Before Packed Audience of Immigrants, Norton Says U.S. Partially Responsible for Surge in Unaccompanied Central American Children
WASHINGTON, D.C. – Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC) today, before a packed audience of immigrants at her roundtable, entitled "D.C. and the Surge of Unaccompanied Minors from Central America," at Carlos Rosario International Public School, said that this country's so-called War on Drugs fostered the violent climate in Central America when gang members were deported there, and now tens of thousands of Central American children are fleeing to the United States. Norton said, "It was understandable that the U.S. deported the criminals, who gave rise to the Central American transnational gangs and drug cartels. However, with the children now fleeing to the U.S., we are paying a price. We cannot escape some of the responsibility for assisting these countries to quell the gang violence." D.C.'s Hispanic population is comprised mainly of Salvadorians, and the D.C. region has one of the largest Central American populations in the country.
Experts at this morning's roundtable reported 301 children had recently come to the District to flee violence in El Salvador, Honduras, and Guatemala, with nearly 90 percent reunited with their own families. Most of the children go to D.C. public schools, where they receive various services to ease integration into the community. According to reports, nearly 85 percent of the unaccompanied minors nationwide are showing up for their immigration hearings.
On the panel also was a Carlos Rosario student, Jennifer Martinez, who came to D.C. in 2003, when she was 11. Jennifer had a visa to come to be with her parents in the U.S. She is currently studying to become a nurse. Her parents had left El Salvador one at a time, typical of many immigrants from Central America and from around the world, as well as migrants from the south to the northern cities in the 20th century. Norton said that Jennifer's story of longing to be reunited with her parents was important to our understanding of why the Central American children had risked their lives to come to this country.
At the roundtable, however, a question was posed from the audience on whether the children had met the legal standards for "refugee status." Norton said, "Their own governments cannot or will not provide protection, and therefore their governments are responsible for their treatment by the transnational gangs and drug cartels, along with the failed policies of our so-called War on Drugs, which sent criminals back to Central America, who instill violence into their own communities."
Jennifer's father told Norton that when he returned to El Salvador, he experienced first-hand what many of the children there face. One day, a child on the street asked him for money, which he obliged, because if that child had gone home without money, the family would have been in danger from the gangs who demand money from local families.
The Administration has allowed in-country processing for people to apply for refugee status in Honduras, Guatemala, and El Salvador. The President's plan follows precedents set in Haiti and Vietnam, where the White House conducted in-country refugee processing in the 1980s and 1990s. The Administration also has allocated some funds for legal assistance.
In July, shortly after the Central American children began coming over the border, Norton had a meeting with her District of Columbia Congressional Latino Council, which advises her on Latino matters, anticipating that a fair number of children would have relatives in D.C. The group issued several recommendations, including granting refugee status to children coming from these Central American countries, instead of treating them as undocumented immigrants, agreeing with the recommendation of the United Nations. Because this city and region have one of the largest Central American immigrant populations in the United States, D.C. has an effective network of organizations that offers services to these immigrants. Some who serve on Norton's Congressional Latino Council have long offered such services.