And now what do we do with all these children? Unaccompanied migration of Central American minors

Abstract

Every year, hundreds of thousands of Central American children enter the United States in search of a future impossible in their home countries. Poverty, insecurity, and the permanent threat of the well-known “maras” in Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador, force children to travel thousands of kilometers in search of an American dream that no one promised them. In addition to the failure of the countries of Central America’s northern triangle, there is the indifference of Mexico, a transit territory between origin and destination, which has also failed to protect the best interests of children. Finally, mention must be made of the United States, whose migration policy deals with children once they threaten to cross its border, while ignoring the reasons why these same children left their countries of origin in the first place. This work engages in a dialogue between journalistic, sociological, and testimonial discourses to offer a panoramic and multidisciplinary view of a complex and multifaceted problem.