Washington Times
By Stephen Dinan
May 28, 2014
Children
traveling without their families, including an “overwhelming” number
younger than 12, are flooding across the southwestern border in the
latest test of the Obama
administration’s immigration policy.
Homeland
Security Officials predict that 60,000 minors will cross the border
this year and that the number will double next year, accounting for an
astonishing percentage
of people trying to jump the border — braving the tremendous perils of
crossing Mexico and trying to evade border authorities, hoping to
eventually connect with family in the U.S.
The
administration seems powerless to stop most of the border breaches and
instead has searched for ways to manage the flow of vulnerable, and
politically sympathetic,
immigrants.
On
Thursday, Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson will raise the issue
with Congress. He will recount his trip this month to the border in
Texas, where he saw such
children, which the government calls “unaccompanied alien children,” or
UACs.
“I
have been closely following this emerging issue since coming into
office, with a particular focus on the Rio Grande Valley,” Mr. Johnson
will tell the House, according
to his prepared testimony. “I traveled to McAllen, Texas, to view the
situation and saw the children there firsthand — an overwhelming number
of whom were under 12 years old.”
Officials
are grappling with how the U.S. should handle children inside the
border and whether there is any way to stop the flow.
Under
U.S. law, the children are entitled to special protections and can’t be
put straight into deportation proceedings, as adults are.
Instead,
they are screened for trafficking concerns. Once processed, they are
placed with either foster families or sent to their own families in the
U.S. while they apply
for asylum or a special juvenile visa, said Marc R. Rosenblum, deputy director of the Migration Policy Institute’s U.S. immigration policy program.
“Those policies make a lot of sense because these are a vulnerable population,” he said.
In
some cases, Homeland Security officials are sending the children to be
with their parents — even when those parents are known to be living in
the U.S. illegally. A
federal judge in Texas blasted the department for that practice late
last year, saying the government essentially had become complicit in
criminal activity.
“The
DHS is rewarding criminal conduct instead of enforcing the current
laws. More troubling, the DHS is encouraging parents to seriously
jeopardize the safety of their
children,” Judge Andrew S. Hanen wrote in a court order.
The
children are chiefly from El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras, and have
to cross through Mexico, braving the elements and smugglers to
eventually arrive at the border
in Texas, where they generally try to cross. Reports of rape are common
among the girls.
The
U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees released a study this year that
surveyed more than 400 of the children as they arrived in the U.S. and
found nearly half of them
were fleeing drug cartels or gangs in their home countries. Still
others were fleeing abusive homes.
“I
am here because the gang threatened me,” one 15-year-old girl from El
Salvador, identified only as Maritza, told the UNHCR investigators. “One
of them ‘liked’ me. Another
gang member told my uncle that he should get me out of there because
the guy who liked me was going to do me harm. In El Salvador they take
young girls, rape them and throw them in plastic bags.”
The
number of unaccompanied children has spiked even in the past few weeks,
said Homeland Security spokeswoman Marsha Catron, who said the rise has
strained her department
and the Department of Health and Human Services, which under the law is
responsible for caring for the children.
HHS
has asked for space to house up to 1,000 children at Lackland Air Force
Base, and the government is trying to find even more facilities.
Meanwhile,
Mr. Johnson has sent staff to southern Texas to make sure children are
receiving medical care. He also has directed his department to develop
“an aggressive
public messaging campaign to outline the dangers of and deter” the
children from trying to cross, the spokeswoman said.
“DHS
is expanding awareness campaigns targeting potential crossers, in their
home countries, in an effort to warn them of the extreme dangers
associated with attempts
to illegally enter the United States while also underscoring the fact
that illegal crossers — including children seeking to reunite with
families — are not eligible for legal status, including under
prospective legislation,” Ms. Catron said.
But she acknowledged that the government has limited tools to stem the flow.
Jessica
Vaughan, policy studies director at the Center for Immigration Studies,
said the numbers have been rising steadily for several years, and that
the administration
should have been better prepared.
“This
is a crisis on the level of the Mariel crisis. This far outstrips the
agency’s capacity to deal with it in the normal way,” she said,
referring to the 1980 mass
emigration from Cuba. “But they saw this coming, too.
They
estimated months ago that it was going to be double the prior year and
they don’t seem to be taking any steps to prevent it from happening.”
She
said releasing the children into the community, where they live for
years while awaiting a final decision on their cases, will encourage
more families to send their
children.
“I
would argue that it would be perhaps more humane to deal with it firmly
so that people stop taking the risk of putting children through this
smuggling ordeal,” Ms.
Vaughan said.
That
is probably unthinkable for an administration that has carved most
illegal immigrants in the interior of the U.S. out of danger of
deportation, and is searching for
more ways to halt deportations.
Left with few other options, the administration has pleaded for help from Mexico, which is the first to see the border crossers.
Secretary of State John F. Kerry raised the issue during a recent visit to Mexico City.
For now though, the administration continues to struggle.
Mr.
Rosenblum of the Migration Policy Institute said he is able to come up
with good policy answers to most immigration questions, even if they are
not politically possible.
But in this case, he said, that’s not true.
“On
this one, there’s really not a good policy answer,” he said. “Anything
you do to protect those kids creates perverse incentives for other
families to send their kids,
and anything you do on enforcement puts them back in those bad
situations.”
For more information, go to: www.beverlyhillsimmigrationlaw.com
