U.S. Embassies in Central America to Accept Claims for Refugee Status Brian Bennett - McClatchy
go to original October 4, 2014

WASHINGTON — In an effort to discourage thousands of unaccompanied children from trying to enter the U.S. illegally, President Barack Obama has instructed immigration officials to allow citizens of Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador to apply for refugee status in their home countries for the first time.

The order, contained in a White House memo to the State Department, did not say how many refugee applications should be approved. But the program is unlikely to stem the flood of unaccompanied minors that began pouring across the border from Mexico last spring.

The same memo capped the total number of refugees the administration will admit from all of Latin America and the Caribbean at 4,000 in the fiscal year that began this week, down from 5,000 last year.

Under the new plan, the State Department will begin accepting refugee applications at U.S. embassies in the three Central American countries by the end of December, according to spokeswoman Jen Psaki.

Read the full story at Dispatch.com

Photo: Agence France-Presse

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