90,000 illegal alien children could be caught trying to cross US border in 2014

As many as 90,000 immigrant children could be caught trying to cross US border in 2014, official says

Published June 05, 2014 Associated Press

WASHINGTON – Border Patrol agents could arrest as many as 90,000 children trying to illegally cross the Mexican border alone this year, more than three times the number of children apprehended in 2013, according to a draft internal Homeland Security memorandum reviewed by The Associated Press.

In the May 30 memo from Border Patrol Deputy Chief Ronald Vitiello to the National Security Council's transborder security directorate, Vitiello said Homeland Security's Office of Immigration Statistics estimates that by 2015 the number of children apprehended while traveling alone could grow to 142,000.

The government has previously estimated that more than 60,000 children could be apprehended along the border this year. All the estimates are for the government's fiscal year, which begins Oct. 1. Children apprehended with their parents are not part of this count of illegal border crossings.

Most of the children caught crossing alone are from El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala and have been apprehended in the Border Patrol's Rio Grande Valley Sector in South Texas. That sector is the now the Border Patrol's busiest area along the Mexican border and has seen a significant increase in the number of border crossers from Central America.

The Homeland Security department did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The spike in children trying cross the border alone has forced DHS to divert resources away from other missions, including combating human and drug trafficking, Vitiello wrote in his four-page memo.

The increase in apprehensions has also led the government to fly some migrants who are from countries other than Mexico to other parts of the border, including Arizona, for processing by Border Patrol agents in less-busy sectors. Many families from countries other than Mexico have been released on their own recognizance in the U.S. while they await deportation proceedings in immigration court.

Releasing those people and taking other actions such as reuniting children caught alone at the border with parents or other relatives already in the U.S. serve as "incentives to additional individuals to follow the same path," Vitiello wrote.

The number of children found trying to cross the Mexican border without parents has spiked in recent years. Between 2008 and 2011, 6,000 to 7,500 children per year ended up in the custody of the Health and Human Services Department's Office of Refugee Resettlement. In 2012 border agents apprehended 13,625 unaccompanied children and that number surged to more than 24,000 last year.

Vitiello's memo was drafted just days before President Barack Obama declared the situation on the border an "urgent humanitarian situation" and appointed the head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, Craig Fugate, to manage the government's response. In a presidential memo issued Monday, Obama said the government would temporarily house some of the children at two military bases.

Last month the Office of Management and Budget said in a two-page letter to the chairwoman of the Senate Appropriations Committee that the increase in the number of children crossing alone would likely cost the government at least $2.28 billion, about $1.4 billion more than the administration had initially asked lawmakers to budget for its "Unaccompanied Alien Children" program.

Rampant crime and poverty across Central America and a desire to reunite with parents or other relatives are thought to be driving many of the young immigrants.

Detained children are supposed to be transferred within 72 hours to HHS to be housed in shelters until they can be reunited with parents or guardians. Officials then begin searching for relatives or other potential guardians in the U.S.

The average stay for a child in a U.S. shelter last year was 45 days. Most are reunited with family to wait for their immigration cases to move forward.

Migrant kids remain in removal proceedings even after they're reunited with their parents here, though many have been able to win permission from a judge to stay in the U.S.

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2014/06/05...by-themselves/

Cantor's 'Dream': Homeland Security Reports 90,000 Illegal Alien Children to Attempt Border Crossing

by Stephen K. Bannon 5 Jun 2014, 5:19 PM PDT
breitbart

http://cdn.breitbart.com/mediaserver...tBrown5png.png

Over 90,000 illegal immigrant children could attempt the dangerous border crossing into the United States as Congress and the Obama Administration send conflicting messages about what laws will be enforced, according to a memorandum by Deputy Homeland Security Chief Ronald Vitiello first reported by the Associated Press.

The record number is a 300 percent increase over the previous year. This surge in crossings has been attributed to the belief by many parents in Mexico and Central America that there is a window of opportunity for amnesty for the young because of the ongoing debate among Republican politicians regarding the "Dream Act."

After Cantor declared that "one of the great founding principles of our country was that children would not be punished for the mistakes of their parents," United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) National Council President Kenneth Palinkas pointed out that if that is the case, illegal immigrants could flood into the country believing that Congress will perpetually award amnesty to the children of illegal immigrants.

A Homeland Security internal report forecasts as many as 142,000 illegal alien children could attempt the crossing next year.

http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Governm...order-Crossing

by Caroline May 6 Jun 2014, 1:03 PM PDT
breitbart

The deluge of unaccompanied children crossing the border illegally is “compromising” the government’s ability to combat other border threats and has been incentivized by government policies, according to a leaked internal draft memo from Deputy Chief of Border Patrol Ronald D. Vitiello.

“Specifically, the large quantity of DHS interdiction, intelligence, investigation, processing, detention and removal resources currently being dedicated to address [unaccompanied alien children] is compromising DHS capabilities to address other transborder criminal areas, such as human smuggling and trafficking, and illicit drug, weapons, commercial and financial operations,” Vitiello’s memo, obtained by the Center for Immigration Studies and viewed by Breitbart News, reads.

“Insufficient attention to these mission areas will have immediate and potentially long lasting impacts on criminal enterprise operations within the Rio Grande Valley and across the country,” it adds.

The document is dated May 30, titled "Unaccompanied Alien Children Transfer Process Bottleneck," and reveals that DHS expects the number of UAC apprehensions this fiscal year to be greater than 90,100 and next fiscal year to be 142,000.

Vitiello writes that the “urgency” to deal with the overcrowding in detention facilities is causing the level of enforcement and repercussions for illegal entry to deteriorate.

"The current urgency to alleviate dangerous overcrowding in DBP detention facilities is resulting in the necessary delivery of suboptimal consequences for illegal entry,” he wrote. “If the US government fails to deliver adequate consequences to deter aliens from attempting to illegally enter the US, the result will be an even greater increase in the rate of recidivism and first time illicit entries.”

Vitiello further noted that certain government policies are serving as additional incentives for illegal entry.

“Releasing other than Mexican family units, credible fear claims, and low-threat aliens on their own recognizance, along with facilitating family reunification of UAC in lieu of repatriation to their country of citizenship, serve as incentives for additional individuals to follow the same path,” Vitiello wrote.

“To stem the flow, adequate consequences must be delivered for illegal entry into the US and for facilitating human smuggling, either as a direct member of an illicit alien smuggling organization or as a private facilitator. These consequences must be delivered both at the border and within the interior US, e.g. through expanded ICE Homeland Security Investigations to target individuals facilitating UAC and family unit travel to the US,” the memo reads.

In a statement CBP told Breitbart News that “the draft memo appears to be an internal, incomplete working document, neither signed nor made official.”

CBP’s statement noted that while apprehensions of Mexicans have slightly increased over last year the number of apprehensions from countries other than Mexico, specifically Central America has increased by 50 percent. Vitiello’s memo notes that currently just 3 percent of apprehensions from countries other than Mexico, predominantly Central American countries, are being repatriated to their countries of origin, as there are limited flights back.

“Significant border-wide investments in additional enforcement resources and enhanced operational tactics and strategy have enabled CBP to address the changing composition of attempted border crossers, but the rising flow of unaccompanied children and family units into the Rio Grande Valley present unique operational and resource challenges for CBP and HHS,” the CBP statement contined, going to note President Obama’s interagency Unified Coordination Group led by Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) Administrator Craig Fugate to deal with the influx.

In announcing the interagency Unified Coordination Group this week, President Obama declared the surge of UACs an “urgent humanitarian situation.”

Meanwhile Obama’s immigration critics have pointed the finger of blame for the deluge at Obama himself.

“This is a direct result of the President’s statements that he was not going to enforce the law with regard to people who entered the country as youngsters. It’s an open invitation for others to come. What he has done in the last months, aided by members of Congress, is to create the impression that no one is going to be deported, and especially young people who come into the country are not going to be deported. So they are focusing way too much on attempting to cope with the flood of young people coming into the country and not nearly enough on reducing the flow,” Alabama Sen. Jeff Sessions said this week.

http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Governm...al-Immigration