The Obama administration
announces an expansion of a program that allows minors from violence-plagued countries in Central America to apply for refugee status.
WASHINGTON — The Obama administration announced an expansion Tuesday of a program that allows minors from three violence-plagued countries in Central America — and now some of their relatives — to apply for refugee status.
The move aims to bring refugee families together, officials said. But it could prove another partisan flashpoint in the
debate over immigration in the U.S. presidential campaign.
The rule changes appear more modest than some of President Barack Obama’s controversial efforts since 2013 to expand immigration opportunities.
Obama’s attempt to broaden the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program to include parents of children brought to the country illegally was shut down in 2015 by a federal judge in Texas, for example. The U.S. Supreme Court let that ruling stand in a 4-4 tie last month.
The latest push could help thousands of people in El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala — countries battling gang violence, political killing and severe poverty — to enter and legally stay in the U.S.
Under a two-year-old program, children and youths under 21 from those nations can seek asylum if they have a parent who is here legally.
The applicants are interviewed and vetted in their home countries in an effort to prevent them from making the perilous journey north across Mexico, a route chosen by tens of thousands of minors and families in recent years.
Under the expansion announced Tuesday, older relatives of those children, including “caregivers,” can also apply for refugee status.
U.S. officials have acknowledged that the program is struggling with a backlog of applicants.
About 9,500 minors have applied for U.S. refugee status in recent months from the three countries, said Alejandro Mayorkas, deputy secretary of Homeland Security. He said 2,884 applications were approved, although only a few hundred have entered the United States.
Mayorkas said he anticipates substantially more people to apply under the expanded program.
“The volume could be significant,” he said. “The overarching goal here is family unification.”
Until now, the parent legally in the U.S. could only apply for refugee status for an unmarried minor younger than 21. The expanded program will allow that child’s older siblings, his or her other parent or his or her caregivers, including aunts, uncles and grandparents, to also apply.
“This is recognition that families aren’t the traditional mom, dad, kids, especially in dangerous countries where (traditional families) can get disrupted, or in regions where a lot of parents have migrated to the U.S.,” said Faye Hipsman, associate policy analyst with the non-partisan Migration Policy Institute and author of a report on the program.
But Hipsman said the number of people who will benefit from the new rules will be limited because of the requirement that a parent or relative already live in the U.S. legally.
The expanded program sets up a temporary transit shelter in Costa Rica, which agreed to periodically take 200 of the refugee applicants while they await processing.
Mexico also agreed to accept more asylum seekers after Obama met with Mexican President Ernrique Pena Nieto at the White House last week, Mayorkas said.
Between 2013 and 2014, the number of Central American children caught attempting to cross the U.S. border jumped by 149 percent to 151,705.
The flow subsided but began to grow again late last year. “By themselves, today’s actions will not solve this challenge,” said Anne Richard, assistant secretary of state for population, refugees and migration. “But they are steps in the right direction.”