Unaccompanied minors pose challenge to Lynn officials

LYNN – The number of unaccompanied minors relocated from Guatemala to Lynn has increased 250 percent since 2010, and Mayor Judith Flanagan Kennedy wants federal officials to understand small cities? inability to fully assist these refugees.?No one in this city is a bigot, but when you don?t have money, it becomes a problem. I don?t think there has been enough of a discussion between federal government and local governments,” she told local business owners and employees Friday.Immigration advocates have warned for months that they expect tens of thousands of unaccompanied minors to cross the border this year.The number of unaccompanied minors from El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras has soared more than 1,000 percent, according to Border Patrol data. In fiscal year 2009, border agents apprehended 3,304 such children from those three countries. This year, that figure is now more than 48,000 and expected to continue to grow.Two Guatemalan youths entered Lynn schools during the 2010-2011 school year, according to statistics provided to School Committee members by Superintendent Catherine Latham. That number jumped to 26 during the following school year, and in 2012 Latham alerted the committee to the challenge local public schools faced in educating unaccompanied minors from Guatemala.School officials at the time said the youths, in many cases, were teenagers old enough to attend ninth grade but equipped with elementary-school-level academic skills.Lynn school administrators tried several approaches, beginning in 2012, to provide space to teach unaccompanied minors even as their number soared to 84. That number tripled to 248 during the school year that just ended. Half of those students qualify in terms of their age to be ninth-graders.Kennedy said she plans to meet this summer in Washington, D.C., with Center for Immigration Policy Studies officials to discuss Lynn?s challenges in educating these unaccompanied minors. “We want to see if we can get a voice on the national stage,” she said.Latham told committee members Thursday night that work demands and other challenges prompt unaccompanied minors to drop out of school and re-enroll – a dynamic that Latham said affects public school dropout statistics.?We need to strengthen programs for unaccompanied minors,” she said.Kennedy said federal officials must devise a system to distribute unaccompanied minors coming into the United States to cities across the nation and provide tax dollar support for communities assisting the youths.?The bottom line is the money must flow,” she said Friday.