Running for their lives: The child migrant problem

President Obama calls it a humanitarian crisis. What is behind the surge in child immigrants?

July 11, 2014 1:04PM ET

by Inside Story Team @AJInsideStoryAM

Ray’s thoughts on the child immigration crisis

From the relative comfort of most American homes, spending a fortune to smuggle your kids across one country and into another seems hard to imagine. But the conditions in El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala would be hard for most Americans to imagine.

Some observers say what the president calls a humanitarian crisis is either proof that the administration's calls for immigration reform are a failure or proof that U.S. border regulation and migration from other countries need to be fixed.

Fifteen-year-old Axel Fernandez from Honduras trekked more than 2,000 miles this spring, in hopes of beginning a new life with his father, who is undocumented and living in Houston.

"The trip wasn't easy because we came on the train. When you don't have water or food, you get really hungry," said Axel. "You are always afraid because people are telling you that someone has fallen from the train. And that the train can kill you."

But in April, after he was mugged in the Mexican desert, he surrendered to U.S. Border Patrol, and is now staying with his father while he waits for an immigration hearing.

Axel is one of nearly 50,000 unaccompanied young people, primarily from Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador, who have flooded U.S. immigration centers in recent months.

The surge has pushed President Barack Obama to ask Congress for $3.7 billion to relieve overloaded detention centers and immigration courts and the Border Patrol.

We are not going to simply leave abandoned children who are left at our doorstep. We have to care for them and provide for them — some basic safety and security — while we determine where we can … where we can send them.

President Barack Obama

July 9

Why are these young people coming to the U.S.?

Back in Honduras, Axel's big brother, Alex, said he knows why his brother had to go. He faced two choices: flee or be killed by gangs, even if he didn't join one. "He was going to be the next one, let's say, who was going to have problems with various criminals and that kind of thing," said Alex. "That kind of thing forced him to go to the U.S."

A woman cries near the body of Justiniano Lara, 51, after he was killed by unidentified assailants in San Pedro Sula, Honduras.

Esteban Felix/ AP Photo/ AP Images

The Fernandez family lives in one of the roughest neighborhoods of San Pedro Sula, the most dangerous city on earth outside a war zone. The murder rate is 187 per 100,000 residents. It may come as no surprise that San Pedro Sula is home to the greatest number of unaccompanied young migrants. More than 2,000 children have fled since January, citing both violence and poverty as the leading forces. It is essentially the same scene in El Salvador and Guatemala.

And many are coming because of a rumor that women and children who travel alone are given a permit to stay. But these permits do not exist.

Smugglers in Central America, known as coyotes, are seen as driving the misinformation. "The coyotes are taking advantage," said Jacylin Aguilar, a child and family welfare worker. "The people profiting, the ones making money out of this situation are those people, the guides [coyotes]."

Three years ago, the Obama administration says, 6,000 children crossed the border alone. This year that number is expected to be more than 10 times higher.

What is driving these kids to make this treacherous and often fatal journey north?

In what kind of conditions are these detention centers at the border?

What’s the significance of the timing of these staggering numbers of immigrants from these particular countries?

We consulted a panel of experts for the Inside Story.