U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry asked Central American nations on Tuesday to work with the Obama administration to curb a massive influx of unaccompanied children arriving in the United States illegally.
Meeting in Panama with the presidents of El Salvador and Guatemala and the foreign minister of Honduras, Kerry said the crisis has reached a “critical time” and that urgent concerted action was needed to resolve the cases of more than 50,000 youngsters already detained in the U.S. Kerry also urged immediate steps to address poverty and crime, thought to be underlying causes of the phenomenon.
“Tens of thousands of young children are being exploited and are being put at great danger and it is a challenge to each of us,” Kerry said as he met the officials before they all attended the inauguration of Panama’s new president. He called it a “very complicated issue” exacerbated by crime, violence and poverty but blamed criminal gangs and human traffickers for encouraging naïve families to send their children north.
“The lives of children cannot be put at risk this way and we all have a responsibility and we all have a responsibility as leaders to do our part in order to solve this problem and we will,” Kerry said.
The Central American officials echoed Kerry’s dire comments and each spoke of programs their governments were putting in place to educate families on the dangers of sending their children to the United States illegally. Among those initiatives are improving awareness of U.S. immigration laws and stepping up law enforcement but each spoke of the longer-term challenges of improving living standards in their own countries
The number of unaccompanied immigrant children picked up along the border has been rising for three years as they fled pervasive gang violence in Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador. More recently, children and parents have said they heard that children traveling alone and parents traveling with young kids would be released by authorities and allowed to continue to their destination.
More than 52,000 unaccompanied children have been apprehended entering the U.S. illegally since October, creating what President Barack Obama has called an “urgent humanitarian situation.” Some of them have died trying.
On Monday, Obama asked Congress for more money and additional authority to deal with the surge of youths, mostly from Central America. Obama wants flexibility to speed the youths’ deportations and $2 billion to hire more immigration judges and open more detention facilities
Keep in mind that the leftists in US are fervant liers. Kerry and Obama are working together with the rest of our do-nothing government to bring down our way of . ..life. Our Constitution and God given rights are at risk and the US is becoming a police state. Beautiful Panama do not be fooled. Please look deeper and do your homework before responding in any way to these hooligans! God Bless You! Monitor Infowars.com for the truth.
If they took that same $2 billion and built better schools through out central America that would solve a lot more of the problem. Schools bring opportunity which is what people are seeking. Panama has to open its doors to private schools and education. Any business doing education should be able to meet certain criteria and than be tax free. At this time private schools in Panama are expensive. Panama should also make and easy education visa so anyone that is qualified and works as a teach can get residency in the country easily. Qualified would be critical but would not be hard. Central America and Panama in particular has an amazing opportunity to develop a future but needs to address education on every level.
You may hate me for saying this, but Kerry is an idiot. Nevertheless, communication is better than nothing. We have to reach out to these nations. The world is getting smaller every day.