Unaccompanied children are crossing the US southern border in record numbers. Is this a US immigration crisis, making them undocumented immigrants, or is this a bigger international humanitarian crisis, making these kids refugees?

Since October of 2013, over 47,000 children have come to the Mexico/US border without the necessary documentation (visa, passport, etc). Most of these kids are not from Mexico, but from other Central American countries with extremely high murder rates, including Honduras (90.4 per 10,000 population), El Salvador (41.2/10k) and Guatemala (39.9/10k).—(source CNN Report on United Nations Global Study on Homicide).

There are some in the US (such as Rep. Jason Chaffetz [R., Utah]) who point to the lack of immigration reform as a reason for the spike. Others, such as the US Conference of Catholic Bishops, state that these kids”... defy common perceptions of migration in this hemisphere. They are akin to refugees in Africa fleeing civil wars. They are literally fleeing for their lives.”