Rural Migrant Families and the Push Factors that Drive Migration from Central America

On this week’s show of JustLove, Monsignor Kevin Sullivan talks about migrant families and what drives migration.

Flor Espinosa-Araque is the Center Director for the Agri-Business Child Development (ABCD) Center up in Kingston, New York. ABCD is a non-profit dedicated to providing the highest quality early childhood education and social services to farm worker and other eligible families up in Ulster County, New York, and its environs. Flor, who has worked with ABCD affiliated centers both Kingston and Middletown New York since 2003, will be discussing with Msgr. Sullivan the work of the ABCD Centers as well as the lives of the migrant and immigrant families that she serves in the rural counties just north of New York City.

Adriana Beltran is Director for Citizen Security at the Washington Office for Latin America (WOLA). She leads WOLA’s efforts focused upon violence prevention, organized crime, institutional strengthening, human rights, and police and judicial reform in Central America. Adriana talks to Msgr. Sullivan about the “push factors” in the Central American countries of El Salvador, Guatemala and Nicaragua, including violence, gang activity, government and police corruption, and weak intuitions that are driving families from those places to undertake perilous migration journeys to seek safety in the United States.

Listen Now.