Thursday, September 22, 2016 09:57 PM
By: Cathy Burke

The number of Central America families and unaccompanied minors illegally crossing into the United States this year is on pace to exceed the total in 2014 – despite White House efforts to stem the surge, the Washington Post reported.

Overall, 122,132 families and children – mostly from Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador – have been apprehended at the U.S. border with Mexico with a month remaining in fiscal 2016, statistics from the U.S. Customs and Border Protection show.

That compares with a total of 132,259 in fiscal 2014.

There was a significant drop in 2015.

"Clearly, at this point, the deterrence strategy has failed," Kevin Appleby, director of international migration policy at the Center for Migration Studies, told the Post.

"There needs to be a paradigm shift here, with more of a focus on protection and less on the enforcement side. They need to treat this as a real refu*gee crisis. They've been in self-denial for a year or two on this issue."

After the 2014 illegal immigrant surge at the southern border, President Barack Obama initiated a response that included additional temporary shelter space and $750 million in economic development aid for the migrants' home countries – though most of those funds haven't yet been delivered to the region, the Post reported.

But the Obama administration's main focus has been on deterring Central Americans from attempting the journey at all.

At a special U.N. refu*gee summit this week, Obama announced plans for the United States and 18 other countries to increase the number of refugees they will accept next year from across the world – and thanked Mexico for "absorbing a great number of refugees from Central America," the Post reported.

But advocates told the Post that Mexico has deported many and granted refu*gee status to relatively few.

For example, last year Mexico granted refugee status to 1,013 migrants from El Salvador, Honduras and Guatamala, including 57 children, while deporting 175,000.

http://www.newsmax.com/Newsfront/imm.../22/id/749723/