MOSCOW, November 14 (Sputnik) — The presidents of Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador will meet the US Vice President Friday to discuss solutions to increasing child migration from their countries to the United States, the Chicago Tribune reported Friday.
Otto Perez Molina of Guatemala, Juan Orlando Hernandez of Honduras and Salvador Sanchez Ceren of El Salvador will meet with US Vice President Joe Biden during a conference hosted by the Inter-American Development Bank.
The three leaders seek to attract foreign funding and boost economic growth as a way to find a solution to what has been described as a humanitarian crisis: the issue of unaccompanied and undocumented minors attempting to migrate to the US across its southern border.
"Our fundamental bet is to generate opportunities for economic development so that immigration is an option and not an obligation," Chicago Tribune quoted El Salvador's foreign minister Hugo Martinez as saying Wednesday.
According to the US Department of Homeland Security, over 64,000 unaccompanied minors have been apprehended attempting to cross the southern border to the United States in 2014. According the Americas Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, in Washington, this number is likely to increase next year.
Poor families from the so-called Northern Triangle are reportedly sending their children to the US, seeing this as their only option for survival. Often these children are escaping violence at home or seeking to reunite with family members already in the US.
In July, Obama promised Central American leaders he would promote security and economic development in those countries. A substantial investment in those countries' economies is required, though neither Obama nor the Central American leaders specified the cost, suggesting only that it would be a long-term project.
