UNHCR released a new report – Children on the Run released – noting that “it was concerned at the increasing numbers of children in the Americas forced from their homes and families, propelled by violence, insecurity and abuse in their communities and at home.” The report “also calls on governments to take action to keep children safe from human rights abuses, violence and crime, and to ensure their access to asylum and other forms of international protection.” Shelly Pitterman, UNHCR regional representative in the United States, said, “With violence and insecurity permeating the Americas region, we found a strong link between this unabated situation, new displacement patterns and the children’s reasons for leaving their homes and families to flee northward. They escaped armed actors, generalized and targeted violence in their communities and abuse in their homes.” Based on a 2013 study funded by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, the report “unveils the humanitarian impact of the situation through interviews with more than 400 unaccompanied children from El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Mexico held in US federal custody.” It shows that the large majority of these children believed they would remain unsafe in their home countries and, as a result, should generally be screened for international protection needs by authorities along the way. http://www.unhcr.org/53206a3d9.html

   :: Report: Children on the Run – Unaccompanied Children Leaving Central America and Mexico and the Need for International Protection
A Study Conducted by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees
Regional Office for the United States and the Caribbean
Washington, D.C.
March 2014  Full report: http://www.unhcrwashington.org/sites/default/files/UAC_UNHCR_Children%20on%20the%20Run_Full%20Report.pdf

Excerpt from Executive Summary
Since 2009, UNHCR has registered an increased number of asylum-seekers – both children and adults – from El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala lodging claims in the Americas region.15

The United States recorded the largest number of new asylum applications out of all countries of asylum, having receiving 85% of the total of new applications brought by individuals from these three countries in 2012. The number of requests for asylum has likewise increased in countries other than the U.S. Combined, Mexico, Panama, Nicaragua, Costa Rica and Belize documented a 432% increase in the number of asylum applications lodged by individuals from El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala. In the United States, the number of adults claiming fear of return to their countries of origin to government officials upon arriving at a port of entry or apprehension at the southern border increased sharply from 5,369 in fiscal year (FY)2009 to 36,174 in FY 2013.16 Individuals from El Salvador, Honduras, Guatemala and Mexico account for 70% of this increase.

Beginning in October 2011, the U.S. Government recorded a dramatic rise – commonly referred to in the United States as “the surge” – in the number of unaccompanied and  separated children arriving to the United States from these same three countries – El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras. The total number of apprehensions of unaccompanied and separated children from these countries by U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) jumped from 4,059 in FY 2011 to 10,443 in FY 2012 and then more than doubled again, to 21,537, in FY 2013. At

the same time, a tremendous number of children from Mexico have been arriving to the U.S. over a longer period of time, and although the gap is narrowing as of FY 2013, the number of children from Mexico has far outpaced the number of children from any one of the three Central American countries. For example, in FY 2011, the number of Mexican children apprehended was 13,000, rising to 15,709 in FY 2012 and reaching 18,754 in FY 2013. Unlike the unaccompanied

and separated children arriving to the U.S. from other countries, including El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras, most of these children were promptly returned to Mexico after no more than a day or two in the custody of the U.S. authorities, making it even more difficult to obtain a full picture of who these children were and why they were coming to the U.S.

With a grant from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, UNHCR Washington undertook an extensive study to examine the reasons why children are displaced from the four countries. While recognizing a significant contextual difference between the situation in Mexico and in the Northern Triangle of Central America, the common denominator is that all four countries are producing high numbers of unaccompanied and separated children seeking protection at the southern border of the United States. UNHCR’s research was to ascertain the connection between the children’s stated reasons, the findings of recent studies on the increasing violence and insecurity in the region, and international protection needs.17 UNHCR Washington conducted individual interviews with 404 unaccompanied or separated children

– approximately 100 from each country – who arrived to the U.S. during or after October 2011 and, in the context of the current regional and national environments and the tremendous number of displaced children arriving to the U.S. from these four countries, analyzed the children’s responses in order to answer two questions:

–       Why are these children leaving their countries of origin?

–       Are any of these children in need of international protection?…