New study: Spikes in violence are major driver of child immigration from Central America

While the dominant rhetoric around migration has focused on economic drivers, a new study today from Michael Clemens, senior fellow at the Center for Global Development, quantifies for the first time just how much violence drives child migration – and finds that spikes in violence are, in fact, the main driver of child migration from Central America. The report, “Violence, Development, and Migration Waves: Evidence from Central American child migrant apprehensions” examines the relationships between violence, economics, and unaccompanied child (UAC) migration out of El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras—known as the Northern Triangle. Parts of this region suffer from some of the highest homicide rates on earth. Using previously unreleased data provided by the Department of Homeland Security, this new research shows that spikes in violence are the main driving factor behind unaccompanied child migration from municipalities in the Northern Triangle. Persistently poor employment conditions are also found to be a factor.

• One additional homicide per year caused 3.7 additional child apprehensions in the U.S. Violence spikes are the main driving factor behind child migration, and one additional homicide per year in the region sustained over the whole period 2011-2016 – that is, a cumulative total of six additional homicides caused a cumulative total of 3.7 additional unaccompanied child apprehensions in the United States.
• Eight percent of all 17 year-olds in the region have been apprehended at the U.S. border. The number of apprehensions of 17 year-old unaccompanied child migrants from the Northern Triangle from 2011–2016 is a whopping 8 percent of the total number of 17 year-olds who were initially living in those countries. This percentage does not include those migrants who were not apprehended, nor those who never made it to U.S. border.

“Under U.S. and international law there are fundamentally three types of migration that are recognized – family migrants, economic migrants, and refugees. That system was set up two generations ago. But today, the drivers of migration are much more complex than that,” said Michael Clemens, senior fellow at the Center for Global Development. “Any one migrant could be simultaneously seeking family reunification, the opportunity to contribute economically, and seeking safety from violence. This is most obvious for many migrants from Central America, Sudan, or Afghanistan, but it is increasingly true around the world.”

Currently, international refugee and asylum law protects individuals targeted for violence due to beliefs, but does not protect those fleeing areas where there is severe violence. “Current law is built as if every migrant who isn’t sponsored by a close family member is either an asylum-seeker or an ‘economic migrant.’ That system is outdated, and it’s on a collision course with the reality of today’s migration flows,” said Clemens.

KJ