The Three Faces of Herodes: Children’s Exodus, Catastrophic Migrations & Shadowed Lives

Abstract

This article examines the 2014 crisis of unaccompanied minors from Central America detained at the United States Southern Border. Worldwide, war and structural violence, environmental distopia, and growing global inequality are behind the largest displacement of people since World War II. But the catastrophe at the U.S. border responds to unique hemispheric processes with deep transnational histories linking the United States to Latin America. The article examines structural inequalities and narco-terror, environmental disasters, and family-level variables in the making of the current Central American exodus. Data from UCLA’s Institute for Immigration, Globalization and Education at -- http://icy.gseis.ucla.edu/ one of the largest interdisciplinary, comparative, and longitudinal data sets on immigration and the family, help explain why at a time when the number of unaccompanied children from Mexico continued to decline, unaccompanied Central American children have reached unprecedented numbers. Separated yesterday, Central American children are seeking family re-unification today.