Young Migrants Tax System

Wall Street Journal

Young Migrants Tax System

By Laura Meckler and Dudley Althaus

June 19, 2014

When Vice President Joe Biden arrives in Guatemala on Friday, his message to children who envision a better life in the U.S. will be straightforward: Don't come.

Mr. Biden's visit is one piece of the White House's unfolding response to a surge of children traveling illegally to the U.S. from Central America, unaccompanied by an adult, in what has become a humanitarian and political crisis for the Obama administration. On Thursday, President Barack Obama called Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto to discuss the need for "concrete proposals" as part of a regional strategy to stem the tide, the White House said.

For weeks, officials have scrambled to house the children now in government custody, primarily from Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador. More than 7,600 are being held in 100 permanent shelters, plus three military bases.

In fiscal 2013, almost 25,000 immigrant children were processed through the system. The government had projected the number would be 60,000 this year, and an internal estimate now suggests it could reach 90,000. In a shift, more girls and more younger children are arriving, with 27% of recent migrants female and about 25% under age 14, government figures show.

On Wednesday, a 17-year-old boy from Honduras, Carlos Rivera, was among scores of Central Americans at a migrant shelter on the Mexican banks of the Rio Grande, considering strategies for how to get across and into the U.S. Many migrants there said word spread months ago of relatives and neighbors turning themselves in to U.S. border agents and now living unmolested in the U.S.

One of 12 children from a poor farm family, Carlos said he left home last month after concluding he had few economic options and in fear of his country's perpetually warring gangs, which pressure young men to join or suffer retribution.

"There is a lot of delinquency and gangster life. I don't want to get involved in it," he said at the Senda de Vida shelter in Reynosa, Mexico. "I just want to live better, to get ahead."

Once in Border Patrol custody, children typically sleep on concrete floors, with showers set up in trailers. "These are equivalent of refugee camps, U.S. style," said Wendy Young, president of Kids in Need of Defense, which works to provide legal representation for the children.

The Health and Human Services Department is scrambling to expand its capacity. In recent weeks, it opened temporary facilities at three military bases: Lackland in Texas, Ventura County in California and Fort Sill in Oklahoma. The agency continues to look for additional places, and is considering a closed college in Virginia. HHS contractors have worked to hire additional personnel, including caseworkers and doctors.

In Washington, the issue has become a political divider. The White House and Democrats emphasize that violence in the region is pushing desperate people to the U.S., while Republicans blame Mr. Obama's border and immigration policies.

"Thousands in Central America…believe it is better to run for their lives and risk dying, than stay and die for sure," Sen. Robert Menendez (D., N.J.) said Thursday. Across the Capitol, House Speaker John Boehner (R., Ohio) said: "We're seeing a humanitarian disaster—one of the administration's own making."

In 2012, Mr. Obama provided safe harbor from deportation to some people brought to the U.S. as children, but to qualify, children had to have arrived by 2007. Obama-backed legislation pending in Congress would offer a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants, but they must have arrived in the U.S. by a cutoff date that has passed.

In Guatemala on Friday, the vice president will emphasize the hazards of illegal immigration and that recent arrivals don't qualify for such programs, the White House said. It added that he will discuss possible solutions to the problem with senior regional officials, including leaders from the three countries producing the surge in children.

But children who arrive by themselves do get special treatment under laws and policies in place since the George W. Bush administration, compared with adults.

All such children are put into deportation proceedings. But HHS officials are required to look for family or other sponsors in the U.S. with whom they can stay as their cases play out. That can be years in some parts of the U.S. because of backlogs in immigration courts.

About 90% of the children are placed with family or friends living in the U.S.—55% go to their parents. And while recent border crossers are a priority for deportation under Obama administration policy, by law the children's cases aren't expedited.

In Reynosa, women preparing to cross the Rio Grande said that local smugglers linked to Mexico's violent Gulf Cartel demand $500 to $700 for a 25-yard raft ride across the swollen river.

"These poor women and children are coming here blindly," said Rosalia Diaz, a Roman Catholic nun in charge of another migrant shelter near the border.

For many migrants, warnings from U.S. officials that they eventually will be deported seem a vague and trifling concern.

"I'm just planning to get in and then I will figure things out," said Bryan Soler, a 15-year-old with a wide smile who hitchhiked alone to the Rio Grande from his home in rural Honduras. He said he plans to swim across the treacherous border river.

"Everyone in Honduras says how beautiful the United States is," he said. "You want to see it."

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