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Index of Information about the Humanitarian Crisis of Unaccompanied Children

  1. UNO
  2. Office of Latino/Latin American Studies (OLLAS)
  3. Research
  4. Index of Information about the Humanitarian Crisis of Unaccompanied Children

Migrant Boy
Immigrants Today

Butterflies and swallows and flamingos have forever spread their wings to flee the cold, the way whales swim in search of seas, and salmon and trout seek out their rivers. Year after year, they all travel thousands of miles on the open roads of air and water.
The roads of human flight are not free.
In immense caravans they march, fugitives fleeing their unbearable lives.
They travel from south to north and from rising sun to setting sun.
Their place in the world has been stolen. They’ve been stripped of their work and their land. Many flee wars, but many more ruinous wages and exhausted plots of land.
These pilgrims, shipwrecked by globalization, wander about, unearthing roads, seeking homes, knocking on doors that swing open when money calls but slam shut in their faces. Some manage to sneak in. Others arrive as corpses that the sea delivers to the forbidden shore, or as nameless bodies buried in the world they hoped to reach.

Los emigrantes, ahora

Desde siempre, las mariposas y las golondrinas y los flamencos vuelan huyendo del frío, año tras año, y nadan las ballenas en busca de otra mar y los salmones y las truchas en busca de su río. Ellos viajan miles de leguas, por los libres caminos del aire y del agua.
No son libres, en cambio, los caminos del éxodo humano.
En inmensas caravanas, marchan los fugitivos de la vida imposible.
Viajan desde el sur hacia el norte y desde el sol naciente hacia el poniente.
Les han robado su lugar en el mundo. Han sido despojados de sus trabajos y sus tierras. Muchos huyen de las guerras, pero muchos más huyen de los salarios exterminados y de los suelos arrasados.
Los náufragos de la globalización peregrinan inventando caminos, queriendo casa, golpeando puertas: las puertas que se abren, mágicamente, al paso del dinero, se cierran en sus narices. Algunos consiguen colarse. Otros son cadáveres que la mar entrega a las orillas prohibidas, o cuerpos sin nombre que yacen bajo la tierra en el otro mundo adonde querían llegar.

(Eduardo Galeano, Voices of Time/Bocas del tiempo, 2007)

CAUSES


MUTUALLY-REINFORCING CAUSES


Woodrow Wilson Center Latin American Program
Why are Thousands of Central American Children Risking their Lives to Reach the United States?: A View from Honduras (webcast)

Instituto para la Seguridad y la Democracia (INSYDE)
Fact Sheet: Niñez migrante no acompañada en la región norte y centroamérica

National Public Radio (NPR)
Honduran Foreign Minister: U.S. Should Address Root Causes of Migration

National Public Radio (NPR)
Central American Leaders: Immigrant Children Are A Shared Problem

Marcelo M. Suárez-Orozco
Las Tres Caras de Herodes: Éxodo de Criaturas, Migraciones Catastróficas y Vida en Sombras

Immigration Policy Center
No Childhood Here: Why Central American Children Are Fleeing Their Homes

Committee on Migration of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops
Mission to Central America: The Flight of Unaccompanied Children to the United States

Stanford University Press Blog
Intervention and Displacement: How U.S. involvement in Central America pushes children and families to migrate

US News
Immigration Is a Family Matter: Families are fleeing inequality and violence, and keeping them apart fixes nothing

AFL-CIO
Trade, Violence and Migration: The Broken Promises to Honduran Workers

Unaddressed Ravages of Wars


UN Office on Drugs and Crime
Transnational Organized Crime in Central America and the Caribbean: A Threat Assessment – see pages 59-64

Peace and Justice Resource Center
Hijos de las Guerras

Huffington Post
Here's How The U.S. Sparked A Refugee Crisis On The Border, In 8 Simple Steps

Unsustainable Development

University of Texas Press
Contesting Trade in Central America: Market Reform and Resistance

United Nations Human Development Report Office
The Limits on Pro-Poor Agricultural Trade in Guatemala: Land, Labour and Political Power

Council of Foreign Relations
NAFTA’s Economic Impact

CEPAL - Comisión Económica para América Latina y el Caribe (CEPAL)
The United States-Central American Free Trade Agreement: Fiscal implications for the Central American countries

Coalición Alto al CAFTA
DR-CAFTA: Efectos y Alternativas (El Tercer Reporte Anual de La Coalición Alto al CAFTA)

International Labor Organization
Proyecto Mejoramiento de las condiciones laborales y de vida de las trabajadoras de la maquila en Centroamérica

Honduras Laboral
Impacto social de la maquila en Honduras

Centro de Derechos de Mujeres
Coalición Hondureña de Acción Ciudadana
Impacto del libre comercio en los derechos laborales de las obreras de la maquila textil en Honduras

Cordaid
Mining Conflicts and Indigenous Peoples in Guatemala

Cordaid
Conflictos mineros y pueblos indígenas en Guatemala

Instituto Centroamericano de Estudios Fiscales (Icefi)
La minería en Guatemala: realidad y desafíos frente a la democracia y el desarrollo

Instituto de Agricultura, Recursos Naturales y Ambiente (IARNA), Universidad Rafael Landívar (URL)
Perfil Ambiental de Guatemala 2008-2009: las señales ambientales críticas y su relación con el desarrollo

Trans-border Drug Economy

UN Office on Drugs and Crime
2011 Global Study on Homicide

World Bank
Crimen y Violencia en Centroamérica: Un Desafío para el Desarrollo 2011

Organization of American States
The drug problem in the Americas: The Economics of Drug Trafficking

School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) Review of International Affairs
Living in an Illegal Economy: The Small Lives that Create Big Bucks in the Global Drug Trade

Los Angeles Times
Exploitation awaits migrant children on Mexico's southern edge

Estudios de Seguridad y Defensa
Violencia en Centroamérica: Las maras en El Salvador, Guatemala y Honduras

Vox
“How the war on drugs drives the child migrant crisis”

Violence: Youth and Women

International Migration Review
Everyday Restriction: Central American Women and the State in the Mexico-Guatemala Border City of Tapachula

United Nations Development Program
Citizen Security with a Human Face: Evidence and Proposals for Latin America

International Journal of Sociology of the Family
Immigrant Latina Mothers as Targets of Legal Violence

Guatemala Human Rights Commission
Rethinking the Drug War in Central America and Mexico: Analysis and Recommendations for Legislators

Immigration Policy Center
Mexican and Central American Asylum and Credible Fear Claims Background and Context

Woodrow Wilson Center Latin American Program
Dangerous Passage: Central America in Crisis And the Exodus of Unaccompanied Minors

Immigration Policy Center
No Childhood Here: Why Central American Children Are Fleeing Their Homes

Los Angeles Times
Exploitation awaits migrant children on Mexico's southern edge

Loss of Governments' Capacity to Guarantee Citizen Security

The New Republic
Guatemalans Aren't Just Fleeing Gangs

Nueva Sociedad (NUSO)
Estado y violencia criminal en América Latina: Reflexiones a partir del golpe en Honduras

United Nations Development Program
Citizen Security with a Human Face: Evidence and Proposals for Latin America

United Nations Development Program
Seguridad Ciudadana con Rostro Humano: Diagnóstico y Propuesta para América Latina

Failure of U.S. Congress to Pass Sensible Immigration Reforms

Mother Jones
Why Our Immigration Courts Can't Handle the Child Migrant Crisis

New York Daily News
The Border Children May Not be Illegal

Pew Research Center for the People & the Press
Surge of Central American Children Roils U.S. Immigration Debate

Samuel Walker, University of Nebraska at Omaha
Changing the Culture of the Customs and Border Protection Agency: Lessons form Recent Developments in Municipal Police Accountability in the U.S.

Cecilia Menjívar, Arizona State University
Transnational Parenting and Immigration Law: Central Americans in the United States

Latino Policy Forum
Unaccompanied Children in the United States

U.S. INVOLVEMENT

Análisis Político
Cold War Memories: Latin America Versus The United States

Huffington Post
Unaccompanied Minors? Blame a Century of U.S. Central American Foreign Policy

Southern Studies
Key leaders of Honduras military coup trained in U.S.

Pantheon E-Books
Inside Central America: The Essential Facts Past and Present on El Salvador, Nicaragua, Honduras, Guatemala and Costa Rica

Latin American Studies Association (LASA) Forum
Crisis in Honduras (Page 6)
Honduras, Obama and the Region’s New Right (Page 8)

Inter-American Commission on Human Rights
Organization of American States
Preliminary Observations on the IACHR Visit to Honduras

Marcelo Bucheli, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Good dictator, bad dictator: United Fruit Company and Economic Nationalism in Central America in the Twentieth Century

Huffington Post
Here's How The U.S. Sparked A Refugee Crisis On The Border, In 8 Simple Steps

FORCED MIGRATION CRISIS

Annual Review of Sociology
A Critical Overview of Migration and Development: The Latin American Challenge

Refugee Survey Quarterly
The New Wave: Forced Displacement Caused by Organized Crime in Central America and Mexico

Forced Migration Review
Gang persecution as grounds for asylum in the US

United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees
Children on the Run Unaccompanied Children Leaving Central America And Mexico and the Need for International Protection

REFUGEE CRISIS

Center for Gender & Refugee Studies (CGRS) and Kids in Need of Defense (KIND)
A Treacherous Journey: Child Migrants Navigating the U.S. Immigration System

United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees
Children on the Run Unaccompanied Children Leaving Central America And Mexico and the Need for International Protection

Forced Migration Review
Refugees from Central American Gangs

Women's Refugee Commission
Forced From Home: The Lost Boys and Girls of Central America

Women's Refugee Commission
Obligados a partir: Los niños perdidos de Centroamérica

HUMANITARIAN CRISIS

Women’s Refugee Commission
Top 10 Critical Needs Facing Refugees and Those Displaced in Emergencies

Brookings Up Front
The Surge in Unaccompanied Children from Central America: A Humanitarian Crisis at Our Border

Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA)
Mexico’s Other Border: Security, Migration, and the Humanitarian Crisis in the Line with Central America

American Immigration Council
Children in Danger: A Guide to the Humanitarian Challenge at the Border

Pew Research Center
Children 12 and Under are Fastest Growing Group of Unaccompanied Minors at U.S.-Mexico Border

SHORT-TERM SOLUTIONS


(IN)"HUMANE" ACT

Sen. Cornyn Website
Cornyn, Cuellar Offer HUMANE Act to Solve Border Crisis

American Immigration Council: Immigration Impact
HUMANE Act Fails to Address Humanitarian Challenges

Think Progress
This Bill Is Dubbed The HUMANE Act, But It Actually Hurts The Migrant Kids It Claims To Protect

TRAFFICKING VICTIMS PROTECTION REAUTHORIZATION ACT (TVPRA)

U.S. Department of State
William Wilberforce Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act of 2008

U.S. Policy Program
The William Wilberforce Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act of 2008: Summary of Important Provisions

HISTORIC JUNCTURE OF U.S.-LATIN AMERICAN RELATIONS

Woodrow Wilson Center Latin American Program
Migration of Central American Minors: Causes and Solutions Webcast

COUNTERACTING THE XENOPHOBIC NARRATIVES

Mother Jones
Child Migrants Have Been Coming to America Alone Since Ellis Island

Moyers & Company
America’s Response to Child Refugees on the Border is Downright Shameful

Discourse & Society
Xenophobic Normality: The Discriminatory Impact of Habitualized Discourse Dynamics

Salon
David Brat’s Xenophobic America: The Deeply Disturbing History of American Immigration

Kathy Jurado, University of Michigan
Alienated Citizens: “Hispanophobia” and the Mexican Im/Migrant Body

MEXICAN CHILDREN SILENTLY DEPORTED

Center for Public Policy Priority
A Child Alone and Without Papers

Catholic Relief Services
Child Migration: The Detention and Repatriation of Unaccompanied Central American Children from Mexico

Institute for the Study of International Migration
Binational Dialogue on Mexican Migrants in the U.S. and in Mexico

Appleseed Network
Children at the Border: The Screening, Protection and Repatriation of Unaccompanied Mexican Minors Appleseed Mexico

Pew Research Center
Many Mexican Child Migrants Caught Multiple Times at Border

MEXICAN GOVERNMENT INITIATIVES, "PAISANO" PROGRAM

Gobierno de México
Programa Paisano

Gobierno de México
La ley migratoria de Mexico

Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars Mexico Institute
Understanding Mexico’s Changing Immigration Laws

CIP Americas Program
Forgotten Refugees: Mexico’s Displacement Crisis

HUMAN TRAFFICKING AND SEXUAL VIOLENCE AGAINST MINORS AND WOMEN

Center for Strategic & International Studies (CSIS) Americas Program
Trafficking in the Mesoamerican Corridor: A Threat to Regional and Human Security

Center for Gender & Refugee Studies
Central America: Femicides and Gender-Based Violence

Geneva Declaration on Armed Violence and Development
Global Burden of Armed Violence: Chapter 4. “When the Victim is a Woman”

International Organization for Migration
La trata de mujeres: una expresión de la violencia contra las mujeres

MEDIUM- TO LONG-TERM SOLUTIONS

UN CONVENTION ON THE RIGHTS OF THE CHILD

UNICEF
FACT SHEET: A summary of the rights under the Convention on the Rights of the Child

FLOW OF GUNS

Colectivo de Análisis de la Seguridad con Democracia
Atlas de la seguridad y la defensa de México 2012

Organization of American States
The drug problem in the Americas: Studies The Economics of Drug Trafficking

School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) Review of International Affairs
Living in an Illegal Economy: The Small Lives that Create Big Bucks in the Global Drug Trade

UN Office on Drugs and Crime
Transnational Organized Crime in Central America and the Caribbean: A Threat Assessment

ENGAGING GOVERNMENT, NEIGHBORS AND NGOs ACROSS BORDERS

Huffington Post
New York City May Begin Housing Unaccompanied Border Children

Boston Globe
Governor Patrick wants Mass. to Host Children

New York Times
With Surge in Child Migrants, New York Forms Task Force on Aiding Them

Woodrow Wilson Center Latin American Program
Migration of Central American Minors: Causes and Solutions Webcast

Woodrow Wilson Center Latin American Program
Why are Thousands of Central American Children Risking their Lives to Reach the United States?: A View from Honduras (webcast)

Nebraska Organizations
Nebraska groups urge Congress to protect children seeking safety

Office of Latino/Latin American Studies (OLLAS) at the University of Nebraska at Omaha
Statement of Concern about the Humanitarian Crisis of Unaccompanied Children

National Alliance of Latin American and Caribbean Communities (NALAAC)
Immigrant Children– Urgent Crisis with Deep Roots

Protect, Don’t Deport Children– and Address Drivers of the Crisis

Foreign Policy in Focus
The Long Road to Immigration Reform

Huffington Post
Progressive Caucus: Don't Take Protections Away From Kids To Address Border Crisis

Instituto para la Seguridad y la Democracia (INSYDE)
Fact Sheet: Niñez migrante no acompañada en la región norte y centroamérica

CBS
In El Salvador, Kids Seek Refuge from the Violence

Red Jesuita con Migrantes Centroamérica & Norteamérica
La migración de los niños y niñas centroamericanos a Estados Unidos: ¿Quiénes son los responsables? ¿Y cuáles son las acciones urgentes?

Alianza para las Migraciones en Centroamerica y Mexico/Central American and Mexican Migration Alliance
Public Statement: Dialogue and Exchange Visit on Unaccompanied Migrant Children

Inter-American Dialogue
Understanding Central American Migration: The crisis of Central American child migrants in context

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