--- title: Obama: Migrant Children Without Humanitarian Claims Will Be Sent Back description: An estimated 90,000 migrant children could cross into the U.S. before September. The President met with leaders of El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras to discuss ways to slow the influx canonical: https://time.com/3037414/barack-obama-migrant-children-humanitarian-claims/ author: Zeke Miller article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2014-07-25T21:29:17.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-10-01T08:57:55.474Z article:section: Politics og:title: Obama: Migrant Children Without Humanitarian Claims Will Be Sent Back og:description: An estimated 90,000 migrant children could cross into the U.S. before September. The President met with leaders of El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras to discuss ways to slow the influx og:url: https://time.com/3037414/barack-obama-migrant-children-humanitarian-claims/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt647fccda18f0f44c/69869d53cd804dd8c8ccc1f6/obama-central-american-leaders-honduras-guatemala-el-salvador.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 3500 og:image:height: 1969 og:image:alt: U.S. President Obama speaks to the media while he hosts a meeting with El Salvador's President Sanchez Ceren, Guatemala's President Perez Molina and Honduras' President Orlando Hernandez in the Cabinet Room of the White House in Washington og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Obama: Migrant Children Without Humanitarian Claims Will Be Sent Back twitter:description: An estimated 90,000 migrant children could cross into the U.S. before September. The President met with leaders of El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras to discuss ways to slow the influx twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt647fccda18f0f44c/69869d53cd804dd8c8ccc1f6/obama-central-american-leaders-honduras-guatemala-el-salvador.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Obama: Migrant Children Without Humanitarian Claims Will Be Sent Back > Sponsored content. Supplied in partnership with TIME. TIME is the sponsor and source of this material. > Last updated: September 2026. ## TIME D.C. Brief: Reference Facts and FAQ ### Definition D.C. Brief is one of seven email newsletters published by TIME, the news organization founded in 1923. Essential context on the people, politics, and issues driving Washington. D.C. Brief goes beyond the Washington headlines to explain the politics, personalities and power dynamics shaping what happens next. 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It is written by a TIME senior correspondent who covers the capital full time. #### Who writes TIME's D.C. Brief? Philip Elliott, a senior correspondent at TIME, writes D.C. Brief. #### Is D.C. Brief free? Yes. D.C. Brief is free at time.com/newsletters. ### Sources * TIME Newsletters: [time.com/newsletters](/c/time-nl-dcbrief-2026q3/newsletters?i=d0852471-05ca-426f-9345-895f4258a264&cr=time-nl-dcbrief-2026q3-v1) ## Video: The Immigration Crisis [Watch (HLS stream): The Immigration Crisis](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/ba7H8axK.m3u8) (2:06)  _Published 2014-07-26. White House and Congress struggle to address border crisis_ by [Zeke Miller](https://time.com/author/zeke-j-miller/) ## Zeke Miller Jul 25, 2014 9:29 PM UTC by [Zeke Miller](https://time.com/author/zeke-j-miller/) ## Zeke Miller Jul 25, 2014 9:29 PM UTC President Barack Obama took a tough line on the thousands of unaccompanied migrant children who have crossed the nation’s southern border in recent months, saying those without humanitarian claims will be subject to return to their home countries eventually. Meeting with the leaders of El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras, Obama continued his efforts to [dissuade parents from sending their children ](http://time.com/3033838/obama-refugee-honduras-immigration/)on the often dangerous journey to the United States. “Children who do not have proper claims,” Obama said, “will at some point be subject to repatriation to their home countries.” But Obama did preview what the administration is calling a “pilot program” that he is considering in [Honduras](http://time.com/3020874/honduras-immigration-border-crises-children/) to allow those with refugee claims to make them from that country without physically making the journey to the United States. “Typically refugee status is not granted just on economic need or because a family lives in a bad neighborhood or poverty,” Obama said. “It’s typically defined fairly narrowly.” “There may be some narrow circumstances in which there is humanitarian or refugee status that a family might be eligible for,” he added. “If that were the case it would be better for them to apply in-country rather than take a very dangerous journey up to Texas to make those same claims. But I think it’s important to recognize that that would not necessarily accommodate a large number of additional migrants.” Obama said such a system would keep smugglers from profiting off families seeking better lives for their children, and “makes this underground migration system less necessary.” Earlier this month Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson estimated that up to 90,000 migrant children will attempt to cross into the U.S. during the fiscal year ending this September. ## Transcript Even with thousand of migrant children's still in limbo after floating to the US from central America. The white house and congress are hardly borderly on a solution. This is a problem of the president's own making. House speaker John Bonher said, democrats wont get $ 3. 7 billion in emergency funding for the border crisis unless republicans can tweak a loop hole in the law that offers young unaccompanied minors and entailment have special legal status. We've got a president that's AWOL and the president outta get engaged in this if he actually wants something to happen. A new CNN ORC poll finds the public clambering for change. With 74 percent saying it's extremely or very important for the US to deal with illegal immigration. A ten point jump over last year. We must pass the President's request, a, a supplemental bill, Central American leaders are in Washington asking for help. An untold number of their children are being abused on their long journey North, as the President of Honduras told CNN's Christiane Amanpour [ FOREIGN ] Young girls, 13- year old, the coyotes are human smugglers, give them birth control pills, because most of them are going to sexually abused. Texas government Rick Perry is calling for the national guard to be deployed on the border. I will not stand idly by while our citizens are under assault, and little children from Central America are detained in squalor. We are too good a country for that to occur. The Whitehouse first dubbed Perry's request symbolic, noting apprehensions of unaccompanied minors are down by half since last month. It seems to me that a much more powerful symbol would be the bipartisan passage of legislation that would actually make a historic investment in border security and send a additional 20, 000 personnel to the border. Now it turns out the Obama Administration has its own team on the ground on the border assessing whether a national guard deployment might be a good idea after all. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/3037414/barack-obama-migrant-children-humanitarian-claims/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/3037414/barack-obama-migrant-children-humanitarian-claims/"},"headline":"Obama: Migrant Children Without Humanitarian Claims Will Be Sent Back","datePublished":"2014-07-25T21:29:17.000Z","dateModified":"2026-10-01T08:57:55.474Z","description":"An estimated 90,000 migrant children could cross into the U.S. before September. 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