Biden to travel to Guatemala to discuss humanitarian crisis

The White House has announced that Vice President Joe Biden will travel to Guatemala this week to discuss the recent drastic surge in unaccompanied minors traveling from the region to the United States. He will meet with presidents Otto Perez Molina and Salvador Sanchez Ceren (it appears) as well as a high-level representative from Honduras.

Vice President Joe Biden will head to Guatemala this week to make it clear that unaccompanied children flooding into the U.S. from Central America are not eligible for a path to citizenship and may be subject to deportation.

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A senior White House official attributed the flood of children to violence and a lack of economic opportunity in the region. But the official acknowledged there also is a "misperception of US immigration policy."

The official, who spoke on a condition of anonymity to discuss Biden's upcoming trip, said the children are not subject to President Obama's decision in 2012 to allow some undocumented immigrants who came to America as minors to defer deportation. It only applies to children brought to the US as minors before June 2007 -- but critics have pointed to the policy as a lure for some immmigrants.

In a related story Shannon O'Neill argues that Immigration Reform Is Dead, Precisely When We Need It Most at Foreign Policy.

These children's desperation also comes in part from other aspects of our broken immigration system. The hardening of the border -- doubling the boots on the ground and the Border Patrol's budget over the last decade -- has made it both more expensive and more dangerous to cross into the United States. This has meant that many undocumented migrants in the United States instead stay, or stay longer, putting down roots rather than continuing a more traditional pattern of coming and going that scholars dub circular migration. Now here for the longer term, they want their loved ones beside them.

Fox News Latino also has a story on Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernandez blaming the US for the crisis because of its weak immigration laws, weak drug laws, and lack of assistance to Honduras and Central America - you know, Honduras is fighting the good fight all on its own. At least, that's the content of the entire story.

I'm not sure how effective Biden is going to be at changing peoples' perceptions about what will happen to unaccompanied minors should they reach the US. All that I read is that it is nearly impossible to reverse such misconceptions.