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News > Latin America

US to Accept More Central American Refugees

  • A migrant from Guatemala holds a cross during a human rights protest amid a crackdown on Central American citizens crossing overland toward the U.S.

    A migrant from Guatemala holds a cross during a human rights protest amid a crackdown on Central American citizens crossing overland toward the U.S. | Photo: Reuters

Published 28 July 2016
Opinion

The move comes as a new report shows mass deportations have left many vulnerable to crime and violence.

The Obama administration is looking to increase the number of refugees from Central America admitted into the United States amid widespread violence in Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador, together known as the northern triangle.

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The northern triangle is commonly cited as the most violent region in the world outside of a war zone. Ongoing violence has forced many refugees to flee to neighboring countries and the U.S., where an estimated 80,00 refugees are stuck attempting to cross the U.S.-Mexico border.

The new plan will see that up to 200 refugees at a time will be hosted in Costa Rica while U.S. immigration authorities process the refugee applications. They will then will be allowed to settle in the U.S. It remains unclear how many northern triangle refugees will be settled in the U.S. under the expanded scheme, however.

The U.S. government created the Central American Minors Program as a response to the migrant crisis in the area. The U.S. would expand an existing program allowing children from Central America to enter the U.S. unaccompanied as refugees, which would then permit their family members to also be eligible as refugees.

Meanwhile, a report released Thursday by the the International Crisis Group says mass deportations by the U.S. and Mexico, along with inadequate asylum polices, has perpetuated the Central American refugee crisis, leaving many more vulnerable to crime and violence.

President Barack Obama in 2014 called the large number of asylum seekers an “urgent humanitarian situation.” But the U.S. responded to the crisis not by more generously granting asylum, but by building detention centers later deemed illegal and outsourcing the problem over to Mexico, offering the country over US$120 million to increase enforcement of its own borders.

Handing the problem over to Mexico helped to lower the numbers of asylum seekers arrested and detained by the U.S. from Central America, creating a false perception in North America that the crisis was over.

At the same time, there has been increasing numbers of asylum seekers detained in Mexico, many of whom are deported, which causes many to keep trying to enter Mexico and the U.S. instead of returning to their home country.

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The ongoing U.S.-led drug war has led to ongoing instability in the region, with U.S. spending on security in the northern triangle peaking at US$66.8 million in 2016, according to the Washington Office on Latin America.

The 2009 U.S.-legitimized coup in Honduras, under the watch of Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton as secretary of state, has also had destabilizing consequences, expanding drug trafficking and related violence.

Honduras is currently one of the poorest countries in the world, with around 60 percent of its population estimated to live below the poverty line. It also has one of the world's highest homicide rates at around 85 murders per 100,000 people.

Gender violence and high rates of femicide are also significant problem in the region, particularly in Guatemala.

El Salvador has been plagued with violence related to rival gangs, Barrio 18 and Mara Salvatrucha, also known as MS-13, where violence rates were similar to that of the country’s civil war in the 1980s. While recent truces and government security measures appear to have improved the situation, violence in the country forces many to flee.

The move to increase refugee intakes was was criticized by the Republican Party, which argued that Obama's policies are contributing to a border and security crisis in the U.S.

Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump has based much of his campaign on demonizing immigrants and refugees as job stealers and criminals, promising to build a "great border wall" across the U.S. and Mexico border.

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