WASHINGTON — With the number of child migrants ballooning, an analysis of their hometowns released Monday indicates they come from the largest and most violent cities in El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala.The new study by the Inter-American Dialogue, a progressive think tank, found the migration is based on fleeing violence, family reunification, job opportunities and lack of economic growth in the migrants’ hometowns.”You cannot address the problem without tackling the challenge of development in the region,” said Manuel Orozco, a senior fellow at the Inter-American Dialogue.According to the study only 25 percent of Salvadorans said they would rather live in El Salvador than stay in the U.S. That’s “critical mass,” Orozco said.But of all the issues, violence is the clear driver, the study said.”Just as people left Central America escaping violence in the ’70s and ’80s, now in the 21st century youth are being persecuted by paramilitary forces, gangs, cartels, arms traffickers and extortionists,” the report said.According to Orozco the number of child migrants crossing the border from Central America, which is said to have reached 50,000, began to increase five years ago.Jon Feere, a legal policy analyst for the Center for Immigration Studies, which supports limiting immigration, said in a telephone interview the child migrants and other undocumented immigrants cross the border because they believe they won’t be deported.”When you talk to the people that are coming here, they are aware of not just deferred action, they’re aware of the fact that this government has been talking about large scale amnesty for quite some time,” he said
But Christina Garcia, membership mobilization manager at the National Alliance of Latin American Caribbean Communities said the flood of migrant children could have been prevented earlier.
“Our country hasn’t done anything in the past 20 years to allow people to immigrate in a legal manner,” Garcia said.
Garcia pointed to the “broken and outdated immigration system” and the fact that there’s no “legal process to which people can migrate through.”
A large part of the $3.7 billion proposed by President Barack Obama to address the crisis would only increase “militarization” of the border by sending more guards to secure the border rather than showing “compassion” for the immigrants, Garcia said
“He’s not able to do as much because of fear of backlash from the other side,” she said.
