The Central American Child Migration Surge: A Temporal and Spatial Investigation of its Causes

Abstract

Almost one-fifth of the “surge” of Central American migrants crossing the US border in early 2014 was unaccompanied children, mostly from the “Northern Triangle”—Honduras, Guatemala, and El Salvador. Although prior research identifies violence, economic factors, and US policies as probable causes, determining their relative importance is more challenging. In this article I examine time trends in child migration from the Northern Triangle in relation to trends in indicators for these causes for 2008 to 2014, and patterns of child migration and push factors over space for the 18 departments of Honduras at the peak of the surge in 2014. The findings are that increasingly immigrant-favorable bills introduced to Congress and an increasingly improving US economy were concordant with trends in child migration, each of which showed a visible upturn at the point of the initial migration surge in 2011. Although homicides and unemployment in the NT itself did not trend as child migration over time, homicides and migration were substantially related across Honduran departments at the height of the surge.