Central American Officials Demand Update on Separated Migrant Children
Tegucigalpa: Officials from El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Mexico on Thursday called on the US to provide more details on migrant children still separated from their parents.
The officials held talks with James McCament, a deputy undersecretary at the US department of homeland security in Tegucigalpa to seek more information on families that were separated as part of US President Donald Trump's "zero tolerance" policy toward illegal immigration.
Many of the families had crossed the US border without proper documentation, while others had sought asylum at border crossings.
"We had hoped that this meeting with the US government would have brought more information on the children affected by the 'zero tolerance' plan. However, that was not the case," said El Salvador's deputy foreign minister Ludivina Magarin.
The US government said in a court filing on Thursday that about 1,400 of some 2,500 children separated from their parents at the US-Mexican border have been reunited with their families.
But government lawyers said 711 other children were not eligible for reunification with their parents by a Thursday deadline that was set by a federal judge. In 431 of these cases, the families could not be reunited because the parents were no longer in the US.
"We haven't yet received information on the children separated from their parents, nor on the complications and the delays that have taken place," said Luis Alfonso De Alba, a senior Mexican foreign ministry official.
"We believe that it is fundamental that this reunification be completed in the shortest amount of time possible," he said.
Meanwhile in Guatemala, US assistant secretary of state for consular affairs Carl Risch held a press conference at a hotel in the capital to warn people not to try and cross into the US without proper documentation.
"If you want to enter the US through ports of entry that are not normal, you can be tried and sent directly to Guatemala," he said.
Widespread poverty and rising violence have pushed tens of thousands of Central Americans to try and migrate to the US, with many claiming to seek asylum.
(Reuters)
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