Categories: Feature

No Childhood Here: Why Central American Children Are Fleeing Their Homes

By Elizabeth Kennedy


Over a decade before President Barack Obama described the influx of unaccompanied child migrants to the United States as an “urgent humanitarian situation requiring a unified and coordinated federal response,” child and refugee advocates warned that children who shared experiences of years-long family separation, widespread violence in home countries and higher rates of neglect and abuse were fleeing from South of our border in alarming numbers.

Then as now, over 95 percent were from Mexico and the Central American nations of El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras. When these children were apprehended in the U.S., the Trafficking and Victim’s Protection Reauthorization Act (TVPRA) required agents to ask limited and straightforward  abuse questions. If the child was determined to be without a parent or legal guardian, s/he had to be transferred to Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) care within 72 hours.

 

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE

http://www.immigrationpolicy.org/sites/default/files/docs/no_childhood_here_why_central_american_children_are_fleeing_their_homes_final.pdf

 

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10 years ago

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