U.S. to expand refugee program for Central Americans

WA S H I N G T O N — T h e White House on Tuesday announced a subst antial expansion of a program to admit Central American refugees to the United States, conceding that its efffffffffffforts to protect migrants flfleeing dangerous conditions has been inadequate and left too many vulnerable people with no recourse.

Currently, the program allows unaccompanied Central American children to enter the United States as refugees. It will be expanded to include their entire families, permitting siblings over the age of 21, parents and other relatives who act as “caregivers” to qualify.

Offifficials could not say how many refugees might be eligible under the expansions, but the change is a potentially signifificant one, essentially opening a new channel for Central American families to gain legal entrance to the United States.

“Our current effor ts to date have been insuffifficient to address the number of people who may have legitimate refugee claims,” said Amy Pope, a deputy homeland security adviser.

The White House also said it had reached an agreement for Costa Rica to serve as a temporary host site for the most vulnerable migrants from El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras while they wait to be processed as refugees, once they have undergone security screening in their home countries. The U.N. high commissioner for refugees has agreed to set up an unusual process for reviewing requests for people in their home countries to qualify as refugees and send them to Costa Rica if they are facing immediate danger.

While administration offiffic ials have long said they were working to address the root causes of the migration from Central America that surged in 2014, their primary response to date has been to try to deter migrants from making the dangerous journey to the United States or entrusting their children to smugglers.

Only 600 people have been admitted to the United States as refugees since the inflflux began, offifficials said, including 267 children under the program created for minors with parents living in the United States who are citizens or legal immigrants. Now, that program will be broadened to relatives of such children.

It shows the administration now recognizes this is primarily a refugee flflow, not an economic one,” said Kevin Appleby, senior director for international migration policy at the Center for Migration Studies in New York. “The evidence has shown these really are refugees flfleeing violence. You can’t just deter and deport people, you have to offffffffffffer them a real chance for protection.”