In 2014, more than 50,000 minors reached the southern U.S. border seeking asylum from the violence wracking three Central American countries: El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras. The largest wave yet of child migrants, it forced the Obama administration to take a multi-pronged approach: sending millions more in aid to the three countries; detaining families who had crossed the border illegally, until a court ordered them to stop [emphasis: mine] two years later; and creating a path for children to come here legally.

That path became the Central American Minors, or CAM, program, which allowed parents lawfully present in the U.S. to apply for refugee resettlement or a temporary status called parole for their children and other eligible family members — the child’s other parent or caregiver or the child’s own child, the parent’s grandchild.

…Families had to prove their relations through a DNA test, applicants had to be interviewed by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, or USCIS, and applicants had to meet the definition of a refugee — someone outside the U.S. who is fleeing persecution due to race, religion, nationality, political opinion or membership in a particular social group.

If a CAM applicant did not qualify for refugee resettlement, they were automatically considered for parole status and informed of whether or not they were granted it when they got their refugee decision.

Parole allows non-U.S. citizens to enter the country for a period of time on humanitarian grounds, although it does not automatically provide a path to legal status. Similar programs were created in the past for Vietnamese fleeing in the 1980’s, Filipino World War II veterans, and certain eastern Europeans after the collapse of the Soviet Union.

CAM parole applicants had to prove they were not at risk of harm, had cleared background vetting, and had someone to financially support them. Once they were granted approval, there were a series of final checks to clear: a medical exam and paying the U.S. or its contractor to arrange flights. They’d then be given a travel date and instructions to meet an official at the airport and receive their paperwork and plane ticket.

…The Central American Minors program, which reunited children and other eligible family members with parents legally residing in the U.S., was one of Trump’s early targets as he sought to crack down on legal immigration. Designed during the Obama administration to avoid the scenes at the U.S.-Mexican border that have gripped the nation this week, its termination is now being blamed by some for worsening the migrant crisis and possibly sending more children north.

…They were told by authorities they would be given final documentation and a plane ticket to travel in two weeks time — but months went by, and nothing ever came.

Without notifying them, …Trump’s administration had already frozen the program just days into his term, even as it solicited and collected thousands of dollars from S.A. and others like her who had been granted conditional approval, according to a new lawsuit that argues the administration broke the law and was driven by “racial animus against Latinos.”

…The administration’s “unprecedented, unexplained, and unsupported secret shutdown” of the program is also under fire for how it was carried out, with little to nothing communicated to recipients months after the decision was seemingly made and no real explanation ever given.

Trump administration’s ‘secret shutdown’ of immigration program discriminated against Latinos: Lawsuit – ABC News

Sigh…