Flow of minors into U.S. is a humanitarian crisis not meat for a negative ad
WASHINGTON, D.C. - Here’s a take on a news story you don’t get much these days: Lawmakers resist pressures to turn the flood of minors coming into this country over the Mexican border illegally into a partisan blame game and persist in treating the problem sensibly, as a humanitarian issue. It’s true.
And because this influx of children over the southern border generally hasn’t been grist for the Polarization-Industrial Complex and the talk show arguers, you may not have heard a lot about it. So here is some background:
Tens of thousands of children are on the run in the Americas.
By year’s end, as many
as 90,000 unaccompanied children are expected to cross the southern border into the U.S., compared to only 24,000 in 2013. They are not primarily Mexicans looking for work or economic security, but young people trying to get away from violence in Central America.
So many are coming, that Vice President Biden is in Guatemala on Friday meeting with Central American leaders to try to encourage a regional response to the crisis. And he’s also bringing a tough message to the children: Even if you make the dangerous journey, there’s no guarantee you can stay.
These unaccompanied minors illegally crossing into the U.S. are coming mainly from El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras. They are defying the common perceptions of illegal immigrants in America; indeed, if this were happening in another country, we would probably be calling these children refugees, not illegal minors.
Most experts inside and outside the government believe they are fleeing for safety, not for economic reasons. Honduras has the world’s highest murder rate; El Salvador and Guatemala are not far behind, ranked forth and fifth in worldwide murder rates respectively. Much of the violence they face stems from gang activity and many of the kids are fleeing forced gang recruitment.
Earlier this year, the United Nations High Commissioner on Refugees
interviewed 404 children who crossed into the U.S., illegally and alone, from Central America and Mexico. More than half, 58%, said they had suffered, been threatened, or feared serious harm" that might merit international protection.”
Lesly Velez, one of the authors of the UNHCR report
told the National Journal that these kids are running for their lives:
"We liken the situation very much to the situation of the recruitment of child soldiers on other continents. Children are particularly vulnerable, they are susceptible to harm, they are easily terrorized, and the very fact that they are children is the single factor in the harm that they are experiencing. They are specifically being target to be recruited."
Now, not everyone sees the situation that way.
“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," said Rep. Robert Goodlatte, the Republican Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee.
Texas Republican Sen. Ted Cruz argued at a recent Senate Judiciary Committee hearing that “the numbers [of unaccompanied children] spike[d] dramatically” after President Obama created the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, program in 2012.
DACA allows some young immigrants who arrived in the country illegally as children to apply for a deportation waiver. Applicants must have been in the country since June 2007 and have arrived before they turned 16. That means DACA doesn’t actually apply to these new arrivals and that’s the message Biden is sending today.
Former House Majority Leader Eric Cantor was a rare Republican leader who was pushing comprehensive reforms of immigration policy. But his dramatic downfall to an anti-immigration Tea Party candidate has clouded the future of those efforts. And some are trying to use the current border crisis as a weapon in the broader immigration fight.
So far they aren’t gaining too much traction. The White House has avoided being drawn into a
political battle and Congress is approving funds to deal with the issue.
The U.S. is treating the situation mostly as a humanitarian crisis. By law, unaccompanied children caught crossing illegally from countries other than Mexico are treated differently.
After being apprehended by the Border Patrol, they must be turned over within 72 hours to a refugee resettlement office that is part of the Department of Health and Human Services. Health officials must try to find relatives or other adults in the United States who can care for them while their immigration cases move through the courts.
In response to the dramatic increase in unaccompanied child migrants this year, the Senate Appropriations Committee voted to give the Obama administration $2 billion. So many unaccompanied children have arrived in the U.S. that three special detention centers have been set up at military bases in Texas, Oklahoma and California to house them.
And the White House announced a new program to provide lawyers from children facing deportation.
The situation is obviously volatile. For example, there are
accusations of abuse of these minors inside the U.S. detention centers. And the political truce could break down as the mid-term elections get closer.
But for now, it’s a man-bites-dog story: Politicians respond pragmatically to humanitarian crisis.
