Newspapers in El Salvador and Honduras are encouraging their countries’ young people to head north to the United States, promising them an easy life courtesy of the welcoming Obama administration.
“During their stay, in addition to accommodations and food, children receive English classes, play sports and participate in targeted programs while immigration authorities contact their families,” La Prensa of Honduras wrote, Newsmax reported Wednesday.
Diario El Mundo in El Salvador, meanwhile, quoted Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson as praising the Obama administration’s Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program.
“Almost all agree that a child who crossed the border illegally with their parents, or in search of a father or a better life, was not making an adult choice to break our laws and should be treated differently than adult violators of the law,” he told the paper.
President Obama enacted the policy in 2012, granting temporary legal status to many young illegal immigrants and ending the threat of their deportation for two years or longer.
La Prensa of Honduras also spoke approvingly of the situation of 500 illegal minors who are being housed at the Naval Base Ventura County in Southern California, the Web site said.
“The children will be accommodated for between three and four months, while their parents or relatives are located in the United States,” the paper said.
Housing and feeding the children at shelters in California and Texas is costing US taxpayers about $250 per child a day, the report said.