Central Americans are flooding to the U.S. border — touching off fears of a new immigration crisis, McClatchy newspapers' Washington bureau reports.
In 2014, tens of thousands of mothers and children from Central America rushed into the Rio Grande Valley of Texas to escape violence and poverty, according to McClatchy.
The new surge of migrants is prompting questions about whether the U.S. is prepared to handle it. And, McClatchy notes, it calls into question how effective President Barack Obama's policy of curbing the flow through immigration enforcement and humanitarian assistance has been.
"It has been a failure, because people are still coming," McClatchy quotes Amy Fischer, policy director for the Texas-based Refugee and Immigrant Center for Education and Legal Services.
McClatchy, citing a Pew Research Center analysis of U.S. Customs data, reports the number of apprehensions at the U.S. border rose by 42 percent in October and November, compared to the same months in 2015.
At the same time, the White House has continued to cut back the number of deportations, according to McClatchy. An analysis of data from Fiscal 2015, found the U.S. deported 333,341 unauthorized immigrants — 20 percent below the prior year.
Despite the administration securing $750 million to aid El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras, families continue to flee those countries, which are considered among the most violent in the world, McClatchy reports.
Those seeking asylum in the U.S. from Central Americas has increased nearly eight-fold in the last six years, McClatchy reports.
© 2025 Newsmax. All rights reserved.