More Central America Kids Crossing Borders Solo Rosa Ramirez - Next America
go to original August 7, 2012

Migrant children deported into Reynosa, Mexico. (Eugenio del Bosque)

In the past two years, more than twice as many Central American youth under 18 have tried to cross to the U.S. alone or with strangers, including sometimes the harsh terrain around Nogales, Ariz.

Several months ago at a Texas shelter near the U.S.-Mexico border, Jessica Jones met a 16-year-old boy from El Salvador who had lost his entire family to violence in his Central American hometown.

He had left El Salvador in an attempt to avoid the same fate. The teen started the nearly 2,000-miles journey through Mexico in the hopes of reaching the U.S., but he was nabbed by immigration officials before he could make it into Texas.

“His whole family [was] killed by gangs,” said Jones, a fellow at the Women’s Refugee Commission, a nonprofit organization that advocates for laws, policies, and programs for refugees and other displaced people.

The number of unaccompanied minors — children under the age of 18 who are traveling alone or with strangers, generally illegally, into the U.S. — from Central American countries has risen dramatically since 2010.

“El Salvador has always had really high levels of kids coming out of here,” Jones said, noting that the sudden spike of Honduran and Guatemalan youth had advocates scratching their heads.

“What’s going on Honduras?” she said. “Those who provide legal services were saying, ‘We actually don’t know why they’re coming.’”

That’s when Jones and her colleagues decided to take a trip to the border region. They visited Texas shelters in the Brownsville-Harlingen area, as well as in Tucson, Ariz., both frequent entry points for some of these youths.

The result of her findings will be released in a study this fall. But on Monday during at the Migration Policy Institute’s gathering on unaccompanied children, she gave child advocates and others a glimpse on the condition and reasons the children, some as young as 6, are making the dangerous journey alone. The gathering was to discuss how to better assist these children once they come to the attention of immigration officials.

Journalist Sonia Nazario best documented their plight through Enrique's Journey, her book telling the story of a boy making his way from Honduras to North Carolina to reunite with his mother. Unaccompanied immigrant children risk losing limbs as they jump in and out of freight trains, are in constant danger of getting assaulted by corrupt Mexican police, and are vulnerable to the elements.

Despite the risks, these children continue to come.

In fiscal year 2009, about 6,000 unaccompanied minors came to the attention of immigration officials and were turned over to the Office of Refugee Resettlement, part of the Health and Human Services Department. In fiscal 2010, there were 8,000, Jones said.

During fiscal 2011, the numbers had slightly decreased to about 7,000, according to the Office of Refugee Resettlement, which has been responsible for looking after the minors since 2003.

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