WHAT'S CAUSING THE DRAMATIC INCREASE IN CENTRAL AMERICAN IMMIGRANTS?

It's not any of the immigration policies of the Obama Administration no matter what conservatives say.  I caught an interview with AZ Republic reporter Bob Ortega on On the Media and he said most of the increase is due to gang and cartel violence in the source countries.

Here's one of his articles that provides a little more about this:

Why are so many children and families crossing now?
Bob Ortega, The Republic | azcentral.com 4:02 p.m. MST July 13, 2014

The numbers actually began to rise three years ago. According to the Border Patrol, the number of unaccompanied children it detained from Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador has doubled or more than doubled every fiscal year since 2011, when it detained 3,933. That rose to 10,443 in 2012 and to 21,537 in 2013. Since October through the end of June this fiscal year, the Border Patrol had detained almost 40,000 children from these three countries, out of a total of 57,000 unaccompanied minors.

But this year's surge is largely attributed to children and families fleeing gang violence. In El Salvador, such violence has escalated dramatically in recent months, since a weak truce among rival gangs evaporated, said Elizabeth G. Kennedy, a Fulbright scholar working in San Salvador, El Salvador's capital. In Honduras and urban areas of Guatemala, gang violence also has escalated dramatically this year.

The homicide rates in Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador already ranked among the top five in the world in 2012. And, by all accounts, homicide rates in all three countries have continued to rise.

Kennedy, investigating the causes of child migration, interviewed more than 400 child migrants in the first half of 2014. She said that more than 60 percent cited gang threats, deaths of family members from gang violence, or similar fears. For many, Kennedy said, "their decision is: Do I face possible death in migrating or sure death in staying?"

"The gangs are in schools, neighborhoods. They're everywhere," said Alison Ramirez, who works on a U.S.-funded violence-prevention project in El Salvador. "Even if the kids don't want to be a part of it, they get caught up in the crossfire, extorted, threatened."