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On Friday, President Obama meeting with the leaders of Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador, urged them to do all they can to stem the flow of migrant children to the United States.

The New York Times reported that the president called the meeting with Presidents Juan Orlando Hernández of Honduras, Otto Pérez Molina of Guatemala and Salvador Sánchez Cerén of El Salvador to emphasize the importance of striking at the root causes of what he has called a humanitarian crisis on the border between Mexico and the United States. Mr. Obama pressed them to do more to convince their citizens not to make the dangerous journey to America.

In his meeting with all three Central American leaders, Obama urged them to inform their citizens that those trying to migrate to the United States will not be permitted to stay.

“I emphasized that the American people and my administration have great compassion for these children,” Mr. Obama said after the meeting. He added, “But I also emphasized to my friends that we have to deter a continuing influx of children putting themselves at risk.”

This meeting has come at a time when over 50,000 migrant children, mostly coming from Central America have flooded the U.S. southern border.  At the same time the president is trying to get Congress to allocate more resources to handle the influx of migrant children into the U.S.

The New York Times reported the meeting with the two presidents; they placed much of the blame for the current border crisis on the United States. While they said they were working to crack down on drug trafficking and violence in their own countries, they also called on the United States to share in the responsibility for the crisis.

President Juan Orlando Hernández of Honduras stated “the ambiguity that has been the hallmark of the debate of the reform of the immigration process in this country.”

Hernández continued, “Here we have to say that the coyotes, the smugglers, who are very much a part of organized crime networks, perversely have sought to exploit those ambiguities and peddle a mistaken, a totally wrong interpretation to the parents of these children in saying, ‘You can get your kids in the U.S., we can do it for you.’ ”

The Center for Strategic and International Studies reported that with this crisis the Obama requested an emergency appropriation to the tune of $3.7 billion to deal with the crisis, most of which would have been for increasing capacity to receive, care for and process these children. But after languishing in Congress, Senate Democrats and House Republicans each developed their own proposals, reducing the president’s by 1billion (dollars) and 2 billion (dollars), respectively, and conditioning support.

President Otto Pérez Molina of Guatemala stated while being interviewed at the Center for Strategic and International Studies seemed to place the blame on the U.S. for the influx of migrant children, as the United States has curtailed investment in the Central America.

“The United States was the major investor in our country.  Now it is the seventh investor in Guatemala.  Before the United States, we see Canada investing in Guatemala, we see Russia, and we see Colombia investing in Guatemala. And the United States moved from being the top investor in Guatemala to the seventh investor in Guatemala.”

Molina continued, “we investment.  We need the opportunity to create employment, and that will prevent the need for the U.S. to have to invest in border patrolling, border security, border controls and the money that is invested in border processes.  With one tenth of the $7 billion or the one tenth of that, if it came as investment in our country, I am sure the United States would no longer need to invest on the borders.”

Many may be taken aback by the statement by Molina, but he does have a point.

Both political parties seem to only want to focus on the symptom of the influx of migrants from Central America but fail to address the root cause of the crisis.

Why not focus on working with the Central American countries to create economic opportunities in these countries.

One only has to look back at the history of immigration to this country and understand that the primary reason was instability in the country of origin.  Why not work with these countries and help them or pressure them to provide economic opportunities for their own people.

It seems no matter what party occupies the White house we only focus on Latin America when a crisis erupts; why not be proactive.