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This article from BBC News tells the stories of "cuckoo families" in El Salvador, women and families who are chosen and forced by gang members to care for gang members' children. One woman, Maria, picked up her children from an activity at the local church and found a boy, Andres, waiting to be picked up. She offered him a ride home but when they arrived at the house, no one was there. Maria eventually took the boy home and got a phone call the next day. "It was a man. He said that I was in charge of Andres now," Maria said. "If anything happened to him, worse would happen to me. He said…
This article explores the many obstables and legal challenges that unaccompanied minors are experiencing in the judicial system in the state of Arizona in the US in their efforts to obtain legal status and be granted asylum.
As the number of children fleeing gang violence in El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras soars, UNHCR is launching a campaign for US$18 million in vital aid.
In this New York Times opinion piece, Kristof discusses one family’s story about the abuses they experienced while living in Honduras. His article highlights the dangers families are facing in Central America. He discusses how President Obama’s deportation policies are forcing families to stay in countries where their lives are at risk, and he argues that U.S. policies need to change in order to provide a safe haven for children and families at risk.
This Op-Ed piece from the New York Times offers harsh criticism of the U.S. and Mexican policy that sends young refugees back to the communities they are risking their lives to escape. “I admire much about the Obama administration,” says the author “including its fine words about refugees, but this policy is rank with deadly hypocrisy.” The author says the US government has coerced Mexico into doing its “dirty work” by detaining and deporting refugees that enter into Mexico from Honduras, Guatemala, and El Salvador, including young people and children who are fleeing unprecedented gang…
Human Rights Watch (HRW) has issued a new report indicating that Mexican officials are routinely deporting vulnerable children from Central America who immigrate to Mexico to escape violence in their home countries, according to this article from the Guardian. According to HRW, Mexican immigration authorities create insurmountable obstacles that prevent children from claiming asylum and gaining refugee status in Mexico, despite the threat of violence or sexual assault in their countries of origin. Less than one percent of children detained in Mexico are accepted as refugees, says the article…
This article, produced by the BBC, reports on the growing number of unaccompanied children who immigrate to the United States from Mexico and Central America each year. According to the article, in a recent statement President Barack Obama has described the growing influx of unaccompanied children migrating to the United States as an "urgent humanitarian situation."
Recent estimates place the number of children who will enter the US illegally from Central America and Mexico this year at around 60,000, says the article. The number of girls and children under the age of 13 who come into the…