US weighs refugee status for youth from Honduras

[Judi Lynn]

Jul 24, 4:49 PM EDT

US weighs refugee status for youth from Honduras

By JOSH LEDERMAN and JULIE PACE
Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Obama administration is weighing giving refugee status to young people from Honduras as part of a plan to slow the influx of unaccompanied minors arriving at the U.S.-Mexico border, White House officials said Thursday.

The plan would involve screening youths in Honduras, one of the world's most violent nations, to determine whether they qualify for refugee status. Similar in-country screening programs were set up in East Asia after the Vietnam War and in Haiti in the 1990s.

The officials cautioned that no final decision on the matter has been made and said the proposal is among a range of ideas the White House is considering. The officials briefed reporters ahead of President Barack Obama's meeting Friday with Central American leaders on the condition they not be identified by name.

The United Nations has been pushing the U.S. to treat children arriving at the southern border from Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador as refugees displaced by armed conflict. The trio of nations has become one of the most violent regions in the world in recent years, with swathes of all three countries under the control of drug traffickers and street gangs who rob, rape and extort ordinary citizens with impunity.

More:
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_IMMIGRATION_OVERLOAD_HONDURAS?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2014-07-24-16-17-53

[Judi Lynn]

1. Crime Fueled by Police and Gangs in Honduras Causing Children to Flee

Published on Tuesday, August 12, 2014
by Common Dreams

Crime Fueled by Police and Gangs in Honduras Causing Children to Flee

Thousands of migrants in the U.S. are children from Honduras escaping highest murder rate in the world

by Nadia Prupis, staff writer

More than 62,000 unaccompanied children fled Central America for the U.S. border in the past year alone to escape poverty and violence, particularly in Honduras, which became the most deadly country in the world in 2014 — more dangerous than Iraq at the height of the U.S. occupation, according to the Center for American Progress.

While the government plans shutdowns of migrant shelters in Texas, Oklahoma, and California, crime in Central America continues to skyrocket. The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime reported in 2013 that the murder rate in Honduras was 90.4 per 100,000 people, compared to the U.S.'s 4.7, with individual cities like San Pedro Sula struggling with 187 homicides per 100,000.

Iraq's civilian casualty rate in 2007, while in the throes of insurgency, CAP says, was 62.2.

Gang violence is partially driving the unprecedented migration wave, but a corrupt national police force also fuels the crime rate. The Honduran Ministry of Security recorded a homicide rate of 75.6 per 100,000 in 2013 — a significant difference from the UNODC's numbers for the same year, statistics that come as the State Department warns of the Honduran government's lack of "sufficient resources to properly investigate and prosecute cases" that allows criminals to "operate with a high degree of impunity" throughout the country. The UNODC also estimates that there are more than twice as many gang members as there are police officers in Honduras, a dire prospect considering the high rates of corruption among law enforcement.

More:
http://www.commondreams.org/news/2014/08/12/crime-fueled-police-and-gangs-honduras-causing-children-flee