What’s Happening with the Children?

It has been about a year since the immigration crisis of 2014 was declared in the United States. It is a particularly unjust and painful crisis, as the immigrants it refers to are children and adolescents. Although the flow of youth migrations has been observed for years, there was recently a considerable increase in migration: from October 2013 to the present, the total number of child migrants detained at the Mexico-United States border approaches the brutal figure of 70,000. Where do these children come from, and where do they go? What happens to them once they cross the border and are detained?

The majority of the children come from Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras. (Mexican children also cross the border, but they are deported immediately and are excluded from the right to ask for asylum. This is per the amendment to the U.S. immigration law signed by Bush, Jr. in 2008.) Almost all of the minors are fleeing the violence and coercion of the “gangas,” or groups of criminals associated with drug trafficking. Others flee domestic violence, abandonment and forced labor. Many arrive looking for their parents, who migrated years before they did.

Once they are arrested at the border, they are brought to a detention center, commonly known in Spanish as “la hielera” (the ice bucket). They are there for a maximum of 48 hours. From there, they are transported to an orphanage, where they spend the time it takes to get in contact with a family member or acquaintance, in some part of the country, who is willing to be the child’s “sponsor.” If the children find a sponsor in a given city, the orphanage sends them to that location. Once there, they receive an order from the immigration court, where they must present themselves. The judge tells them that it is their responsibility to find a lawyer and that they have a limited amount of time to do so. If they find a lawyer (there are some, sometimes decent ones, that work as volunteers at the court), the path to asylum or a special visa for underage migrants (SIJS) finally begins. The first step in this long journey is an interview, an interview that begins with the almost unbelievable question: Why did you migrate?