In recent weeks, news headlines have less and less been about the "humanitarian crisis" at the border, and have been replaced mostly by news on the conflict in Gaza. But there is no doubt that this topic will return to the front page, and will be further amped up the closer we get to the 2016 presidential election. While the crisis at the border is mainly related to the surge of unaccompanied minors, it will no doubt evolve into talks on how to tackle the broken immigration system as a whole.

Meanwhile, politicians in office are trying to figure out not only what to do with the thousands of children who have already arrived at the U.S./Mexico border from Central America, but also how to reduce the tide of unaccompanied minors moving forward. Republicans are under pressure to pass a border response bill before their August recess.

lt is likely that any such bill will include proposed changes to the 2008 law.

In the short-run, Texas governor Rick Perry announced he will be sending 1,000 National Guard soldiers to bolster the border. President Obama has requested supplemental funding of $3.7 billion dollars to handle the surge, including $40 million to go to drone surveillance. Plans in Texas to spend $30 million over the next six months to create a "surge" of state law enforcement resources. Federal proposals include an increased amount of immigration judges to speed up deportation proceedings.

As far as a long-term strategy, and what to do with children before they embark on treacherous journeys, politicians on both sides of the aisle appear to be flip-flopping on their positions, likely in an attempt to see what will sit well with constituents. While Hillary Clinton has not officially announced she will run in 2016, she has expressed support for keeping the polemic 2008 child trafficking law as is and instead set up a refugee pilot program in Honduras, Guatemala, and El Salvador. The proposed pilot program would screen kids in their home countries before they get in the hands of coyotes. This is a dramatic change from her original stance which was to change the 2008 law and send the children back home.

This idea of setting up a pilot refugee screening program in Honduras, which could later be expanded to other Central American countries if successful, has received opposition by those that believe that more people will apply for refugee status if they can just do it from consulates in their home countries. Similar programs have been implemented around the world in countries like Haiti and Vietnam, but this would be the first time that such a program would be implemented in a country reachable by land.

On Friday, President Obama met with Central American leaders to determine how to slow down the exodus of minors. In addition to handling the repatriation of children that arrived in the U.S., moving forward the leaders of these countries will be determining how to improve safety and increase economic opportunities in Central America in the long run. Guatemalan President, Otto Molina, has proposed a temporary work program for Central Americans so that they don't have to permanently leave their families and can send money back home.

Honduran president, Juan Orlando Hernandez, believes that the U.S. shares responsibility to combat violence fueled by drug trafficking to supply U.S. consumers.

Meanwhile, Mexico is caught in the middle. The Mexican government is reportedly going to crack down on use by migrants of the cargo train, known as La Bestia. This initiative is apparently spreading to the private sector as well. According to FoxNewsLatino, a railroad company in Mexico will reportedly be tripling the speed of its freight trains from six mph to eighteen mph, to give migrants less opportunity to climb on board.

In order to run the train at faster speeds, the railway company will have to invest more than $150 million over the next five years on railway improvements so that the track may handle these speeds.

The company will reportedly stop using screws on train tracks, and instead connect the rails with welded metal plates, in order to prevent theft of tracks. Derailment is common, and the train frequently has to stop because of missing tracks, at which time immigrants climb aboard. A surveillance system and control center are also planned to monitor train activities and alert authorities of migrants on board.

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