Unaccompanied children crossing the southern border of the United States especially in Texas and California became big news in June 2014. Critics were quick to point out the root cause for more than 160 percent increase in border crossings is a direct result of the relaxed enforcement policies of the Obama Administration. Many are coming from Central American countries of Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras which has seen escalating crimes and killings. As a result violence fleeing children claim refugee status in the United States.
It is a dangerous journey. At home, many communities are fighting the Federal government and blocking deliveries of refugees to temporary shelters. Now the administration is thinking about allowing refugee claims before even they leave their respective countries. The Administration is also quick to point out that the new thinking will not increase the quota allocated to each region for refugee claims. The current allocation for Latin America and Caribbean is 5,000 refugees and it has a chance to even go down in the future. In the past, most of the allocation for the region went to Cuban refugees. There is also an additional 2,000 refugee allocation that can be assigned to any country worldwide.
