New Shelters to Open on US-Mexico Border for Unaccompanied Migrant Children Dahlia Snaiderman - HNGN.com
go to original December 10, 2015

Escaping Mexico: More young people are trying to cross the border. (Al Jazeera America News)

New shelters are being opened at the U.S.-Mexico border to deal with the increase in unaccompanied children that are trying to enter the U.S., mostly from the Northern Triangle of Central America: El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras, reported The New York Times. October 2015 saw twice as many unaccompanied minors at the border as October 2014. This year, nearly 4,500 minors were stopped, reported KNPR.

Border patrol officials said that these children generally do not attempt to run away from them but turn themselves in, hoping to receive asylum, noted The New York Times.

El Salvador has been a huge contributor of migrants to the U.S.. Due to massive national gang violence, it has become the murder capital of the world, with more than 4,500 homicides this year alone, reported the Times. "There's fear in the streets wherever we go," said Antonio Turcios, who wants to go to the U.S. legally with his family and sought out an interview at the U.S. Embassy in San Salvador. Most Salvadorans who want to flee do not go the legal route because their situations are too dire to await the bureaucratic slog that is immigration, noted KNPR.

Alberto Arene, former Chief of CEPA (El Salvador's airport and port agency), said that due to the surge of gang warfare that reflects the nation's poverty and inequality, the countries of the northern triangle "are trapped in a vicious circle of murder and economic and social stagnation," reported KNPR.

Read the rest at HNGN.com

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