Central America leaders to ask Obama for plan to stem child exodus

Central America leaders to ask Obama for plan to stem child exodus

GALPA (Reuters) - Central American leaders will ask U.S. President Barack Obama to support a regional development and security plan to stem the tide of illegal child migrants to the United States at a meeting next week, a Honduran minister said on Saturday.

Presidents of Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras will meet with Obama on Friday to look for ways to curb a record-breaking exodus of Central American children, fleeing to theUnited States to escape violence and poverty.

Since October, more than 57,000 unaccompanied children have been detained at the U.S.-Mexico border, most of them from Central America, and double last year's count.

The surge in migration has sparked an intense debate over how to solve the problem.

"We need support for successful reintegration into work and schools and to keep track of these individuals and families so they don't try again to immigrate to the United States," Honduran Foreign Minister Mireya Aguero told local radio.

Aguero said she hopes the regional security initiative, which is supported by Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernandez, Guatemala's Otto Perez and El Salvador's Salvador Sanchez Ceren, will be secured at the July 25 meeting.