Biden Restarts Program That Lets Parents Bring Central American Children to US

Unaccompanied illegal immigrant children wait to be transported by the U.S. Border Patrol after crossing the Rio Grande River into the United States from Mexico in La Joya, Texas, on April 7, 2021. Go Nakamura/Reuters

President Joe Biden’s administration is accepting new applications from parents who want to bring children as old as 20 from Central America, years after former President Donald Trump ended the program.

The Central American Minors Program was launched in 2014 during the Obama administration to let certain parents legally present in the United States bring their children from Guatemala, Honduras, or El Salvador to the United States if their request was cleared by U.S. authorities. It was first announced by Biden, then the vice president, in November 2014.