Explaining the surge of child migrants from Central America

A record number of children from Central America are crossing the Mexico-U.S. border unaccompanied by a parent. Many of them are fleeing drug violence at home, but here in the United States, they’re faced with a new set of challenges … Detainees sleep in a holding cell at a U.S. Customs and Border Protection processing facility, on June 18, 2014, in Brownsville, Texas. Brownsville and Nogales, Ariz. have been central to processing thousands of unaccompanied children who have entered the country illegally since 2012. Photo by Eric Gay-Pool/Getty Images In December, dozens of mothers converged on the central Mexican town of Tequisquiapan, where they laid pink paper flowers on a lonely stretch of train tracks to mourn their lost children. As the train passed, crushing the flowers, the mothers stood on the hot gravel siding and watched. They came from Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador and Nicaragua. Their children, among the tens of thousands who ride atop these trains each year attempting to cross the U.S. border, were the ones who didn’t make it. Continue reading →