicial relief mandating compliance with the sunset provision. 

How to Get Off the List

The Act provides no mechanism or procedure for individuals to challenge their inclusion on the list or seek to be removed from it. Individuals may be sanctioned if they are found to “have knowingly engaged in” anti-democratic or corrupt conduct.[19] On the face of the text, a single past occurrence of such conduct makes one indefinitely sanctionable. The Act does not provide that the sanctions shall continue only as long as the individual “engages” in the conduct, or that they shall terminate once the individual no longer engages in the conduct. The fact that the individual no longer engages in the relevant conduct should serve as an implicit basis for removal, but the Act does not address this. Indeed, the Act specifies no procedures by which an individual can seek to be removed from the list. This is in stark contrast to OFAC regulations where designated individuals and entities are expressly afforded the right to challenge their OFAC designation on the basis that OFAC’s initial analysis was incorrect or that the situation has changed such that the ongoing designation is no longer warranted. Similarly, whereas OFAC created a public portal on its website to receive legal challenges to designations, there is no such portal for the State Department. 

The only explicit basis for removal found in the Act is that the president may “waive the application of the sanctions” if the president “determines that such a waiver is in the national security interest of the United States.” This is inherently a policy determination rather than a legal criterion. To exercise the waiver, the Act requires the secretary to submit a notice and justification to each congressional chamber’s foreign relations and judiciary committees within 15 days.[20] There have been no such public submissions by the secretary to date.

Therefore, in practice, individuals who seek to relieve themselves from immigration sanctions under the Act must lobby the State Department in an ad hoc manner. The individual could challenge the factual basis for the sanction, including by demonstrating that any media reports about the individual’s conduct were inaccurate, politically motivated or otherwise not credible, and/or by demonstrating that the individual no longer engages in that conduct. However, there are no reported cases of individuals bringing legal challenges to their inclusion on the list. Moreover, given the reality that the only direct penalty is exclusion from entry into the United States, it is likely (although not certain) that any such judicial challenge would be rejected. As a general rule, U.S. courts defer to executive branch determinations on foreign policy immigration decisions—there is no right for a foreign person to have a visa to enter the United States. Ultimately the only effective route is to try to work with U.S. law enforcement and diplomatic personnel to seek a waiver or exclusion from the list.

Alternatively, individuals may bring litigation to seek clarity on the legal effect of Section 353(f), the purported termination provision.


For further information, please contact Adam Kaufmann ([email protected]), Cristián Francos ([email protected]), or Alex Bedrosyan ([email protected]) or visit https://www.lbkmlaw.com/practices-latin-america.html.


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[1] See P.L. 116-260 (Dec. 27, 2020), https://www.congress.gov/116/plaws/publ260/PLAW-116publ260.pdf.

[2] Id. 134 Stat. 3129, 3129–31 (codified at 22 U.S.C. § 2277a).

[3] See P.L. 117-54, § 7, 235 Stat. 418 (Nov. 10, 2021), https://www.congress.gov/117/plaws/publ54/PLAW-117publ54.pdf.

[4] P.L. 116-260, § 353(b) (22 U.S.C. § 2277a(b)), 134 Stat. 3130.

[5] Id. § 353(c) (22 U.S.C. § 2277a(c)).

[6] Id. § 353(d) (22 U.S.C. § 2277a(d)). An exception is for those who must enter the United States for activities at the U.N. headquarters. Id. § 353(d)(2) (22 U.S.C. § 2277(d)(2)).

[7] Presidential Memorandum, Delegation of Certain Authorities and Functions Under Section 353 of the United States-Northern Triangle Enhanced Engagement Act, 86 Fed. Reg. 34,591 (June 21, 2021), https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/FR-2021-06-30/pdf/2021-14072.pdf.

[8] See, e.g., Report to Congress Pursuant to Section 353(b) of the United States— Northern Triangle Enhanced Engagement Act, 88 Fed. Reg. 48280, 48281 (July 26, 2023), https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/FR-2023-07-26/pdf/2023-15775.pdf

[9] See 86 Fed. Reg. 36174 (July 8, 2021), https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/FR-2021-07-08/pdf/2021-14515.pdf; 86 Fed. Reg. 53384 (Sept. 27, 2021),  https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/FR-2021-09-27/pdf/2021-20821.pdf; 87 Fed. Reg. 49639 (Aug. 11, 2022), https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/FR-2022-08-11/pdf/2022-17215.pdf; 87 Fed. Reg. 15299 (Mar. 17, 2022), https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/FR-2022-03-17/pdf/2022-05589.pdf; 88 Fed. Reg. 48280 (July 26, 2023), https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/FR-2023-07-26/pdf/2023-15775.pdf; 89 Fed. Reg. 1621 (Jan. 10, 2024), https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/FR-2024-01-10/pdf/2024-00346.pdf.

[10] 86 Fed. Reg. 36174, 36174 (emphasis added) (July 8, 2021).

[11] Id.

[12] 89 Fed. Reg. 48280, 48282 (July 26, 2023).

[13] Supra n.10 at 36175.

[14] 87 Fed. Reg. 49639, 49641 (Aug. 11, 2022).

[15] 86 Fed. Reg. 53384, 53385 (Sept. 27, 2021).

[16] P.L. 116-260, § 353(f) (22 U.S.C. § 2277a(f)), 134 Stat. 3131.

[17] 89 Fed. Reg. 1621 (Jan. 10, 2024).

[18] See https://www.state.gov/reports/section-353-corrupt-and-undemocratic-actors-report-2023/; https://www.state.gov/reports/section-353-corrupt-and-undemocratic-actors-report-2022/; https://www.state.gov/reports/section-353-corrupt-and-undemocratic-actors-report/.

[19] P.L. 116-260, § 353(b) (22 U.S.C. § 2277a(b)), 134 Stat. 3130.

[20] Id. § 353(e) (22 U.S.C. § 2277a(e)).