Few Nicaraguan Child Migrants Join in the Trek to U.S.
Few Nicaraguan Child Migrants Join in the Trek to U.S.
AS/COA's Eric Farnsworth comments on the factors causing Nicaraguan migrants to opt for Costa Rica over the United States.
Guillermina Flores had lost her $130-a-month job at a clothing factory and the 29-year-old single mother was struggling to feed her three children. So like tens of thousands of others across Central America, she decided to leave her homeland and seek a better life abroad....
As the U.S. struggles with a flood of Central American migrants, especially unaccompanied children, one fact stands out: Few are from Nicaragua, the poorest country in the region - but one far less violent than the so-called Northern Triangle of Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador.
"Economic conditions in Nicaragua are terrible but what's really pushing families out from the Northern Triangle at this particular moment is the violence," said Eric Farnsworth, vice president of the Council of the Americas, a New York-based think tank....
"That gang culture has facilitated some of the insecurity at the street level in Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras and contributed directly to the crisis of undocumented migrants," Farnsworth said. "That hasn't developed in Nicaragua and Costa Rica." Honduras' homicide rate is running at 90 per 100,000 people, the rate in Nicaragua is 11 homicides per 100,000. In Costa Rica, it's just 8.5....
