SAN DIEGO.' Most parents have a hard time allowing their children to walk to the local park by themselves, let alone travel 3,000+ kilometers alone or with complete strangers across two or three countries on foot, on public transportation, and on top of a freight train known as "La Bestia." But, this year alone, 52,000 unaccompanied minors have done just that, most of them beginning their journey in Guatemala, El Salvador, and Honduras and ending their journeys at the US/Mexico border after being detained by the Border Patrol. That is, if they are lucky enough to arrive at all.

The fact that there isn't a mass exodus of children from Nicaragua, which is comparatively poorer than El Salvador, Honduras and Nicaragua, indicates that poverty has less to do with the exodus and that it must be more related to violence ands safety concerns. The U.S. isn't the only country seeing an uptick in asylum seekers from Central America.Other countries receiving increased amounts of migrants include Canada, Mexico, Costa Rica, Panama, Nicaragua, and Belize.

In the U.S., both sides of the aisle agree that this is a humanitarian crisis. Yet neither side has wasted time in turning this into a political bullet to shoot at the other side, specifically by laying blame on as to whose fault it is that these unaccompanied children are arriving at our borders in record numbers to begin with.

What is obvious to most is that no parent would risk financing a dangerous journey for their children, many of them reportedly under the age of 14, if there wasn't credible fear for their safety and well being in their home countries. The trip for each child on average costs around $4,000, but in no way guarantees that the child will arrive safely.

At the same time, it doesn't seem logical that parents would have their children embark on treacherous journeys, at the risk of, exploitation, rape, injury, and even death if they didn't have some sort of expectation that once arriving in the U.S. their child would be able to stay in the country, safe and sound, for more than a couple of months.

From a political standpoint, it doesn't help that this wave of undocumented children is arriving precisely at a time when Congress's approval rates are at a record low, and President Obama has all but given up on the political process and is threatening to act via executive action, and both sides are wary of what the other might do given that we are nearing election season. Neither party wants the other party to get credit for solving the problem while their party is not at the helm.

From an economic standpoint, many in the U.S. are still not completely sure if the country is coming out of an economic recession or on the verge of another dive. So, the prospect of having to throw money at a surge of immigrants isn't well received by many, even though it relates to children (which is usually a non-debatable topic). This is especially true for towns and municipalities, which don't have the liberty that the Federal Government has of "printing money" and already have over-strained public services.

For states along the border, this surge impacts us beyond just reading the troubling headlines. Just this week, some 140 undocumented immigrant children and families arrived by plane from Texas and were to be processed at a facility in Murrieta, California, a suburb of 107,000 residents 70 miles to the north of San Diego. Three buses transporting these immigrants were met with a human blockade of between 200 and 300 protesters who surrounded the buses. The buses were forced to reroute to a Customs and Border facility in San Ysidro.

According to officials, the Migrants that were to be processed there would not be released locally and did not have criminal records (most of those arriving are children after all). It is said that after processing, ICE agents were going to reunite them with family members or temporary housing throughout the country, while they undergo immigration hearings if officials determine they have a case for asylum. If they don't have a case for asylum, these children would be deported back to their native countries. But, unless a child is from Mexico, the process of deportation can take months.

Murrieta Mayor Alan Long urged locals to fight these immigration transfers as it was anticipated that immigrants were scheduled to arrive every 72 hours for several weeks and he fears that the federal system would spread the cost of handling this surge on to the backs of local communities.

Two previous attempts to send migrants to the facility had been defeated, just as a recent attempt to send migrants to Escondido was defeated during a city council meeting. Facilities in New Mexico, and El Centro, California are also being tapped into for the overflow. Another flight of 140 migrants is expected arrive this week and those immigrants are scheduled to be transferred to a facility in El Centro.

According to the CBP, the overall border apprehensions this past year have only slightly increased, but it is the increase of unaccompanied children (and primarily children from countries other than Mexico) that presents greater challenges for the CBP in terms of manpower and facilities requirements.

In an official statement released by Department of Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnsen last month, he indicated that the flow of unaccompanied children requires significant government coordination and a sustained response. He indicated that the Customs and Border Protection, Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and the Departments of Health and Human Services, State, Defense, and the General Services Administration will be coordinating together in the short term while long-term strategies to tackle recent migration trends are formulated. Namely, he indicated they would work closely with the governments of Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador.

For Fiscal Year 2015, the President's budged had originally requested $868 million for agencies charged with processing and housing unaccompanied minors, which is the same amount that was appropriated in 2014. But, last month that request was increased to $2.28 billion in order to respond to the surge, Additionally, the House recently approved an additional $166 million for the DHS to pay for overtime, contract services for care and support of the unaccompanied minors, and transportation costs.

In the short term, the White House is preparing an emergency request to Congress for additional powers to fast-track deportation of tens of thousands of unaccompanied children from Central America and bypass protections introduced in 2002 whereby unaccompanied minors were to be transferred from the CBP to the Office of Refugee Resettlement to reunite the child with the parent or guardian. It is unclear what the long-term strategy to stem the flow of unaccompanied minors will be.

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