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Border crisis 101: eight things to know about unaccompanied children

Here’s a look at today’s immigration crisis and how it compares to the recent past.

8. What’s behind the flood of unaccompanied children?

Jorge Cabrera/Reuters/File
A child walks past a graffiti of the Mara 18 gang at the gang-infested 14 de Marzo neighborhood in Tegucigalpa, Honduras, in May.

Analysts cite many factors:

  • Conditions in the “sending countries.”
  • The Obama administration’s policy of not deporting young undocumented people who arrived as children, or “Dreamers.”
  • Rumors spread by smugglers.
  • Economic opportunity and family reunification.
  • The prospect that Congress will eventually legislate a path to citizenship for those in the country illegally.
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