Why so few children from Guatemala have been able to reunite with their parents in the US.

By Carmen Sesin -

Very few Guatemalan children have been able to travel to the United States under the Central American Minors (CAM) program, which allows for the reunification of minors with their parents, according to a report published Wednesday by the nonprofit organization Refugees. International.

The Government of Joe Biden reactivated in March 2021 this program started in 2014 by the Government of Barack Obama and suspended in 2018 by his successor, Donald Trump.

The program initially allowed parents who were regularly in the United States—either on parole

Temporary Protected Status (TPS)—to apply for refugee status for their children or minor relatives in El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras.

But the United States has never granted TPS to people from Guatemala, while it has granted it to Salvadorans, Hondurans and Nicaraguans after natural disasters in their countries.

During the Obama Administration, only 2% of applicants for the CAM program were Guatemalan.

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In September 2021, the Biden administration expanded the pool of eligible candidates to include parents who have applied for asylum or U visas, typically granted to victims of serious crimes.

This expansion is supposed to open the door to more Guatemalan children, said Yael Schacher, director for the Americas and Europe at Refugees International, which advocates for the rights and protection of refugees.

[The Government expands the program to welcome Central American children from their countries of origin]

However, a report from this group revealed that

.

Nearly half of the unaccompanied minors who crossed the southern border last year came from Guatemala, including children trying to join their parents in the United States.

“We wanted to focus on the Guatemalans because this is the first time they have met the requirements,” explained Rachel Schmidtke, Latin America lawyer for Refugees International.

“The United States Government is building the necessary infrastructure to process CAM cases in Guatemala, as well as to reach Guatemalan families in the United States.”

Guatemalan minors deported from Mexico arrive in their country on February 7, 2023. JOHAN ORDONEZ / AFP via Getty Images

There are no publicly available statistics on children who were able to reunify with their parents in the United States under Phase 2 of the program.

Refugees International relied on information provided by US government officials, resettlement agencies handling applications, local non-governmental organizations and families.

Since the start of Phase 2,

, according to the report.

About 25% of the applicants were Guatemalan parents.

Most were Hondurans and Salvadorans.

Schacher said that it is "a very small number for the three nationalities: 250 requests from Guatemalans in the last year and a half."

"That's very little," he added.

Few Guatemalans know about the program

The lack of disclosure among Guatemalan parents who meet the requirements to apply means that the percentage of applications from this nationality remains low, according to the report.

In addition, few obtain refugee status because of the difficulty of getting Guatemalan children to attend interviews to complete their applications.

The report also notes that those who are granted

have difficulty obtaining passports to leave the country.

Under Guatemalan law,

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“This requirement negatively and disproportionately affects children under 18 and women who have fled situations of domestic violence, because many times the father is absent or the aggressor,” Schmidtke said.

“The passport requirement is something that should be changed to make the process easier and make more people benefit from the CAM program.”

Since the program was reactivated in March 2021, “the United States has worked to provide a safe and legal alternative to irregular migration for minors in the region,” a State Department spokesperson said in a statement.

"We continue to evaluate the program to make adjustments that better serve potential beneficiaries, such as (...) streamlining application processing and expanding outreach efforts," he said. 

[Biden reactivates the CAM program to welcome Central American minors from their countries of origin]

The report recommended that federal agencies invest more resources for the CAM program, including collaboration with officials in Guatemala and Mexico, and greater outreach that reaches Guatemalan families.

He also suggested that the federal government make it easier to access information about the program and that Citizenship and Immigration Services have an online “case status check” feature so families can review the progress of their applications.