What is Giving Compass?
We connect donors to learning resources and ways to support community-led solutions. Learn more about us.
Giving Compass' Take:
• Mark Greenberg, Stephanie Heredia, Kira Monin, Celia Reynolds and Essey Workie evaluate the efficacy of the United States' Central American Minors (CAM) program, and offer recommendations for improving it.
• What aspects of the CAM program as it currently exists limit its ability to help Central American youth? How can funders support youth in dangerous situations who don't have relatives in the United States?
• Read about lessons from Europe on migration.
The Central American Minors (CAM) Program was established to allow certain children living in dangerous conditions in El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras to enter the United States as refugees or parolees to join their parents. The program sought to create a safe, legal, and orderly alternative for children who might otherwise seek to enter the country by crossing the U.S.-Mexico border unaccompanied. The program began in 2014, the Trump administration announced its termination in 2017, and the Biden administration relaunched it with expanded eligibility in 2021. “Even with substantial improvements,” the authors write, “it is doubtful that the CAM Program will ever be able to assist more than a small fraction of children who face danger in northern Central America and have parents or close relatives in the United States. Still, with improvements, the program can help significantly greater numbers of children and families seeking relief and family reunification.”