With No Choice Left, Central American Parents Turn to Human Smugglers Molly Hennessy-Fiske - The Los Angeles Times
go to original May 12, 2016

A Central American migrant relaxes outside a shelter in Mexico. (Manuel Ureste)



José Sorto wanted to bring his son and daughter from El Salvador to the United States legally.

Sorto, 42, had moved to Washington, D.C., in 1998, got legal status to work in 2003 and found a job as a cook at an Italian restaurant earning about $30,000 dollars to support his family back in the eastern port city of La Unión.

El Salvador has since become the homicide capital of the world, and last spring, five of Sorto’s relatives were shot and killed by gangs. Increasingly, gangs threatened Sorto’s 12-year-old son, Ernesto, and 20-year-old daughter, Jocelyn.

In July, Sorto applied to a newly created program run by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) and the State Department that in theory would allow his children to join him quickly in the United States.

The Central American Minors program was started to stem the flow of children crossing the border illegally — more than 68,500 unaccompanied minors in fiscal year 2014. At the time, a White House spokesman called it an “orderly alternative to the dangerous journey that children are currently undertaking to join relatives in the United States.”

Read the rest at El Daily Post

Related: Hundreds of Central American Mothers and Children Who Entered US Illegally to be Deported in New Wave of Raids (Reuters)

We invite you to add your charity or supporting organizations' news stories and coming events to PVAngels so we can share them with the world. Do it now!