An Examination of the Administration's Central American Minors Refugee/Parole Program

Testimony of Doris Meissner, Director of MPI's U.S. Immigration Policy Program, before the Senate Judiciary Committee's Subcommittee on Immigration and the National Interest.

"Mr. Chairman and Members of the Subcommittee, thank you for inviting me to appear before you today for this examination of the new Central American Minors Refugee/Parole Program that began in December 2014.

My statement provides background about United States in-country refugee processing programs as the context for the Central American Minors program (CAM). It also outlines some of the policy questions surrounding in-country refugee processing. I am familiar with a number of the programs and the policy debates that surrounded them from my time in government as Executive Associate Commissioner of the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) in the 1980s when I had responsibility for the INS role in the first such in-country programs, and later as INS Commissioner in the 1990s for subsequent in-country processing programs [....]"