The U.S. government announced Tuesday that it will permit Guatemalans, Hondurans and Salvadorans living legally in this country to request asylum for their children and for people they are “caregivers” for – older siblings, parents, aunts, uncles and grandparents – and it will also cooperate with Costa Rica to allow entry for the most urgent cases.

The measures are part of an expansion of the U.S. program for Central American Minors announced in 2014 and which to date has permitted only 267 children and teens from El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras to come to this country despite the fact that asylum requests have skyrocketed in the past nine months.

“Our current efforts to date have been insufficient to address the number of people who may have legitimate refugee claims,” said deputy Homeland Security adviser Amy Pope in a conference call announcing the changes.

Officials have recognized that “the criteria is too narrow to meet the categories of people who we believe would qualify under our refugee laws, but they just don’t have the mechanism to apply,” and thus the White House is expanding the program.

Under the expanded criteria, there are three new categories of possible beneficiaries, provided that they are accompanied by an unmarried child under age 21 who is traveling with them to the United States as a refugee.

Those categories include siblings over age 21, an in-country biological parent if that parent is legally present in the United States and “caregivers” of the child.

In addition, there will be a new program in the three countries of Central America’s so-called Northern Triangle to allow “vulnerable” residents of the region to be considered for refugee status in the United States after being interviewed by Department of Homeland Security agents in their countries of origin.

That program is aimed at “identifying” residents of the region that may have credible arguments for becoming refugees, Pope said.

The program has received 9,500 applications so far and has resulted in 2,884 people being approved for resettlement.

Meanwhile, in a move to give immediate protection to people in danger, Costa Rica agreed to a protection transfer arrangement (PTA), in coordination with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and the International Organization for Migration (IOM), that will enable families facing threats to leave their home country while their application is being processed.

Costa Rica intends to host about 200 applicants for six months at a time in the case of minors who need immediate protection, Department of State officials said. EFE

Washington, Jul 26 (EFE)