Thread: Undocumented children find San Antonio to be a 'Sanctuary City'

Undocumented children find San Antonio to be a 'Sanctuary City'



by Joe Conger / KENS 5
Bio | Email | Follow: @joe_congerPosted on May 15, 2014 at 10:37 PM

Related:

• Data on unaccompanied alien children from the Office of Refugee Resettlement

SAN ANTONIO -- Imagine taking a 1,200 mile trip.
Now imagine a 10-year-old taking that same trip across three different countries, and without parents.

Undocumented children are flooding South Texas with numbers growing exponentially, and our federal government is helping them out.

Unlike undocumented adults who are often sent back to their home country, or detained in federal facilities, KENS 5 I-Team has discovered many of the children who cross the border remain here to seek amnesty or special immigration status.

Silently, under the cover of darkness, in an undocumented stream across the Texas-Mexico border, nearly 40,000 of them crossed last year. And authorities estimate half of them are minors.

At the age of 15, "Francis" left El Salvador on a 17-day journey to the United States.

KENS 5 is not allowed to show her face or use her real name, but it's her story that can be revealed.

Francis said she left her home fearing her safety from the organized crime around her.

"They threatened me," Francis said. "There's prostitution in El Salvador.

They told me if I didn't get with them, or something, they would kill."

Francis pushed back tears as she talked about midnight bus rides and treks on foot through El Salvador, Guatemala and Mexico, before finally arriving at the Rio Grande.

It cost her family $5,000 to get coyotes to take her that far, and into the river on an inflatable raft, which the U.S. Border Patrol promptly picked up.

If you think it’s an automatic trip back to El Salvador, or detention, think again.

Francis, like thousands of others, is enrolled in a Texas school, has a local family caring for her, and is awaiting possible re-unification with her parents in another state.

Her $1,500 a month bill is supported by taxpayers.

In 2003, U.S. law became friendlier to the undocumented youth, placing unaccompanied minors under the care of the Department of Health and Human Services, and not immigration.

Federal officials admit the additional care could be making illegal trips like the one Francis took more appealing.

As more minors cross the border, the budget has ballooned to meet their needs.

In 2008, it took around $133 Million to provide food, clothing, and administrative care to some 7,000 undocumented children.

In 2014, the program is expected to cost nearly a billion dollars, and service some 60,000 kids, whose ages range from just a few months to 17-years-old.

"A lot of them have seen people die along the way," David Armendariz, an immigration attorney, said. "Even if they weren't sexually assaulted themselves, they've seen this happen to other people. Those kinds of things will always scar those children."

Immigration attorneys like David Armendariz say the care is essential, since many of the teens are coping with images once reserved for war veterans.

"A lot of them have PTSD from things that have happened to them," Armendariz said. "Not only in their home country, but in route through Mexico."

Armendariz’s firm is not handling Francis’ case, but his staff says her story isn’t unique.

To keep her special juvenile immigration status, she and other minors must satisfy Texas' family court judges.

They must prove they’ve been neglected, abused or abandoned by one parent.

The alternative is to seek asylum in the U.S., which attorneys say is even tougher.

"If they don't qualify for this particular status or we're unable to win these cases for them, where do they go? They're going back to a place where there is nothing for them," Robert Jiminez, an immigration attorney, said. "They don't have anybody to take care of them."

Francis hasn’t seen her mother in seven years, and her father in ten. Her immigration status, she said, is a question mark.

Reporter: Do you have a future here?

“Perhaps," Francis said. "If I study over there, there is fear that something would happen to me.”

The Department of Health and Humans Services said these unaccompanied children usually end up in a shelter or foster family for up to 40 days, and are reunified with their families in the U.S. 85 to 90% of the time.

That was the case for Francis.

She was whisked away to a state in the northwest and reunited with her mother.

Francis said she worries about her younger brother. He is still in El Salvador.

http://www.kens5.com/news/Undocument...259479691.html

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