New York Times (Editorial)
June 4, 2014
Along
the southern border, particularly in Texas, a rising influx of young
unauthorized migrants crossing the border with their parents — or, more
alarmingly, alone —
has overwhelmed the Border Patrol and sent the federal government
scurrying for a coordinated response. Its first action was the right
one: the creation of a top-level task force including the Federal
Emergency Management Agency and the Department of Health
and Human Services to care for the unaccompanied children.
It
is unclear what will happen next to stem the flow or to resolve the
uncertain status of the young arrivals, many of whom may have legitimate
claims to stay as refugees.
But administration officials, custodians of a tenacious deportation
policy, deserve credit for recognizing that this is not a
border-security crisis but a humanitarian one, fueled by growing
violence and instability in the countries feeding the influx: Mexico,
Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador.
The
United Nations high commissioner for refugees issued an alarming paper
last month affirming what The Times and other news organizations,
notably the magazine Mother
Jones, have also reported: that spiraling criminal violence and fear of
gangs have sent thousands, including many more younger children and
girls, on a desperate journey.
The
United Nations noted that the number of children traveling alone has
doubled each year since 2011, and that 60,000 are expected to reach the
United States this fiscal
year. The problem, though, is not confined to this country; the report
found that asylum requests by Hondurans, Salvadorans and Guatemalans
seeking refuge in Mexico, Panama, Nicaragua, Costa Rica and Belize has
soared by 435 percent.
The
crisis comes at a bad moment in America’s stalemated immigration
debate, with Republicans gleefully seizing on a situation seemingly
tailored to fit their false narrative,
that any reform short of an aggressively militarized border will create
yet another magnet to pull more of the wretched poor over our border,
and that all the chaos in the system is Mr. Obama’s fault.
This
was Bob Goodlatte, the Republican chairman of the House Judiciary
Committee: “The recent surge of children and teenagers from Central
America showing up at our southern
border is an administration-made disaster, and now President Obama is
calling in FEMA to mitigate the damage. Word has gotten out around the
world about President Obama’s lax immigration enforcement policies, and
it has encouraged more individuals to come
to the United States illegally.”
He
added: “Enforcement at the border and in the interior of the U.S. is
crucial to end these kinds of situations, not another bureaucratic task
force.”
Like
other naysayers in his party, he clings to a fantasy that controlling
migration is a simple matter of boots and barbed-wire.
Far
more compelling is the evidence that young people are being pushed out
of their homes, not pulled. They are fleeing for their lives. They may
know nothing about perceived
shifts in deportation policies or programs like the one deferring
deportations for young immigrants, for which none of them would qualify
anyway. But they do know that they face great danger by staying home.
The
administration’s first task is to meet the pressing needs of these
traumatized children: to shelter them, reunite them with families when
possible, give them legal
representation and properly assess the chances of seeking refugee
status or asylum, while working with the governments abroad to solve the
root causes of violence and instability. This emergency requires a
compassionate and reasoned response, commensurate
with its complexity.
Supporters
of comprehensive immigration reform — tightening border security,
repairing the immigration flow and placing millions on a path to legal
status — should acknowledge
that the ambitious legislation they seek won’t erase the problems
fueling the crisis abroad. It won’t curb the murder rate in Tegucigalpa
or undo the legacy of oppression and instability in Latin America. But
critics of reform should not pretend that they
own the answers. The view from the Republicans’ America — locked down,
in a gated country, hands washed of the migrant problem — is a fantasy
about law and order. But it is not a solution.
For more information, go to: www.beverlyhillsimmigrationlaw.com
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