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Migration is often driven by conflict or natural disasters. But, economic motivations or the urge to reunify household also induce people's decisions to migrate. These migrants are not all adults. Thousands of kids, accompanied and unaccompanied, make these journeys too. Official estimates indicate that kids go into the United States from Central America and Mexico each year illegally and without a parent.

Roughly two thirds of these kids successfully evade the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service. Millions more children are badly affected by household members departures. They are abandoned with remote relatives, suffer from depression and are left to wonder if they will ever see their kids again.

Yet the 2005 record of the Global Commission on International Migration scarcely mentions children. Who is responsible for child migrants - often found far from home and without even parents? The answers to this question are certainly not straightforward. This paper tries to understand the challenges kids confront in sending, transit and receiving states. Seeking best and distinguishing practice too, this paper concentrates primarily on Central American kids traveling north to the United States. The paper concludes with recommendations concerning effective existing clinics, how progress may be monitored, and which actors have to be engaged in shielding the Americas many migrant kids: within their home states, along their travel, and also in destination countries. Departing Home. Most Central American states do not publicly track the numbers of young kids returned home through formal channels between the Mexican or U.S.

Governments; however even without concrete information, the evidence is apparent. Massive numbers of kids are attempting the dangerous travel north. Some Central American kids make the decision to leave home and traveling north because of severe poverty at home, a desire to prevent gang initiation or a desire to find parents who migrated to the United States. Others have been trafficked for commercial sexual exploitation and labor purposes. Yet others are sent with coyotes (Coyote is the Spanish term used to describe that a smuggler) who have been paid large amounts of money to deliver them to household members from the USA.

Regardless of the reasons that instant their travels and whether they have been followed or not, all of these kids face considerable danger along the way. The Journey Through Mexico - A Transit Country Experience. For countless thousands of Central American migrants each year, Mexico is not a destination. The country represents a perilous trip to a destination further north. This silent migration is referred to as "irregular" migration. It is hard to know the exact size of "irregular migration" via Mexico since the Mexican government is only now implementing better information monitoring mechanisms. The Mexican Instituto Nacional de Migracin (INM) estimated that in 2004 more than a million migrants crossed into Mexico from the southern boundary alone - and roughly 400, 000 of these migrants were Central Americans entering without authorization.

While no numbers were available about how many of the 400, 000 were kids, one report on women migrants indicated that in the largest migrant detention centre in the country 16% of females were minors. Considering that females generally represent a lesser proportion of the migrant population (although the number of female migrants has increased steadily in recent years), it's safe to assume that the proportion of small male detainees is even larger. During their travels many become severely ill, lose limbs or have been killed by falling from the tops of the transferring freight trains on which countless them travel each day.

They are generally robbed, extorted, and abused - by those whose job it is to apply the law. Women and kids who travel together with smugglers are permanently separated from each other when attempting to evade detection. Enrique's Journey Sonia Nazario is the non-fiction account of a Honduran boy's journey. For those interested in better understanding the reality of a journey they will fortunately never encounter, it's a worthwhile read. In a similar fashion, a recent NY Times article demonstrated one young person's encounter. Down the street from the tracks, in the Hearth of Mercy shelter, in which illegal immigrants can get a free hot meal and medicine, Juan Antonio Cruz, 16, hunched over a bowl of rice and told how he had abandoned El Salvador later members of the Mara Salvatrucha street gang had threatened to kill him.

" They needed me to join them," he explained. This was his second attempt to reach Arizona, he explained. The very first time he had suffered eight freezing nights and sweltering days aboard the railway by injecting his belt to a pub atop a tanker car. The border patrol caught him as he crossed into Nogales, Ariz., and sent him back home to Usulutan, in which the group members threatened him again. " When I think about the train, then I feel fear and panic, for the thieves who attack you, and also for falling off," he explained gently. For some, that's the way the fantasy ends, with a collapse under the train's heavy, whirring wheels.1.

Transit Countries. Mexico too need to do a better job of cooperating with the various conventions and treaties signed pertaining to the treatment of migrants. Along these lines, Mexico must spend more significantly from the fight against the corruption and organized crime. Doing so effectively will almost certainly require legislative reform as well as efforts to monitor implementation in the state and local levels. One example of best practice in Mexico that ought to be extended throughout the country, and that ought to be engaged in directly addressing the needs of migrating kids, is Grupo Beta. Grupo Beta was made in 1991 as an immigrant protection/police agency.

They do not have some responsibility for immigration enforcement, but are responsible for protecting migrants. Many organizations consider Grupo Beta's numbers to be the most precise numbers associated to immigration flows in Northern Mexico. Clearly the expansion of Grupo Beta will need financing by the Mexican government, which might be best justified as an anti-corruption initiative by Mexican President Calderon. Receiving Countries. Several child welfare organizations in the U.S., including the Lutheran Immigrant and Refugee Service, have convened conversations lately about the development of "standards of care" for migrating children. Once fully outlined, these criteria of care should be implemented at all UAC facilities.

Proper training to guarantee implementation and on-going usage of these criteria should be financed by the ORR. Additionally, efforts to ensure the passage of the proposed federal legislation should be encouraged by advocacy organizations dedicated to appropriately fulfill the needs of migrant children. In order to guarantee that the needs of the numerous kids with family members in danger of deportation will also be fulfilled, innovative local efforts like the "Terminology Card implemented from the New York City Administration for Children's Services and New York City's Executive Order 41 and Local Law 73, should be advocated nationally so the other localities can consider these innovations.

Local Law 73 demands New York City health and human services agencies to assess and offer services at the language of the receiver. Executive Order 41 supposes that immigration status is confidential information that cannot be shared with others from city workers. This Executive Order intends to guarantee that underserved families secure the services they want without fear of deportation. Conclusion.

Finally, promising outcomes that are favorable for children that are migrating will need efforts in the local, state, national and international levels. Identifying organizations well-placed to both monitor and instruct others in "best practices" will be crucial. A few organizations/government offices/legislation that should be looked to for these purposes comprise Casa Alianza, Catholic Relief Services, the Lutheran Immigrant and Refugee Service, Bridging Refugee and Youth Child Services, Grupo Beta, and U.S. Legislators that support the bill currently under consideration in both the House and Senate. Citations.1 The New York Times, "Despite Crackdown, Migrants Stream Into South Mexico," James C. McKinley Jr. (Section 1; Column 1; Foreign Desk; Pg.

: January 28, 2007.2 http://pewhispanic.org/reports/report.php? ReportID=61.

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