16,067 Unaccompanied Minors Apprehended Along U.S. Borders in 2011

June 12, 2012
CNS News

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(CNSNews.com) -- About 7 of every 10 individuals under 18 years of age, who were apprehended by U.S Border Patrol last year -- 16,067 individuals -- were unaccompanied, according to the latest federal statistics.

The data, which cover apprehensions by the U.S. Border Patrol during fiscal year 2011 (Oct. 1, 2010 - Sept. 30, 2011), were published by the agency in April.

Border Patrol is part of the Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agency, a component of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).

The data show that the total 23,089 illegal aliens under age 18 were arrested by border agents as they tried to cross U.S. international boundaries, including the northern, southwest, and coastal borders, 16,067 (about 70 percent) of them were unaccompanied.

Most of the these apprehensions occurred along the U.S.-Mexico border, which is also where most illegal cross-border activity takes place.

There were 22,851 total apprehensions of illegal immigrants under age 18 along the southwest border alone. For those, 15,949 (70 percent) were arrested without a parent or family member around.

Those apprehension along the southwest border, including both the accompanied and unaccompanied minors, account for 99 percent of the total 23,089 individuals arrested at all the bondaries: southern, northern, and coastal borders.

Most of the unaccompanied juvenile apprehensions along the southwest border occurred in the patrol sectors located in Tucson, Ariz. (5,878) and Rio Grande Valley, Texas (5,236).

Those sectors combined make up about half (11,114) of the apprehensions of unaccompanied minors along the U.S.-Mexico border and across the nation.

There were 85 total juveniles arrested along the U.S. coastal borders, including 42 unaccompanied minors. Along the U.S.-Canada border, there were 153 juveniles apprehended, among which 76 were unaccompanied.

Although the number of all illegal border crossings, including both juveniles and adults, declined from fiscal year 2010 to 2011, the number of unaccompanied minors has increased so far this fiscal year.

In fiscal year 2012 thru April (seven months), 13,416 unaccompanied minors have been apprehended by the U.S. Border Patrol. The agency has not yet broken those figures down by northern, southern, and coastal sector arrests.

However, historically most of those types of apprehensions have occurred along the U.S.-Mexico border. The unaccompanied minor apprehensions across all U.S. borders during the first seven months of fiscal 2012 account, so far, for 84 percent of those that occurred during the entire prior fiscal year.

On a monthly average, 1,917 unaccompanied minors have been apprehended by Border Patrol so far in 2012 compared to 1,338 the previous year.

The top four countries of origin for the unaccompanied illegal aliens have been Mexico, Honduras, El Salvador, and Guatemala, which tend to be among the top nationalities of all illegal alien arrests along the U.S. borders.

So far this year, 8,369 unaccompanied minors from Mexico, 1,977 from Guatemala, 1,575 from El Salvador, and 1,292 from Honduras have been apprehended. They account for 98 percent of all unaccompanied minor apprehensions during the same period.

Overall, the number of unaccompanied minor arrests as a portion of all apprehensions is small.

For the total 340,252 illegal alien apprehensions made by the Border Patrol in fiscal 2011, 16,056 (about 5 percent) were minors arrested without a parent or family member around. Most of those apprehensions took place along the U.S.-Mexico border.

After they are detained by DHS, unaccompanied alien children (UAC) are transferred to the care of the Unaccompanied Children Services division at the U.S. Health and Human Services Department (HHS).

According to the division’s Web site, HHS provides the minors “with a safe and appropriate environment as well as client-focused highest quality of care to maximize the UAC’s opportunities for success both while in care, and upon discharge from the program to sponsors in the U.S. or return to home country, to assist them in becoming integrated members of our global society.”

The HHS division “incorporates child welfare principles when making placement, clinical, case management, and release decisions that are in the best interest of the child,” stated the site.

16,067 Unaccompanied Minors Apprehended Along U.S. Borders in 2011 | CNSNews.com

Young migrants make perilous US-Mexico journey


By Valeria Perasso
BBC Mundo Hispanic affairs correspondent
12 June 2012

The number of unaccompanied minors making the journey into the US has risen sharply in recent months

Born in Nayarit, on Mexico's west coast, Daniel had planned for months to organise a trip to the US to find himself a job in construction.

He thought of taking a small boat up the coast from Tijuana to San Diego. But he got frightened and instead hired a coyote who took him across the Rio Grande by boat.

He eventually landed on the other side but was spotted by the border patrol, handcuffed and taken to a station to be interrogated. He was 16 years old.
Maria left Guatemala to head north: it took her weeks to make the perilous journey through Mexico, during which she encountered traffickers, smugglers and abusers.

She was escaping abuse and neglect from her own family and had been on her own from the age of 14, first as a domestic worker and then as a solo migrant.
US border agents caught her as soon as she crossed into their territory, and Maria ended up in a detention centre in Florida.

Experts say Maria and Daniel (their names have been changed to preserve their anonymity) are just two cases among many.

The number of unaccompanied, undocumented minors apprehended along the southern US border is at a record high, they say, and could nearly double in 2012 compared to 2011.

Custody or deportation

Between October 2011 and March 2012, a total of 5,252 minors were taken into custody after trying to get into the US illegally - a 93% increase from the same period in the previous year, according to the US Department of Health and Human Services. The department's Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) handles the custody of undocumented minors caught in the border zone.

Seasonal migrants who used to come to work and then returned to their home countries now often decide to stay: it has become increasingly dangerous and costly to cross back and forth”

David Shirk University of San Diego

"There was a spike in the number of unaccompanied minors coming in. By the end of April, the number of apprehensions topped the mark of 6,000 and we estimate it will be around 8,000 before July," David Shirk, director of the Trans-Border Institute, University of San Diego, told the BBC.

"That is near the peak of 8,200 cases of unaccompanied minors detained in 2010 and well over the agency's estimate for the entire year," he said.

But experts say these figures only reflect part of the migration flow of unaccompanied minors.

"These cases are only of those who are apprehended and taken into the US legal system. But they do not count those who actually succeed in getting through or those who are deported right away, within hours of arriving into the US," Mr Shirk added.

When intercepted by the US authorities, unaccompanied children are first processed by the Department of Homeland Security and then turned over to the ORR.

They are allocated to shelters, where a search for a relative or guardian is carried out. If successful, the minor will be relocated to the custodian's house.
Both those who are found a suitable guardian and those who remain in shelters have to face immigration proceedings.

According to the Vera Institute of Justice - a non-partisan centre that has administered the federal government's Unaccompanied Children Program since 2005 - 40% of them get legal authorisation to remain in the US and the remaining 60% end up being deported.

Children from Guatemala make up the largest group of unaccompanied minors that the ORR deals with (35%), followed by those from El Salvador (25%) and Honduras (20%).

But most of the minors caught at or near the border are of Mexican origin. They account for over 80% of the flow, according to a report on migrant Mexican children from non-profit network Appleseed, published in 2011.

"Mexican kids get turned around right away at the border in almost all circumstances", said Betsy Cavendish, executive director of Appleseed.
In 2009, Customs and Border Protection (CBP) said they had caught 15,500 unaccompanied Mexicans under the age of 18, nearly all of whom were immediately repatriated.

"Kids from Central America may have a better access to counselling, to legal and social services, simply because they are taken into custody," Ms Cavendish told the BBC.

'Caging effect' Experts are unable to pinpoint the reasons behind this exponential increase: more in-depth research needs to be done, they say, since answers from the children themselves during questioning have not changed enough to explain the phenomenon.

Experts say the reasons why children are migrating have not changed much in recent months

"Violence in their home countries, sexual abuse, social and economic adversity, the search for better job opportunities and family re-unifications are the most common reasons they give," said Michelle Abarca, a lawyer with Americans for Immigrants Justice, an organisation that provides pro-bono representation for children facing immigration proceedings.

But various factors have been suggested as drivers for the increased migration of unaccompanied minors.

Experts suspect that tightened security at the border has paradoxically increased the flow of undocumented children travelling alone.

"Seasonal migrants who used to come to work and then returned to their home countries, especially those employed in agriculture, now often decide to stay: it has become increasingly dangerous and costly to cross back and forth," said Mr Shirk.

Experts call it the "caging effect": law enforcement policies on the border area have "locked" migrants in the US - mostly men who come on their own and leave families behind - and their children often have to travel solo to rejoin.

Also, the number of migrant women is on the increase, says Ms Cavendish, "and those women are likely to be followed by their children if they were left behind".
Social unrest and spiralling waves of crime and violence in Central America could also foster the migration trend.

A newly released World Bank report highlights three main drivers for crime in Central American countries: drug trafficking, youth violence and gangs, and availability of firearms.

As a result, a region the size of Spain registered 40 homicides a day, while Spain has 336 a year.

"Research shows that the number of Central American children who are migrating is on the rise and we may attribute that to the increased violence in the region", said Betsy Cavendish.

BBC News - Young migrants make perilous US-Mexico journey

The administration must have put the word out months ago.

The fraudulent documents makers are probably in full swing because they know the government will not accurately check the record that they are given.

It is unfortunate to stereotype, but illegals live through fraud so a few more fraudulent documents are just another way to get "more". JMO