Resources on Central American Asylum-Seekers
With recent news around an increase in the number of unaccompanied minors arriving on the U.S.-Mexico border, the Center for American Progress has packaged together previous resources on the topic. While the spike in recent weeks has been perhaps half as many as in 2014, the uptick in the number of children fleeing to the United States in recent years has focused attention on the conditions in the Central American countries of Honduras, Guatemala, and El Salvador. According to the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees, asylum applications in neighboring nations—namely, Mexico, Panama, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, and Belize—have risen 1,185 percent from 2008 to 2014.
A series of charts by the Center for American Progress provide visual analysis of the violence, murder, extortion, rape, and abuse in some of the world’s most violent countries that these children are fleeing.
You may view the entire collection of charts here.
Related resources:
- The Surge of Unaccompanied Children from Central America – Root Causes and Policy Solutions by Dan Restrepo and Ann Garcia
- Statistical Analysis Shows that Violence, Not Deferred Action, Is Behind the Surge of Unaccompanied Children Crossing the Border by Tom K. Wong
- Children Fleeing Central American Violence Need Access to Lawyers by Diego Quezada
- 5 Things You Need to Know About Unaccompanied Children by Philip E. Wolgin and Angela Marie Kelley
KJ