Thread: 8K imm children missing in America

http://www.examiner.com/a-540901~Missin ... ldren.html

Missing in America: 8,000 immigrant children

(Greg Whitesell/Examiner)
Juan Pablo Lopez, 21, tells the story of his journey to the United States as a 16-year-old illegal immigrant from Honduras, at the offices of Holland and Knight LLP on Jan. 25 in Washington. Printer Friendly | PDF | Email | digg
Bill Myers, The Examiner
Read more by Bill Myers
Feb 1, 2007 3:00 AM (6 days ago)
Current rank: # 11,065 of 12,459 articles

WASHINGTON - Sixteen-year-old Juan Pablo Lopez’s trip to the United States began in a semi-trailer, packed with 150 human beings. He thought it would end for him alone in a cramped cell at the Juvenile Detention Center in Globe, Ariz.


“I was thinking, ‘What are these people going to do to me?’” Lopez said at a recent interview in the District of Columbia. “I didn’t speak English and the guards didn’t speak Spanish. My family thought I was dead. I thought I was going to die.”

It was not the first time he’d had such thoughts. After spending days in cramped trucks and buses, he’d slept out in the open air of a jungle in Mexico. He developed a fever that nearly killed him.

“The coyote told me to go back,” Lopez said, using the slang term for the human smugglers who bring immigrants across the U.S. border with Mexico. “He said that from now on it’s the most difficult part and he didn’t want to lose me.” Young Lopez went on.

Now 21, he is not alone.

Each year, nearly 8,000 children are swept into the U.S. immigration system. These “unaccompanied minors” are supposed to be handed over to the Department of Health and Human Services, where they can be cared for with counseling, food and English lessons while they are “processed” in the U.S.’ massive immigration system.

But many children never make it that far. Instead, they wind up in jails, surrounded by hardened criminals.

“It’s a huge problem,” said Christopher Nugent, an attorney with the Washington office of Holland & Knight LLP. “Law enforcement principles shouldn’t be trumping the principles of protecting these kids.”

Nugent has advocated for the rights of immigrant children for nearly a decade and is one of the nation’s leading experts on the topic.

The 2002 law that created the Department of Homeland Security and gave it jurisdiction over America’s immigration system also required immigration officials to hand children over to the Department of Health and Human Services.

“The legislation was crafted quickly,” Nugent said. “It left significant gaps between agencies over important questions, including how you handle these kids.”

U.S. Rep. Zoe Lofgren, D-Calif., agrees. The chair of the House Judiciary Committee’s immigration subcommittee, Lofgren said she will introduce legislation next month that will require immigration officials to hand children over to Health and Human Services within 72 hours.

“When you think about young children being locked up in jail, it really is antithetical to American values,” Lofgren told The Examiner.

For many immigrant children, the lockup is a nightmarish twist to what was already a hellish narrative.

Lopez had fled his native Honduras because he’d been beaten and his sister raped by an abusive parent, and because Honduras’ ultra-violent street gangs were beginning to take special interest in him.

“I didn’t want to kill anybody,” he said, drumming a table in Nugent’s office. “Or to be killed.”

By the time he and dozens of other migrants scaled a fence along the Arizona border, “I was really skinny,” Lopez said.

They walked for a couple of hours and then climbed aboard another truck. It took them to a shack. It was still dark when the immigrants began climbing out.

“We heard dogs barking and the helicopters,” Lopez said. “And they had the flashlights.”

It was “la migra” — the immigration agents. Along with the rest of the arrested immigrants, Lopez was taken to a border patrol station. Lopez took the advice of the coyote.

“I told them I was from Mexico,” he said. “If they send you back to Mexico, you can try again from closer.”

The United States, Mexico and Canada have agreements that illegal aliens will be sent back immediately, Nugent said. Illegal immigrants from other countries take a lot longer because they have to be processed through the immigration bureaucracy.

Lopez couldn’t remember the name of a city in Mexico, and that told the immigration agents that he was from a third country. He was put on a bus for Globe.

There, he was issued a blue shirt that he had to wear at all times. He would learn later that all rookie prisoners were given blue shirts. It meant that he had to be kept on lockdown. Good behavior meant a change in shirt color and extended privileges.

“They only let us out for 30 minutes a day,” Lopez said.

Nugent said things could have gone worse. Many children are housed in adult jails, where lack of exercise is the least of their problems.

Lofgren has heard many of the horror stories. She said that her legislation is long overdue.

“I don’t know how any civilized person would oppose this,” she said.

Despite the Democratic majority, the bill’s success is not guaranteed. Anti-immigration forces have defeated similar versions for the last six years.

“Basically most of these ‘kids’ are, in effect, young adults. They’re still not adults, but most are just under the age of majority,” said Jack Martin, project director of the D.C.-based Federation for American Immigration Reform. “But treating them as children is over-pampering them.”

Martin said he’s also concerned about a provision in previous bills that would provide government money for attorneys for the children. He said all immigrants already have a right to representation through their consuls. No country would provide free legal aid to an American abroad, Martin said.

“Zoe Lofgren was an immigration attorney,” Martin said. “The additional push for having lawyers represent the unaccompanied minors is in effect a boondoggle being pushed by the immigration lawyers.”

Lopez has little patience for immigration critics like Martin.

“They don’t think about how the rest of the world suffers,” he said. “They should travel more.”

Lopez is a success story. After several days in Globe, he was transferred to Southwest Key, a private nonprofit group that runs a group home for immigrant children near Phoenix.

“Everything changed,” Lopez said.

At Southwest Key, he was put in touch with Nugent, who put him in touch with the Georgetown Immigration Law Clinic. He was released to the custody of an older relative in Fairfax County, but he moved into the Latin American Youth Center in Columbia Heights because of abuse in the relative’s home.

“I moved here to get away from that,” Lopez said.

He spent two years in the Youth Center, learning English and waiting for his asylum case to be heard. It was granted in 2003.

He is now about to graduate from Bell Multicultural High School.

“I saw him reading ‘Don Quixote’ the other day,” Nugent said.

Lopez blushed, then shrugged.

“ ‘Don Quixote’ is a myth,” Lopez said. “Right now I’m reading this book, ‘The Rights of Man.’ He made a lot of people think the right way.”

His future in the United States is not secured. Many immigrants his age are already working low-wage jobs. Lopez said he wants to resist that and focus on his education, but he’s already incurred massive debts.

“The U.S. offers a lot of opportunity,” he said. “But everything takes sacrifice.”

Anyone with information on the immigration system can call 202-459-4956.

bmyers@dcexaminer.com

How many AMERICAN children are missing?