BOGOT, Colombia For the past two years, Liliana Guzman has felt like a shadow.

Liliana, 34, is one of 5.6 million people who have fled deepening economic and political crises in Venezuela in recent years.

Migrants like Liliana go to receiving countries Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Brazil with little more than the clothes on their backs, often unable to obtain basic documents or resources to go through legal migratory processes.

She arrived in Bogot two years ago "irregularly" with her two children 4 and 14 and has spent those years barely scraping by.

Venezuelan migrant Liliana Guzman arrived in Bogota, Colombia, two years ago with her two children.Megan Janetsky

Unable to get a valid passport because of the crisis in her country, they crossed the Colombia-Venezuela border using a temporary border crossing card, which would allow them to access basic food and medical services and return to Venezuela. But Liliana never looked back.

Despite once working as the director of nursing in a hospital in Venezuela, Guzman now sells coffee and sweets on the street, earning around $10 a day for 15 hours of work.

I try not to go out a lot other than to work, Liliana said.

I go walking and some police ask me for my ID, but I only have the ID that gives me permission to cross the border. So they ask me Where did you enter? Did you know that being in this country irregularly is a crime? The terror is always there.

She felt a glimmer of hope in February when Colombian President Ivan Duque announced Colombia would provide legal protections to nearly 2 million Venezuelan migrants.

Duque said in a USA TODAY Editorial Boardmeeting thatthe policy put his country on the right side of history.

We have seen many times that the way that some governments have approached migration is with xenophobia or even negating that the problem exists, Duque said. We have to demonstrate to the world that you don't have to be a rich country to do the right thing.

But taking a humanistic approach to migration is not an easy task in a country struggling to end decades of internal conflict and acutely struck by the economic consequences of a global pandemic.

Colombian President Ivan Duque talks Venezuelan migrants, immigration policies

President Ivn Duque tells USA TODAY about how Colombia is reacting to the massive migration crisis on its border with Venezuela.

Staff video, USA TODAY

Duques move offers a rare glimpse into what it takes navigating logistical labyrinths, the political fallouts and the potential payoffs to make such a move at a time when the United States once again grapples with its own immigration reforms.

Other countries are looking at Colombia and saying Well, this is an experiment on receiving immigrants. And if it ends up succeeding, shouldn't we be doing the same? said Sergio Guzman, director of Colombia Risk Analysis in Bogot.

But for both countries, the road is paved with challenges.

The exodus from Venezuela has become one of the worst displacement crises in the world, according to the United Nations, and neighboring Colombia has accepted more Venezuelan migrants than any other country.

Hyperinflation, corruption and heavy dependence on oil generated an economic crisis in Venezuela earlier in the decade. As that problem deepened, it made way for compounding crises: food, medical supply and petroleum shortages, collapsing medical systems and waves of blackouts. Meanwhile, the government of President Nicolas Maduro has violently stamped out political opposition.

Yet the mass migration is one of the most underfunded in recent history. Venezuelan migrants receive a small fraction of international aid dollars compared to those fleeing Syria, despite comparable migration numbers, according to data from Brookings Institution.

While other nations like Ecuador and Peru have largely shut their doors to Venezuelans, Colombia has opened up work permits and other channels for migrants since the onset of the mass migration around 2015.

Around 2 million people have landed in Colombia, now making up about 4% of the South American countrys population. Many arrive informally, unable to obtain basic documentation like passports due to their countrys crisis.

Receiving countries have struggled to keep their heads above water, and things like public hospitals on the Colombia-Venezuela border have been overwhelmed trying to treat both Colombian and Venezuelan patients.

Liliana Guzman said living in the country without papers has taken a significant toll on her familys health and that they can only access medical resources if there is an emergency.

If I get sick and go to a hospital, the only way I'll get in is if I'm dying because if not, they don't treat you, she said.

The latest protections intend to give migrants like Liliana access to medical services, education and the ability to open bank accounts. It applies to undocumented Venezuelans living in Colombia before Jan. 31, 2021approximately a million people plus nearly a million more who are already legalized won't have to periodically reapply for temporary work permits and visas.

But as Colombia faces its own economic crisis and unemployment, it struggles to serve more than 7 million Colombians who have been displaced by internal conflict, andpublic institutions already at capacity could be even more overwhelmed.

The biggest challenge is going to be providing basic goods and services, said Guzman of Colombia Risk Analysis. Not only to the Venezuelan immigrant population but also to local Colombians.

As a result, analysts and migrant leaders have cast doubts on the governments capacity to actually follow through on its promises. Colombias government has come under international criticism for their failures to follow through on key promises before, namely a 2016 peace pact with guerrillas once widely acclaimed, its now crumbling.

Gimena Sanchez of Washington, D.C.-based think tank Washington Office on Latin Americasaid the situation is out of their hands.

The reality is that they can't get rid of all these people even if they wanted to, Sanchez said. They have no way of doing that. So what they're trying to do is manage it in a way that I think makes them look like they're capable of doing a lot more than they really can.

Venezuelans cross the Arauca river from La Victoria, Apure state, Venezuela to Arauquita municipality, Arauca department, Colombia, on March 26, 2021.Daniel Fernando Martinez Cervera, AFP via Getty Images

For years, Duque and other regional leaders have asked for greater international aid funds to allow them to take on the exodus, but donations have continuously fallen short. Duque acknowledged that his country may not have the economic capacity to achieve the temporary protection status program on its own, but told USA TODAY that the program will allow the country to have a better handle on the situation and prevent exploitative working conditions.

Theyre already here, he said. Obviously, we need to have support from the international community. Thats no discussion.

Dayana Camacho Favara, president of migrant aid group Venezuela Without Barriers or Borders said she also worries about the governments ability to reach the most vulnerable.

Venezuelans who had to cross irregularly through dangerous informal border paths because they were unable to get a passport may struggle to prove that they were in the country before the date of the program, she said. Many others live in extreme poverty and lack access to basic information on the program or digital tools allowing them to register online.

Others fear registering with authorities. Aid organizations like Camacho's have worked to fill in those gaps and dispel fears, but she said they can only go so far without government outreach.

It's an important job of ours to make sure people feel safe, to show that this is an opportunity for them and that they're able to regularize their statuses without the fear that they'll be deported or imprisoned, Camacho said.

As President Joe Biden attempts to push through immigration reform and undo former President Donald Trump-era mandates, the new administration faces its own set of challenges.

While the U.S. has more resources, the topic has become a lightning rod of deeppolarization in the country, said Sanchez.

In his first weeks in office, Biden signed executive orders on immigration, including one order creating a task force geared toward reunifying separated families and another discontinuing the remain in Mexico policy, which required asylum seekers to wait for court dates in often violent zones in Mexico.

But the U.S. has also seen a surge of arrivals of unaccompanied minors to its southern border as they flee deteriorating conditions and environmental disaster in their own countries.The number of migrant encountersat theUnited States' southern border increased71% since February.

As a result, the administration has employed policies not dissimilar to Trump policies they once criticized, including overcrowding Customs and Border facilities andexpelling some migrants arriving at the border.

The Biden administration has also kept the U.S.-Mexico border sealed, continuing a Trump pandemic policy. Many policies from the previous administration could take months or years to unravel, said Jessica Bolter, an analyst with the Washington, D.C.-based Migration Policy Institute.

House passes immigration bill, DHS Sec. Mayorkas says southern border closed, so now what?

House passes immigration bill as immigrants coming to America in 2021 surges once again, and Alejandro Mayorkas says the southern border is closed.

Staff Video, USA TODAY

Immigration has been a wedge issue in the United States, Bolter said. Following the Trump administration, this is still in the atmosphere. I think its become very difficult politically to get anything major done on immigration.

The ripple effects seem to have marred Bidens popularity ratings. While a new Quinnipiac poll reported 64% of adults approve of Biden's COVID-19 policies, only 24% approve of Bidens handling of children reaching the southern U.S. border without their parents.

Despite a wave of international praise for Colombias decision, Duque, too, has received criticisms domestically, though much of that criticism can also be rooted back to rising levels of xenophobia and tensions spurred on by the economic crisis.

According to a January Gallup poll, 68% of Colombians look unfavorably on Venezuelans in the country.

Venezuelans rest at a shelter set up in a community center in Arauquita, Colombia, Friday, March 26, 2021, on the border with Venezuela.Fernando Vergara, AP

The problem in both countries, said Sanchez, is that such steps dont just mean changing a law. On a topic as volatile as migration, they often mean changing an entire culture.

U.S. migration policy has always been geared toward excluding unwanted migrants from the time of the Chinese Exclusion Act, and laws like it, until now, Sanchez said.

In Colombia, too, it has been what she called a shift of the country's identity. The country has never been a receiver of migrants. Rather, decades of armed group violence pushed many Colombians to flee, hundreds of thousands of whom fled to once oil-rich Venezuela.Now with the roles reversed, the country has had to adjust to being a receiver country.

If Colombia is able to pull it off, the legalization program could have significant economic payoffs.

Despite labor tensions, Venezuelans have played a crucial role in Colombias workforce, working as harvesters in Colombian coffee farms and providing food delivery services through apps during the countrys stretching coronavirus quarantines last year.

Due in part to socialized education in their country, most Venezuelan migrants come highly educated, and a 2019 report by the International Monetary Fund projected that Venezuelan migration and policies that boost integration could raise gross domestic product growth in neighboring countries long-term.

For migrants like Liliana and her two children, it could be life-changing.

As she looks to the future, she says she hopes to stop working on the streets, get her degree certified in Colombia and begin to work as a nurse once again. After years in the shadows, she sees a better life ahead.

This status it's what I've hoped for because being here irregularly in this country, it's like I don't know who I am, she said.

I left my country for something better ... Life is a process and when you go through the worst, I think God will pay them back down the line.

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Colombia answers one of the biggest and least funded migrant crises. Would it work in the US? - USA TODAY

President Joe Biden can deny it all he wants, but the reality is we have a crisis at our southern border.

I saw it with my own eyes last month when I visited the U.S.-Mexico border in Texas. The surge of unaccompanied minors, the subpar living conditions of migrants, and the state of an overworked and overwhelmed Border Patrol have been direct consequences of the Biden administrations failed policies.

This was never supposed to happen under Bidens watch. As a candidate,he promisedthe American people that he would "secure our border while ensuring the dignity of migrants." As president, he has done neither.

ADRIANA COHEN: BORDER CHAOS-- KAMALA HARRIS SHOULD BE TAKING CHARGE OF BIDEN'S IMMIGRATION CRISIS NOT HIDING

Instead of upholding his promises, President Biden decided it would be better to make a hard-left turn on his immigration agenda. One of his first acts in office was sending an immigration bill to Congress to grant mass amnesty to illegal immigrants. He also ended the so-called "Remain in Mexico" policy, which curbed illegal immigration by stopping the abuse of our nations asylum laws.

Through their words and actions, the Biden administration sent a clear signal that our border is open for anyone and everyone, and the world took notice.

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Mexicos President AndrsManuel Lpez Obrador, who was no fan of former President Trumps policies,said bluntly: "Expectations were created that with the government of President Biden there would be a better treatment of migrants. And this has caused Central American migrants, and also from our country, wanting to cross the border thinking that it is easier to do so."

Thats exactly what happened, and theresultshave been predictable, avoidableand tragic.

Consider that last October, 71,945 illegal immigrants were caught trying to enter the United States. There were similar apprehensions in the months leading up to Bidens inauguration, with 72,111 apprehensions in November, 74,020 in December, and 78,444 in January.

The big change came in February Bidens first full month in office when 101,028 illegal immigrants were apprehended at the border.

Then in March, the number of apprehensions skyrocketed to 172,331, including an all-time record number of 18,890 unaccompanied children.

These numbers have real-world consequences on real people.

Our immigration system is so overwhelmed right now that many migrants are being housed in subpar conditions. There is nothing humane about seeing 4,000 migrants being held in a facility that is only supposed to hold 250 people under COVID-19 protocols. There is nothing humane about seeing unaccompanied children including many toddlers sleeping on floors in facilities after human smugglers abandoned them.

Bidens response has been to deny reality and deflect responsibility.

There is nothing safe or secure about cartels capitalizing on the current crisis. The cartels are using and exploiting children to distract Border Patrol while smugglers sneak across another area carrying drugs that will soon poison and kill Americans.

The Biden administrations policies have fallen well short of being humane to migrants or strong on border security. As a result, we now have both a humanitarian and security crisis.

Bidens response has been to deny reality and deflect responsibility.

Simply ignoring a problem and hoping it goes away is not a strategy. Without decisive action and leadership, things will only get worse. We will see more spikes in illegal immigration and more illegal drugs being smuggled in by drug cartels.

The first step is for the administration to finally acknowledge there is a crisis. Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris need to go down to the border soon to see firsthand what is really happening.

The second step is for the president to start addressing this crisis and make it a top priority. He needs to push for more border security infrastructure, technologyand personnel, and ensure that his policies stop serving as an open invitation for people to enter the United States illegally.

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If the president asks Congress for help, Im willing to work with him. I believe there is still a path to reach a consensus on solutions to secure our border and better enforce our nations immigration laws.

Our nation desperately needs the presidents leadership right now. I hope hell start providing it.

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Sen. Thom Tillis: Biden's border crisis he promised security, dignity to migrants. This is how he's failed - Fox News

What is the best way to finally address the cyclical nature of the migrant crisis? At a time when the U.S. government estimates a record 2 million migrants could reach the border this fiscal year, we should re-focus attention on the root causes of migration, not pedaling false promises of an invincible border.

There is, indeed, a crisis but it starts over 2,000 miles south in Central Americas Northern Triangle. And this crisis is not new. It has been decades in the making in El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and even Nicaragua. It dates back to systemic challenges, among which are civil wars and the failure to see through the society-wide changes that many hoped peace would bring.

Migrants will keep coming until we can advance a long-term plan that improves daily lives so people do not have to migrate. We started doing so in 2014 when, as vice president, Joe Biden led the creation of a regional plan to address the interconnected pillars that cause economic despair and the security and governance challenges that force people to leave. He pushed for regional governments to do their part and Congress approved a significant ramp-up in complementary U.S. support.

But real solutions will take years, more likely a decade of investment. So, in redirecting assistance away from the Northern Triangle, the Trump administration undid progress made, effectively handing President Biden a blank slate to again put forward what is needed: a long-term plan that wont be undone by political winds.

To truly understand the driving factors of migration, we must understand the context in Central America. In addition to the gang violence, lack of economic opportunities and poverty, government corruption and weak governance, the countries political contexts are worrisome.

In El Salvador, legislative elections this past February consolidated the popular Nayib Bukeles hold on power. Just a year before, in a sign of deep divisions, President Bukele used the military to seize Congress and sat down in the Speakers chair to intimidate lawmakers for not approving an international loan requested by his administration. In Honduras, President Juan Orlando Hernndez whose 2017 re-election was contested by the international community but recognized by the Trump administration is accused of involvement in drug trafficking to the United States. Several smugglers have testified in U.S. courts to bribing the president, and his brother and former congressman Tony Hernandez, was sentenced at the end of March, to life in prison. In Guatemala, the Congress went up in flames in November of last year over a proposed budget that sought to cut health spending (in the middle of a pandemic) and favored infrastructure projects with the Ministry for Communications, Infrastructure, and Housing, known for its alleged involvement in a series of high-profile corruption cases.

Beyond political challenges, the region has been hard hit by the COVID-19 pandemic and two deadly back-to-back hurricanes. In announcing Vice President Harris new position to oversee diplomatic efforts with this region, President Biden rightfully called attention to the phenomenon of climate migrants. Meanwhile, corruption ravages countries, disincentivizing domestic and foreign investment.

The situation in the Northern Triangle has become untenable. President Bidens history in the region 16 trips to Latin America as Vice President and his understanding of the history and issues in Central America brings hope. As these nations begin to think about a post-pandemic recovery plan, the timing may work to trace the contours of a new Central America. The recent trip to Mexico by a high-level U.S. delegation and the conversation between Vice President Kamala Harris and Guatemala President Alejandro Giammattei and Special Envoy Ricardo Zigas follow-up trip to Guatemala and El Salvador last week, are welcome signs that the involved parties are committed to finding a long-term fix to these issues. Importantly, one of President Bidens first executive orders was focused on addressing the root cause of migration.

A central pillar of the United States strategy must be to insist that Northern Triangle governments commit to a long-term plan that improves the rule of law and stamps out the many bureaucratic practices that foster corruption. And the Northern Triangles private sector must play its part as well in being good corporate citizens that pay taxes and commit to fostering opportunities for workers. Anti-corruption, violence reduction, citizen security are all equally important, but bringing economic prosperity in a region ravaged by the pandemic and climate disasters must be the number one priority. With the Biden administrations commitment to the region, this migration crisis has the potential to finally incentivize a long-term solution. But all parties must be on board first.

Marczak is director of the Atlantic Councils Adrienne Arsht Latin America Center. Bozmoski is the deputy director of programs.

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Opinion: How Biden can address the migrant crisis at its roots in Central America - Houston Chronicle

Delhi High Court on Monday warned a re-run of the migrant crisis after the imposition of fresh six-day lockdown in the national capital in the wake of second wave of COVID-19.

The high court said during the 2020 lockdown, both the Centre and the AAP government did not see the migrant crisis coming and lessons are required to be learnt from it.

The high court said there are reports that migrant workers have again started to go back home after the announcement of the six-day lockdown.

We would like that lessons are taken from the past lockdown. The thing in which the government failed miserably was daily wagers, it said.

With the imposition of curfew, the daily wagers are again faced with a grim reality. On the last occasion, the civil society had come forward, a bench of Justices Vipin Sanghi and Rekha Palli said.

Both the state and central governments have miserably failed, said the bench and added, You left it to the good Samaritans to come out of their houses and distribute food to the migrant labourers.

The bench said it was saying this from its own experience that the state has failed to utilise thousands of rupees lying in the corpus under the Building and Other Construction Workers Welfare Cess Act.

We direct the Delhi government to withdraw from the said account, if necessary, and provide food to needy daily wagers at their respective work sites, the bench said.

It added that the Delhi government shall utilise the services of contractors who used to prepare mid-day meals in schools which are closed now.

The Delhi chief secretary was directed by the court to ensure implementation of its direction without any delay and the Delhi government has to mention in its affidavit as to how it proposed to implement it.

PM meet with doctors

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday called the vaccine as the biggest weapon in the fight against Covid-19 and urged doctors to encourage more and more patients to get the jab.

In a virtual interaction with the country's leading doctors on the pandemic situation and vaccination progress, he also noted that Covid-19 is spreading rapidly in tier-2 and tier-3 cities this time, and asked them to connect with their colleagues working there and give them online consultations to ensure that all protocols are followed correctly.

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Dont Need A Re-Run Of The Migrant Crisis: Delhi HC Tells Centre, AAP Govt - Outlook India

Group fears humanitarian crisis if migrant bottleneck continues at border; cartels win when expelled families turn to smugglers, they say

by: Julian Resendiz

U.S. Customs and Border Protection operations following the implementation of Title 42 USC 265 at the northern and southern land borders. U.S. Border Patrol agents transport a group of individuals encountered near Sasabe, Ariz. to the U.S. Mexico border on March 22, 2020. CBP Photo by Jerry Glaser

EL PASO, Texas (Border Report) A group of nearly 100 North American scholars is calling on the Biden administration to phase out COVID-19 related expulsions of migrants at the border and for Mexico to refrain from stopping international asylum-seekers crossing its territory.

This, to reduce violence faced by international citizens passing through Mexico and facing a bottleneck at the U.S. border that forces them to resort to smugglers, the scholars said in a teleconference on Monday.

As you increase the enforcement on asylum-seekers going through Mexico, what you get is people hiding, people taking more dangerous routes and getting involved with dangerous people along the way [] and it becomes a huge problem, said Jeremy Slack, an associate professor in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at the University of Texas at El Paso.

The scholars said they dont see an immigration crisis on the border, but they fear prolonged and unnecessary detentions in the United States, mass expulsions of families and individuals to Mexico and a Mexican system lacking adequate services and resources could bring a humanitarian crisis. The scholars on Monday proposed:

The politics of enforcement and (militarization) only favor the coyotes (smugglers) and increase the chances that a person will suffer abuse, said Emiliano Diaz Carnero, a researcher at Mexicos Northern Border College (COLEF). In times of a pandemic [] detention increases the risk of contact. We must look for alternatives to detention to dismantle the structure of crime and human trafficking.

The scholars argued the COVID-19 pandemic appears to have stabilized in both Mexico and the United States, so the public health Title 42 order is no longer justified.

People coming in from the outside have generally been testing at normal rates compared to people inside the United States, said Josiah Heyman, professor of anthropology and director of UTEPs Center for Interamerican and Border Studies. So, its not a question of it coming in from the outside.

Heyman said all asylum-seekers could be tested for COVID-19 before being allowed to enter the United States, using the MPP wind-down model. Asylum-seekers placed in that program, which is also known as Remain in Mexico, are being re-admitted by the hundreds in coordination with various United Nations agencies operating in Mexico.

People were tested in Mexico before coming here. There are pathways so people testing positive can be quarantined. This is going to take planning, preparation and some investment, but we know how to do it; its already been done with the unwinding of MPP, Heyman said.

The group is also calling for the Biden administration to stop practices such as expelling migrants late at night in small, remote Mexican towns south of Columbus, New Mexico and Sasabe, Arizona, and taking families who crossed the border at South Texas to be deported hundreds of miles away.

Group members said they will share their recommendations with lawmakers and institutions in Mexico and the United States.

Visit theBorderReport.com homepagefor the latest exclusive stories and breaking news about issues along the United States-Mexico border.

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Scholars urge Biden to stop Title 42 expulsions and Mexico to end arrest of migrants - WDTN.com

The U.S. Supreme Court has rejected a lawsuit backed by President Donald Trump to overturn Joe Biden's election victory, ending Trump's attempt to get legal issues rejected by other judges before the high court. (Dec. 11) AP Domestic

WASHINGTON The Supreme Court's conservatives voiced skepticism Monday over whether immigrants living in the country with temporary protection from deportation should be permitted to apply for green cards and make their stay permanent.

At issue is whether some 400,000 foreign nationals from countries enduring natural disasters or armed conflict who have been granted temporary legal status in the USA meet the requirements for green cards if they initially entered the country illegally.

"We need to be careful about tinkering with the immigration statutes as written, particularly when Congress has such a primary role here," Associate Justice Brett Kavanaugh told a lawyer for the two immigrants a New Jersey couple from El Salvador who filed the appeal. "You have an uphill climb, textually speaking."

The case centers on Jose Sanchez and Sonia Gonzalez, who have lived in the United States legally for two decades under a federal program called Temporary Protected Status. TPS is granted for certain immigrants who the government determines cannot safely return to their home country. When Sanchez and Gonzales applied for green cards they were denied because they had entered the country illegally.

More: Supreme Court to debate immigration case as Biden wrestles with border crisis

More: Bidens Supreme Court commission already facing resistance

More: Three Supreme Court justices tackle U.S. partisan divisions in public remarks

Though technical, the case has significant implications for TPS beneficiaries and it comes at a time when the Biden administration is wrestling with acrisis at the U.S.-Mexico border, an influx of Central Americans seeking harbor in the United States. The number of migrant encounterson the border increased71% in Marchcompared with February,according to recent Department of Homeland Security data.

More: White House backpedals after Biden refers to a 'crisis' at the border

Federallaw requires green card applicants to have been "inspected and admitted or paroled into" the United States. Sanchez andGonzalez say the admission happened when they were granted TPS status. But several justices on Monday asserted that such a readingrequired courts to infer a meaning not explicitly approved by Congress.

"I can't follow the logic of your main submission," Chief Justice John Roberts told the attorney representing the immigrants. "It doesn't say that you are deemed to have been admitted and inspected;it says that you have non-immigrant status."

Amy Saharia, the attorney representingSanchez andGonzalez, countered that Congress deliberately chose "broad language" to achieve "multiple different objectives" so that TPS beneficiaries could adjust their immigration status.

Associate Justice Sonia Sotomayor pressed the attorney representing the Biden administration,Michael Huston,on another point: Aren't TPS beneficiaries who leave the country for travel "admitted" when they return to the United States? Wouldn't that satisfythe statute's requirement that they are "inspected" upon reentry, she asked.

Huston asserted that the immigrants would return to the United States under the same immigration status they had when they left.

"It makes no sense to me," Sotomayor said. "How can you win on that argument?"

Ivania Castillo from Prince William County, Va., shows her support for dreamer Miriam from California, as she joins DACA recipients in front of the U.S. Supreme Court.(Photo: AP PHOTO/MANUEL BALCE CENETA)

Immigrant advocates say the case raises questions about the Biden administration's approach to TPS. The president, who has rolled back many Trump-era immigration policies, proposed a bill to allow TPS recipients to apply for green cards, regardless of how they entered the country. But the administration has defended the interpretation of the statute as currently barring that practice.

More: Immigration was a scorching topic at the Supreme Court last year. With Trump gone, that's changed.

Opponents of extending green cards to TPS recipients note that the protection was intended to be temporary, not permanent.

The Biden administration designated two new countries for the program last monthVenezuela and Myanmar bringing the number of countries to 12.

Several of the designations for other countries have been extended for years.For El Salvador, for instance, President George W. Bush first granted TPS in 2001 following two earthquakes and the status was repeatedly extended. To be eligible for TPS, an immigrant must prove they have been in the US since the designation.

The fact that the program's "temporary" relief has continued for decades is a point Kavanaughraised during the arguments.

"It puts the people in a very awkward position, year after year," he toldthe attorney representing the Biden administration. "AndI'm sure you understand that."

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Supreme Court justices push back on allowing temporary immigrants to apply for green cards - USA TODAY

The Supreme Court of India, on April 13, 2021 has directed all the states to inform the court about the number and status of migrant children in India and directed the protection of their fundamental rights during the deadly COVID-19 pandemic in India. Unsurprisingly, it took us more than a year into the pandemic to take note of the situation of one of the most marginalized categories of children in India.

While the first wave of the pandemic shook the country by surprise when we witnessed the unprecedented migrant crisis in India, very limited attention was paid to the children of those migrant communities who were also on the move and were under greater vulnerability of missing out on important developmental aspects, especially education. The coverage or advocacy around this aspect of the migrant crisis has been fairly limited during the pandemic and the recent Supreme Court directive is hoped to give some nudge to this extremely crucial issue.

To put things into perspective, as per Census 2011, every fifth migrant in India is a child tallying a total population of 92.95 million migrant children. Studies indicate that migrant children between the age of 6-18 years are more vulnerable with higher probabilities of child labour and discontinued educational opportunities. 22.1 percent of migrant children between this age group are not enrolled in any educational institution. Education departments official documents identify migrant children as the ones who are more prone to dropouts and are often the hardest to reach or the most vulnerable category.

The ongoing pandemic has further fuelled up the vulnerable situation of such periled category.

Understanding the Right to Education for migrant childrenThe Right to Education Act includes migrant children through the following provisions : that the Act ensures that children from the disadvantaged group or weaker sections will not be discriminated against or prevented in any manner in attending schools (Section 9) and that the local authorities shall ensure admission of children from migrant families (Section 9(k)) and that the child has the right to seek transfer to any other school (except private unaided and special category school) and will be immediately issued a transfer certificate by the head teacher or in-charge of the school (Section 5).

A written reply to the Rajya Sabha in 2019 by the Ministry of Education(MoE) further clarifies RTE Acts role with respect to migrant children. It was mentioned that the RTE Act, 2009 provides for free and compulsory elementary education of equitable quality to all children, including the children of migrant workers, between 6-14 years of age. This is ensured through Section 6 (by establishing sufficient schools in the neighbourhood areas). Operationalization of the Act has happened through Sarva Shiksha Abhiyaan, Rashtriya Madhyamik Shiksha Abhiyaan and Teacher Education which is now subsumed under the Samagra Siksha Abhiyaan. In the reply, the MoE mentioned having approved the establishment of over 2.04 lakh primary schools and 1.59 lakh upper primary schools, 1021 residential schools with accommodation capacities of 1,08,275 children. The government also claims to be addressing the issues of seasonal migration by using various strategies like conducting household surveys/annual upation of the surveys to identify out of school children. Samagra Sikhsa Abhiyaan, ensures provision of elementary education to migrant children through provision like seasonal hostels/residential camps in villages during migration periods, special residential/non-residential training centres for out of school children/dropout/migrant children. Provision of mid day meals, free textbooks and free uniforms also aid the cause.

The RTE Act and the Samagra Siksha Abhiyaan, even though robust, fail to address the complexities and nuances of the unique issues of migrant children in India. Despite the RTE Acts mandate and implementation; the ground reality seems to be very different. Due to varied reasons and trends of inter state migration, migrant children often experience disruption in education and frequently drop out of education. Another pertinent issue is of loss and gaps in learning/education for migrant children and it is often difficult to cope up with varying academic curriculum, language of instruction, peer-support, difficulty of re-enrolling in another school etc. In many cases, low-income parents are also leaving low-budget private schools and opting for government schools. All of this has further exacerbated during the pandemic. Lets discuss some of the other pressing problems around the issue.

Lack of a unified definition

The foremost problem is of definition and identification. The question that demands an answer is who exactly are migrant children? Different national surveys like the Census, the National Sample Survey Office (NSSO), National Family Health Survey (NFHS) etc. define them differently and we still lack a comprehensive policy definition of who a migrant children is. It is important to highlight that migrant children and its ensued category is in no way homogeneous and comprises many sub-categories and groups. The nature of migration could be on account of geography, seasonality, natural/ man-made disasters, political distress, citizenship and many other factors. The sub-categorizing further complicates the issue of education provisioning and restricts having a single blanket approach to this highly complex socio-economic issue.

Lack of concerted data

Despite many surveys accounting for data on migration, there still exist a serious data gap on the extent and expanse of migration within the country. The gap is even more for nuanced micro data such as the data on migrant children who are of the school going age. Official government documents also echo this concern in its educational statistics on migration status of students in rural/urban areas. As highlighted by a policy brief on migrants by UNESCO, this lack of refined data and its related analytics often hamper the efficient design and delivery of services for migrants in India.

Increased vulnerability

Migrants are not a homogenous category and even within this there are certain migrant categories especially children of informal labourers (like construction workers, domestic workers, mine workers, agricultural labourers etc.) that are often at the margins when it comes to access and entitlements. They face denial of even basic first and second generation human rights and entitlements like housing, food, sanitation, clean drinking water, public health and finance let alone education which is at the bottom of their to get list. It is no secret that the COVID-19 pandemic has hit them the most and has drastically impacted their access to basic services which was already in a state of concern. For education in particular, recent empirical work and field research have highlighted that it is often the migrant children with limited access to resources who are suffering the most during education related lockdowns in the country.

Dishevelled policy focus

Migrant children and their educational rights find a very fragmented mention in the Indian policy landscape. In addition to primary Acts such as the RTE Act and related schemes like Samagra Siksha Abhiyaan, the educational rights of migrant children can also be traced in some other policies and guidelines. The National Education Policy, 2020 also includes migrant communities under its broader ambit of Socio-Economically Disadvantaged Groups(SEDGs) and talks about migrant children and their needs in the light of curtailing dropouts in education as well as ensuring universal access to education. The policy proposes to bring in alternative and innovative education centres with civil society partnership to bring back the children who are dropping out into mainstream education (Section 3.2). While the insistence on access and continuation is applauded, it fails to acknowledge the systemic challenges of design and teaching which are equally important to ensure meaningful participation of migrant children in education. Moreover, ironically, while the migrant children can be further subdivided into various categories as discussed above, the policies and plans have rather put migrant communities itself as a sub-category under SEDGs. The problem would certainly arise when we look to dam the ocean and not the river flowing into it. Likewise, while the policy should have focused on the river-like category of migrant communities, it focuses on the ocean of SEDGs, the result of which is not unpredictable.

For COVID in particular, the MoE had issued a guideline in July, 2020 and then in January,2021 to continue education of the children of migrant labourers. The guideline is fairly comprehensive in directing state education departments to keep a close track of in/out migration of children from the schools and ensure no denial of admission to migrant children without asking for any documentation (except identity cards). Their continued learning has to be ensured through remedial classes and adequate provision of books and other materials to ensure uninterrupted education. As per these guidelines, the residential school students should also be provided temporary admission in schools nearby their homes, as they may not go back to their residential schools during COVID19. The Student Learning Enhancement Guidelines by the CBSE also mentions the needs and requirements of migrant children to some extent. The document has provided a summary of some of the information received from States/UTs up to July, 2020. Some of the data pertaining to migrant children are enumerated as under:

Till July 2020, only 9 states had completed the identification and mapping of migrant children. An updated status of this data is still awaited to accurately ascertain the magnanimity of migration in schools.

However, there is still a lack of focus on migrant children in other comprehensive education guidelines/initiatives (especially in digital education) released during the COVID-19 pandemic. The India Report Digital Education (2020) makes only a passing mention to the migrant children with no dedicated plan of action or existing initiatives to cater to their needs. The acknowledgement of their existence would do no good without remedial action.

Lastly, one key Act dealing with the community, is the Inter-State Migrant Workmen (Regulation of Employment and Conditions of Service) Act (1979). However, this Act remains silent on education provisioning of the children of migrant workers. More recently, the NITI Ayog has also come up with the Draft National Policy on migrant workers which addresses issues of education. It proposes for the MOE to take measures to mainstream migrant childrens education, map migrant children, and provide local-language teachers in migrant destinations making use of the RTE Act.

Towards Solutions

There are three steps to overcome any social or socio-economic challenge. The first being the acknowledgment of the existence of the social group or community, followed by the acknowledgment of the existence of challenges barring upliftment of the said group, which would eventually lead to pinning down the remedial action in the right direction to overcome those hindrances. Unfortunately, the policies and laws in relation to the education of the migrant communities have been swinging between the first and second step. While the government has acknowledged the existence of migrant communities, formal community specific challenges are yet to be identified and acknowledged. To move ahead with a remedial action without such identification would be as good as jumping off a cliff assuming it to be a small rock, only to fall flat. This can be done by collecting robust micro-level, de-segregated data on the educational status of migrant children in India. The supreme court directive is a great push in that direction.

Next is to review and revise the existing policies and bring in place a comprehensive framework guiding the educational rights and access of migrant children in India. This framework has to take into consideration not just issues of infrastructure (like provision of neighbourhood schools, admissions, provisioning of hostels, provisioning of educational materials etc.) but also of design (like multilingual mode of instruction, peer support, flexible curriculum and evaluation, bridge courses, presence of para-teachers who are well equipped and sensitized to address the needs of migrant teachers etc.). As pointed by literature, these efforts have to be targeted at early stages of education to minimize the possibility of learning losses and maximize age-appropriate learning. It is also important to reiterate the crucial role of rural/urban local authorities in identifying migrant children and working closely with local school bodies to ensure meaningful participation of migrant children. MOIs guidelines on Special Training arrangement for out of school children has already envisioned this in great details. What can be new is the use of Information and Communication Technology(ICT) in education or digital learning, which, despite its range of scepticism, can act as a great enabler and mobilizer if deployed well. There is no better time than COVID-19 pandemic to pilot that.

Finally, existing Acts like the Inter-State Migrant Workmen (Regulation of Employment and Conditions of Service) Act (1979) must be revised to include educational provisions for children of migrant workers in India.

In Conclusion

Like any other well intended policy and legislation in India, due recognition has been given to the right to equitable education for migrant children in India, in principle but not in practice. Having laid strong foundations in the form of the RTE Act and Samagra Siksha Abhiyaan along with other education policies, the focus now should be for the provisioning of equitable education by way of executive and political manifestations of such Acts and such policies. The challenges of the pandemic should in no way side-line the cause of migrant children or dampen the progresses already made. High quality, equitable and inclusive education has to be the first step in including the migrant communities in this long voyage of development in India.

Views expressed above are the author's own.

END OF ARTICLE

See original here:

Always on the move: The troubling landscape of the right to education for migrant children in India - The Times of India Blog

Colombia will grant legal status to all Venezuelan migrants who fled there since 2016 to escape their countrys economic collapse and political crisis.

The bold new policy which will give nearly 1 million undocumented migrants rights to legal employment, health care, education and Colombian banking services for 10 years is driven by both empathy and pragmatism, says Colombian president Ivan Duque.

Theyll likely stay for more than a decade, Duque told NPR on March 3, 2021. So its better toopen them the opportunity to contribute also to the Colombian economy.

Venezuelan arrivals to Colombia are not confined to refugee camps, so they live scattered across the country. Documenting and absorbing so many migrants who often arrive on foot, with only a handful of personal belongings and no valid ID has been a challenge. Even rich countries like the U.S. struggle to handle mass migration.

But in some ways Colombia itself no stranger to political strife and displacement is uniquely prepared for this migration crisis.

Colombia has received the brunt of the exodus from neighboring Venezuela since 2015.

When many other South American countries closed their borders with Venezuela, Colombia offered a series of two-year permits giving about 700,000 Venezuelans the right to work and access to health care between 2017 and 2020.

Together with the new legalization plan covering 1 million additional migrants, nearly all the roughly 1.7 million Venezuelans who have come to Colombia since 2015 will have some form of legal status. New arrivals who are legally processed in the next two years will also be covered.

Colombia is not wealthy. But Colombians understand better than many what it means to be driven from your home.

Over 8 million of Colombias 50 million people have been displaced by ongoing civil conflict since the 1990s. At least 1 million moved into neighboring Venezuela, seeking safety and opportunity. A government peace agreement with the FARC guerrilla group in 2016 quelled but did not end violence in Colombia.

Because of this history, international organizations such as the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees and World Food Program have worked in Colombia for decades. Today, the U.N.s refugee agency and International Organization for Migration are leading a group of 73 international organizations and agencies to align their work with Colombias national humanitarian efforts. The group works in 14 states across Colombia, providing assistance that ranges from distributing COVID-19 hygiene kits to enrolling migrant children in school.

The Colombian government also has some 50 agencies dedicated to helping Colombians displaced by armed conflict. Now many are adapting that experience to help Venezuelan migrants.

Since 2019 we have interviewed over a dozen government officials, lawyers and civil society representatives in two Colombian departments, or states, that have received high numbers of Venezuelan migrants: Atlntico and Norte de Santander. This work was part of a broader study on how countries manage mass migration.

At the religious charity Secretariado de Pastoral Social-Critas, part of the Catholic Archdiocese of the city of Barranquilla, in Atlntico, the longtime director said the migrant situation today looks a lot like it did decades ago when Colombias civil conflict peaked in the Atlntico region, with people wandering around, not knowing anyone and not sure what to do or where to go. Then as now, they slept in the parks and on the streets.

We already lived it in the '90s, said the director of Pastoral Social.

Back then, the group helped the Colombians displaced by fighting to find food and shelter. Now many of its clients are Venezuelan.

The nonprofit Opcin Legal an umbrella organization that manages refugee programs for the U.N. has a similar origin story.

At its start 21 years ago, staffers worked in some of the most difficult conflict regions in Colombia, training the nonprofits that help displaced Colombians in accounting and legal processes, among other technical functions.

Now Opcin Legal offers Venezuelan migrants free legal advice about getting Colombian health care and education, among other services. Using a nationwide network of 22 Colombian universities developed over many years, it trains students and professors to extend the reach of its legal support programs to Venezuelan migrants.

In 2019, nearly 80 million people across the globe mostly Syrians, Venezuelans, Afghans and South Sudanese were driven from their homes by crime, climate change, chronic poverty, war, political instability and disaster, according to the U.N. an all-time high. Many will spend years or decades waiting for a permanent solution, whether that be settling locally, returning home or finding a new country to make a life.

Colombias new legalization plan reflects an assessment that Venezuelas collapse is a long-term challenge and that integrating migrants is a better solution, economically and socially, than trying to keep out or expel them.

[Youre smart and curious about the world. So are The Conversations authors and editors. You can get our highlights each weekend.]

Colombia is being internationally applauded for its humanitarianism. But equipping hospitals and schools to handle the needs of this rapidly growing and often very needy population will require a lot of money. And most of it will have to come from the international community, because Colombia does not have the money to do it single-handedly. Yet the Venezuelan migrant crisis is a chronically underfunded area of humanitarian work.

The legalization plan also risks inflaming anti-migrant sentiments in Colombia. Particularly in border areas, some blame rising violence on migration though evidence shows Venezuelan migrants are more likely to be crime victims than perpetrators.

And Colombia still has domestic migration problems of its own. Dissident FARC members, other guerrilla groups, drug cartels and insurgencies continue to battle over territory and resources, displacing 70,865 more Colombians last year alone.

The Colombian government is betting that the U.N. and international agencies will help it fulfill its ambitious goal of welcoming 1.7 million Venezuelan refugees and migrants.

If it works, that money would improve government services for all Colombians, too.

Lia Castillo, Liss Romero and Lydia Sa conducted research, documentation and analysis for this story.

Read more:

Colombia gives nearly 1 million Venezuelan migrants legal status and right to work - The Conversation US

Last week, as reported cases of COVID-19 witnessed an unprecedented spike in Uttar Pradesh and the rest of India, several news outlets ran breathless stories about how a study by Harvard University had lauded the Yogi Adityanath governments handling of the migrant crisis last year.

While most of these outlets are obscure or openly identified with the Bharatiya Janata Party, the Hindustan Times was the only national newspaper to carry the news item. Its story was datelined Lucknow and ran with the headline, Harvard study praises UP Govt for its handling of migrant crisis during pandemic.

The Hindustan Times story, like all the others, gave no details about this Harvard study no title or authorship or link or methodology. The only information the newspaper provided was that this study had been shared by the government. Others said they had obtained the story through an unnamed UP government spokesman.

The spokesman said the Yogi government worked towards the multi-fold agenda of providing transportation facilities, delivering ration kits, and running healthcare centres for migrants, Times Now said. Times Now is owned by Bennet Coleman Company Ltd, publishers of the Times of India. The exact same sentence also appeared in the HTand in the story carried by the pro-establishment Swarajya magazine.

The only problem with these stories is that the 72-page report in question a copy of which is with The Wire is not from Harvard but Haryana. And it is not much of a study either, being bereft of the kind of references or field-based evidence one normally associates with a research paper. Worse still, the report does not even say some of the things the UP government claims it does.

For example, the Hindustan Times reported:

The Yogi Adityanath government in Uttar Pradesh (UP) handled the migrant crisis most adroitly according to a study by Harvard University shared by the government.

However, these words do not appear anywhere in the study.

According to AltNews, these reports were all the result of a message shared by a UP government official on a WhatsApp group for correspondents, many of whose publications simply cut and paste the government handout and passed it off as their own story.

Had any of these media outlets insisted on some corroboration of the UP governments claims, they would have realised that the study in question was not by Harvard or any of its schools or departments but by the Gurgaon-based Institute for Competitiveness (IFC).

Cover of the Institute for Competitiveness report on Uttar Pradesh.

Titled, Covid-19 & the Migrant Crisis Resolution: A Report on Uttar Pradesh, the reports authors are Amit Kapoor and Manisha Kapoor. Amit Kapoor is honorary chairman of the IFC and editor-in-chief of a magazine called Thinkers, while Manisha Kapoor is a senior researcher at the institute. Neither author appears to have done any scholarly work on Uttar Pradesh before.

The report does not have a section for references or a bibliography with details of the journal papers, data sources and/or newspaper articles referred to for the research. It only lists the UP government, a COVID-19 data tracker and (unidentified) migration studies by scholar Chinmay Tumbe as its main data sources. There are also 12 footnotes, many of which are media reports of official UP government announcements.

A footnote on the first page acknowledges all those who helped the authors in the process of the study. Apart from financial support from the Gates Foundation, the authors openly acknowledge the central role the Uttar Pradesh government itself played in guiding the study from conceptualisation to completion. Insightful feedback was offered by Mr. Sanjay Goyal (Secretary, Disaster Management, U.P. Government).

Acknowledgments listed on the first page of the UP report.

K.V. Raju, who is economic adviser to UP chief minister, has been thanked for guiding from conceptualisation to completion, besides making suggestions on the earlier drafts. Awanish Awasthi, who is additional chief secretary, has been credited with enabling and coordinating this entire process with different departments. Awasthi is known to be close to chief minister Yogi Adityanath and has been referred to as his right hand man and as the mini CM.

The study itself essentially consists of a summation of official claims about how the state government acted, all taken at face value without actually assessing what the impact of its policies actually were on the ground. There are no interviews with migrant workers, academics, volunteers. Reports in the media that highlighted problems with the states handling of the migrant issue do not figure at all.

Apart from the fear that its Harvard claim would be exposed, the UP chief ministers office might have decided against circulating what is evidently an authorised study because the text does not actually shower a lot of praise on the UP government.

Contrary to media reports, our study doesnt conclude the UP government handled the migrant crisis more effectively than other states. The document is not a comparative statement on the handling of the crisis by different states. It is documentation pertaining to the effort of the Uttar Pradesh government and extracting insights from the same, Amit Kapoor told AltNews.

But some of the details in the study and the conclusions drawn are quite dubious nevertheless. For instance, it credits the UP government for arranging transport for migrant workers who wanted to return to the state at the time the lockdown was announced and then later when it was extended. The facts on the ground are rather more complex.

What the report ignores

While the UP government did arrange public transport in some parts of the state in certain periods during the migrant crisis, its performance was quite chequered. The study overlooked the fact that the UP government at one point had even denied entry to migrants coming in from other states who had been able to arrange buses. Some migrant workers were sprayed with chemicals to sanitise them.

When the Congress party tried to arrange buses for migrant workers who had been stranded and wanted to return to UP from other states, the UP government denied it permission and did not arrange transport on its own.

The Wire also documented the plight of workers in western UP who were walking to their homes from Delhi, Noida and Ghaziabad when public transport of the UP government was totally absent.

Next, the study said that the UP government set up 503 hospitals for COVID-19, again without citing the source for this information. Given that UPs population is 204 million, this implies that if this information is true 4 lakh people in the state are dependent on one hospital. As we see now with the COVID-19 situation unravelling in UP, the government was anything but prepared.

It also credited the UP government with providing ration and cooked food through community kitchens to migrant workers who were travelling or were stranded. The study also applauded the government for geo-tagging the community kitchens by collaborating with Google. It did not specify the benefits of this geo-tagging and to whom they would accrue if they do accrue.

While there were several reports of migrant workers suffering due to non-provision of ration, none of this is mentioned in the study. At least seven people died due to starvation in UP during the COVID-19 period as per a database maintained by scholars Kanika Sharma, Aman, Thejesh GN and Krushna.

The Wire had also documented the plight of several migrant workers from Jharkhand who were stranded near Meerut with help coming only from good samaritans and not from the government. In fact, most of the community kitchens at the time had been set up by individuals and NGOs and not by governments in the country.

The study credits the government for setting up screening centres and quarantine facilities but forgot to mention that the state of the facilities was such that some migrants died by suicide. At least one worker died in UP while conducting fogging activities using chemicals supplied by the government. A five year old from a Dalit family died in Agra in August after going without food because the family didnt have employment and no ration card to access subsidised food.

In fact, the most non-virus deaths during the COVID-19 period have occurred in Uttar Pradesh according to the database. Of the 991 people who died in the country, 207, or more than 20% died in Uttar Pradesh. Several migrant workers died while on their way back home due to accidents and exhaustion.

The study too, in a rather feeble manner, points out that the UP government needs to do more. Although the Uttar Pradesh government has taken steps to build economic opportunities for them closer to home using existing schemes as well as by signing new MoUs, it is important to develop a long-term employment generation plan. The plan should be based on existing strengths of the state as well as the skill set of the labour force, it concludes.

Wrong to use Harvard tag

Though the Institute for Competitiveness claims to be the Indian knot in the global network of the Institute for Strategy and Competitiveness (ISC) at Harvard Business School, both the IFC and ISC told AltNews that it is incorrect to refer to the UP report as a Harvard study. The IFC also said that the Harvard logo should not have been used on the cover and will be removed.

While the Adityanath government can hardly be blamed for doing its best to oversell the IFC report, the ease with which the government has been able to plant false and misleading information in some of the countrys leading news outlets is a cause for alarm. Despite ample evidence in the public domain about the falseness of the Harvard claim, none of the media platforms which fell for this official deception have so far moved to issue clarifications to their readers.

See more here:

We Know the Harvard Study on UP is Not from Harvard. Its Also Not Much of a Study. - The Wire

In the eyes of the world, Wilton was a 10-year-old migrant from Nicaragua who had been abandoned in a Texas scrubland. A viral video that showed the crying child asking a US Border Patrol officer for help became a symbol of the first immigration crisis facing the administration of President Joe Biden.

But the story is part of a larger tragedy that began when Wilton and his mother fled their home to escape domestic abuse. The journey took them through the mountains of El Rama, in Nicaraguas southern Caribbean coast, and ended with a kidnapping in northern Mexico, near the US border.

EL PAS traveled to their hometown to reconstruct their story.

The video of Wilton asking a US Border Patrol officer for help (Spanish audio).

In a remote farming community located more than 3,000 kilometers from the US-Mexico border, in the Nicaraguan mountains of El Rama, a 66-year-old woman named Socorro Leiva was shocked to see her own grandson crying in a video that made the television news. At that point, she did not even know that her daughter, Meylin Obregn Leiva, had left for the US with the eldest of her two children. I was making dinner when my husband, who was sitting in front of the TV set, yelled out Socorro, come quick! Thats Meylins son! And it was indeed my little boy. He was carrying a small bundle in one hand and he was asking for help, she says, standing inside her home in an area known as El Paraso. According to Leiva, her daughter and grandson left to escape an abusive husband.

The pair managed to make it into US territory, but they were sent right back to Mexico under Title 42, a Trump-era policy that has effectively shut the border to new asylum cases. There they fell into the hands of a criminal group that held them for ransom.

Soon after that, a Miami resident named Misael Obregn Meylins brother and Wiltons uncle received the first call from the kidnappers. They were asking for $10,000 (8,400) to release mother and child. But he could only come up with $5,000 (4,200), and it was agreed that they would release Wilton and take him across the border. It was then that a US officer patrolling the area found the child on April 1.

In the month of March alone, the Border Patrol apprehended more than 172,000 undocumented migrants, most of them from Central America. This is the highest monthly figure recorded in the last 15 years. Yet most of those individuals have been sent to Mexico under Title 42 of the US Code, a public-health regulation invoked by former president Donald Trump with the stated aim of curbing the spread of the coronavirus pandemic. Joe Biden has maintained the policy but made an exception for unaccompanied minors, who have flooded the US shelter system. Those who get sent back, such as Wilton and his mother, run the risk of getting picked up by the criminal groups operating along the border.

The family tragedy began back in the village that Meylin Obregn fled on February 8 with her eldest son, after deciding that there were no options for a safe life there. Five days before embarking on the journey, she went to the Nicaragua Prosecutors Office and filed a complaint against her former partner, Lzaro Gutirrez Laguna. My daughter put it all down in writing... in her statement she said she did not want Lzaro to be hounding her, begging her or anything, says her mother Socorro Leiva.

The prosecutors office issued a summons, but he never showed up. The harassment continued, and she told me that she could no longer stay in my house. I asked her why: Im her mother and my house is her house too. I know why, she said repeatedly. I felt that she was saying goodbye, but I didnt think it would be for so long, says Leiva.

According to the grandmother, Meylin left a partner who was unfaithful to her, who humiliated her and abused her. He would throw her out of his house every other day. He would boast about having other women, she says. Im not sure if he assaulted her physically, but that man is capable of anything. She would go back to his house out of love for the children, but after a 12-year relationship, she couldnt take it anymore.

Before her daughter went to the Prosecutors Office, Leiva forced Gutirrez to sign a letter in front of an evangelical pastor and a local community leader in which he pledged to stop abusing Meylin. But it had no effect. She is very scared of him, notes the grandmother.

Meylin Obregn Leiva never told her mother too much, but she did confide in her brother Misael who was living in Miami. Misael helped pay for the trip in order to help his sister escape her situation, unaware that she was headed straight for a different kind of hell in northern Mexico. She is currently being held in an undefined location according to her brother, who has spoken to her.

On the day that EL PAS visited Socorro Leiva in El Paraso after a 300-kilometer trip from Managua, there was more bad news on TV. The grandmother learned that her daughter was being held by a group of coyotes, or people smugglers. There is no electricity in El Paraso, and hardly any cellphone reception. The only real contact with the outside world is through a small TV whose battery is powered by solar panels.

Oh my Lord! exclaimed Leiva when she heard the news. Bursting into tears, she said that only God now with his power can release her. In the hands of those people, anything can happen. If there were a law protecting women here [in Nicaragua] maybe my daughter would not have left.

In an interview with the local media, Lzaro Gutirrez Laguna said that his relationship with Meylin ended due to couples problems and that both of them agreed that she and Wilton would travel to the US. But the grandmother denies this, and says the boy refused to go with his father when the latter attempted to keep him by force a few days before the trip. The second child did stay in Nicaragua with him.

In the meantime, Nicaraguan Vice-President Rosario Murillo has taken the case to heart, saying that Meylin left due to problems at home although she did not specifically mention gender violence, which has killed 19 women so far this year according to the non-profit group Catlicas por el Derecho a Decidir (Catholics for the Right to Decide). Murillo also said that the government is working to repatriate the 10-year-old, who is currently staying at a shelter for unaccompanied minors in Brownsville, Texas.

But Leiva thinks it would be better for Wilton to go live with his uncle in Miami, and for Meylin to do the same if she makes it out alive. In this country, nothing is done even when they [women] get killed, she says. Its all in vain.

English version by Susana Urra.

Read the original here:

The dramatic story of Wilton, the Nicaraguan child found crying on the US-Mexico border - EL PAS in English

At some point in his journey to a freer place, Ahtisham Khan came to a fork in the road. Fifty days of travel from his native Pakistan to the plains of northern Greece had been unexpectedly frightening and exhausting.

We had a lot of dreams, he says, recalling why he and his brother, Zeeshan, left their village close to the city of Haripur in Pakistan. We were teenagers we didnt know what we were embarking on. We did what we had to do to survive.

The road divided for the brothers when Khan, then 16, ended up in police detention outside the Greek border town of Orestiada after his fifth attempt to enter the EU from Turkey.

I was alone, my brother had got across earlier and I had no papers, nothing, says Khan in the fluent Greek he has learned.

Then, suddenly, my asylum request was granted and soon I was in a camp, and then a shelter. I was so happy. I said to myself from now on youll do nothing illegal. There is a white road and a black road and youll take the white road.

Now a trainee nurse, Khan says four years on he has watched other lone children who made similar journeys to Europe from Asia, Africa and the Middle East founderalong the way. They took the road that seemed easier, and ended up living on the streets, he says. They get by smuggling drugs, that sort of thing, but its a very hard life.

Greece, long the gateway to Europe for the vast majority of asylum seekers, has an estimated 3,800 child refugees, according to the National Centre for Social Solidarity (EKKA). Of that number, more than 900 live in insecure housing conditions shorthand for sleeping rough under bridges, in parks, on roadsides and public squares, or in squats and other shelters with people they barely know.

Six years after Europes migrant crisis erupted, with more than a million people fleeing Syrias civil war, Athens is finally taking action.

Earlier this month, it unveiled a countrywide tracing and protection mechanism with a multilingual hotline to identify homeless children and move them to safe accommodation.

Its a very good step and long overdue, says Sofia Kouvelaki, head of the HOME project, which has housed more than 600 children in 14 shelters across Athens over the last five years.

Since 2015, there have been so many children who have gone missing because theyve slipped under the radar and been left unprotected outside any official care system. Its inexcusable.

For years, Greece has been criticised by human rights groups for its treatment of unaccompanied minors. The countrys policy of holding youngsters in protective custody, often in deplorable and depraved conditions, has been singled out for severe criticism, with damning judgments from the European court of human rights. The controversial practice, condemned for putting children at risk of severe abuse, including sexual assault, was only abolished in December 2020.

The centre-right government of prime minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis, which has been much tougher in its handling of migrant and asylum issues than its leftist predecessor, has also faced accusations of discrimination against asylum seekers. Allegations of pushbacks of boatloads of refugees attempting to reach Greeces Aegean island shores have been widespread.

But Kouvelaki says there has been a marked shift for the better in official policy for lone refugee children. A special secretariat for the protection of unaccompanied minors has been created, with Greece working with other EU states to relocate or reunite children with families.

The first children flew to Luxembourg last year. Efforts to transfer minors from notoriously overcrowded island camps have intensified after devastating fires gutted Moria, Europes largest holding centre on Lesbos. About 2,000 unaccompanied children have since been moved to the mainland from Aegean islands.

Irini Agapidaki, the psychologist who heads the secretariat, says the hotline was the latest step in eradicating homelessness. Its our key priority, she told the Guardian. She added that about 1,000 emergency shelters were expected to be up and running by the end of May.

Now that we have abolished the shameful practice of protective custody, which in reality was an interim measure because we didnt have enough care facilities, the national mechanism will provide an operational alternative.

Agapidaki, who assumed the position in February 2020, insisted the secretariat would help prevent other minors from going missing. The biggest pool of children who end up homeless is in northern Greece because, unlike the islands, theres no reception centre around the Evros [land] border, she adds.

Teams of social workers and psychologists spent close to a year conducting street work that included interviewing undocumented minors. Many youngsters said they wanted to move into shelters but didnt know how.

The hotline works in six languages, as well as in English and Greek, and since its launch there have been lots of calls, including from children, says Theodora Tsovili, head of the UNHCR child protection unit, who helped conceive the initiative.

The mechanism is not only a tracing line. It also brings together NGOs working in the field, day centres, emergency accommodation, the asylum service, the public prosecutors for minors and the Greek police. Weve taken a very holistic approach.

Khan knows he is lucky to have found shelter in the mostly privately funded HOME project. Like Maher Assaf, who left Syria with his younger brother, Muhammad, at the age of 15, he missed out on years of schooling. My biggest goal is to get a job as a nurse and become a Greek citizen, he says.

Assaf, now 20, who has spent almost all his time in Athens housed in a HOME shelter, is still in school, in a class with 16-year-olds.

We tried 12 times to get into Greece from Turkey, and once spent three days trapped inside a truck after its tyres exploded, he says in the English he has honed after winning a scholarship for a private college in Athens. There were 15 people inside and, thank God, there were holes [air vents]. We had to use bottles, you know, to go to the toilet. In the end we called the Turkish police for help.

The Syrian siblings, who fled as conflict began to engulf the country, thought they would stay in Turkey. For three years they lived in Istanbul, initially in a two-room apartment where 35 people slept on bunk beds in exchange for working odd jobs. Now, Assaf works as a caregiver with HOME in his free time.

In the NGOs airy offices, amid the banter and laughter, it is easy to forget that the children who have ended up as its wards were propelled by dark forces to embark on high risk journeys.

Khan admits that, while he and his brother also had to leave because of a dangerous family dispute, he wonders with hindsight how they survived. We travelled on foot, and by bus and car, and never knew what the new day would bring. In Iran, the smugglers left us in a village where there wasnt enough water or food. If I was offered anything, he says, throwing up his arms, anything in the world to do it again, I wouldnt.

At 19, Dorcas Muke is among the few unaccompanied minors to arrive with a toddler in tow. For a long time it was so difficult to see why I was living, she says, explaining that her father helped her flee the Republic of Congo in 2018 by paying for a flight to Turkey. From there she was smuggled with her two-year-old son, Kevin, in a rickety boat across the Aegean.

The police caught us, the first time, in Izmir [trying to get to the island of Chios] and we spent 15 days in prison. When I arrived here, I was always sad, always stressed. Everyone and everything made me angry. Now, I see it as the past. Part of my past life. I think too much about my future because I want to be another person.

Today, Muke works in the HOME shelters, and has dreams of becoming a beautician.

Kouvelaki says the biggest challenge for Greece and the EU is recognising the need to forge ahead with wholesale integration policies. In the five years of our operation weve only seen children wanting to give back, she says. Many of our kids go on to work in our shelters, which has proved to be a great tool for their integration when they come of age. At some point all these children are going to turn 18, and integrating them has to be a priority.

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I was alone, I had nothing: from child refugee to student nurse - The Guardian