The surge of children fleeing gang recruitment in El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras to seek asylum in the U.S. and other countries is a crisis comparable to Africa’s child soldiers, a United Nations official said Tuesday.
“Children are more and more the targeted victim here,” said Leslie Vélez, a senior protection officer at the office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.
“We’re certainly in the midst of a humanitarian crisis,” she said.
Skyrocketing numbers of kids caught trying to cross the U.S.-Mexico border without a parent have recently overwhelmed federal facilities in Texas, leading the Obama administration to open three military bases in Texas, California and Oklahoma as emergency shelters.
While some Central Americans may be heading north after hearing false rumors that the U.S. is offering new immigration relief, the desperation and desire to flee were there in the first place, experts said.
“The demand for coming is so exorbitant that it makes it ripe for smugglers and traffickers to take advantage of the situation,” said Michelle Brané, director of the Migrant Rights and Justice Program at Women’s Refugee Commission.
Many young people are also seeking refuge in neighboring countries, including Panama, Costa Rica and Belize, said Erica Dahl-Bredine, a country representative based in El Salvador for Catholic Relief Services.
Dahl-Bredine said that Salvadoran gang violence has grown in the last six to nine months as a truce falters. Honduras has also seen a sharp increase, she said.
“The gangs are now calling the shots. There are far more gang members than police officers in Honduras and El Salvador now,” said Dahl-Bredine.
Federal officials initially estimated that as many as 60,000 minors will enter the U.S. without a parent or guardian in 2014 – that number may actually reach 90,000, according to a draft Border Patrol memo.
In comparison, about 6,500 unaccompanied minors entered in 2011, according to the federal department of Health and Human Services.
Last week, Obama called the surge a crisis and appointed the Federal Emergency Management Agency to lead a response.
Usually, border officials repatriate Mexican children who are caught alone, but must turn over those who cannot be sent home within 72 hours to the Office of Refugee Resettlement.
The kids are generally then either placed with family or guardians in the U.S. or in foster care — but still face deportation proceedings.
During the current surge, bottlenecks for shelter mean that children aren’t moving out of Border Patrol facilities — which don’t have showers, beds or recreation areas — fast enough, said Brané.
Hundreds of kids have been housed temporarily at a Border Patrol facility in Nogales, Ariz., which only received portable showers and started serving hot meals in the past few days, Central American consular officials who visited the shelter told the Associated Press.
“Border Patrol facilities were not designed for long term detention. Everyone agrees they’re not appropriate for children,” Brané said.
epearson@nydailynews.com