Of the nearly 37,500 immigrant children who have been released after crossing alone into the U.S. illegally this year, just 76 are residing in San Diego.
That puts the county at number 88 among U.S. counties where unaccompanied migrant children have been placed with family members or other sponsors, according to the Department of Health and Human Services.
Harris County, Texas, whose seat is Houston, has absorbed the largest number of Central American children, 2,866, followed by Los Angeles County with 1,993.
Suffolk and Nassau counties in New York, Miami-Dade in Florida and Fairfax County, Virginia have all absorbed more than 1,000 migrant children each since January 2014.
U.S. Border Patrol agents who apprehend migrant children traveling alone are required to turn them over to the Department of Health and Human Services within 72 hours. From there, children are generally placed in temporary shelters until authorities identify a sponsor who can care for them while they await the outcome of their immigration case. One such shelter was planned for Escondido but so far city officials have refused to grant it a permit.
Health and Human Services Secretary Sylvia Mathews Burwell told Congress earlier this year that the agency had handed over about 85 percent of migrant children to a parent or other close relative living in the U.S.
The desire to reunify with family in the U.S. is a top driver of this year’s unprecedented wave of child migration from Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador. Many children are also fleeing violence or poverty in their home countries.
The relatively small population of Central Americans living in San Diego is likely a major reason why few children from that region have settled here. According to U.S. Census data, San Diego is home to approximately 18,700 people from Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador. By comparison, there are more than 719,000 people from those countries living in Los Angeles County.
