Latino Children Caught Entering America At US-Mexico Border Doubles In Six Months

Children have been apprehended at the U.S.-Mexico border each year, but since last October, that numbers have seen a significant spike.

According to the Pew Research Center, since last October, the U.S. Customs and Border Protection records taking into custody 47,017 unaccompanied children under the age of 18. The data is shocking considering that the first four months of 2014 have had more apprehensions than in the entire 2013 fiscal year, which had 24,493 apprehensions. Given the current rate, some estimates predict four times as many arrests this year than last year.

Described as a “urgent humanitarian situation” by President Obama, federal agencies are working to provide the apprehended children with food, medical treatment and mental health services. Government officials are reporting that most of the children hail from Mexico and Central America, and are coming to the United States to flee poor economies, violence, or to be reunited with their families.

“The children that are arriving are a particularly vulnerable group,” Deputy Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas to the Washington Post. “They have often survived a hazardous journey to have arrived here.”

In the United States, there is currently a clear majority within the minority, as there are almost 52 million Hispanics/Latinos in America and the Hispanic/Latino community is the fastest growing minority group in the United States. In a recent analysis, the Pew Research Center looked at the birthplace of each state's largest immigration population and found some interesting, but not so surprising, findings: Majority of the states had Latin American born immigrants.

Considering that 11.7 million of all U.S. immigrants -- that is 29 percent -- were born in Mexico, the findings are not so shocking. In four states -- New Mexico, Arizona, Texas and Idaho -- Mexico accounted for more than half of all the immigrants born abroad. But it was not just Mexico, as El Salvador accounted for majority of foreign-born immigrants in Virginia and Maryland, while the Dominican Republic accounted for New York and Connecticut, and Cuban-born immigrants were the majority in Florida.