Originally Posted by jimpasz
http://www.timesargus.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060817/NEWS/608170330/1002/NEWS01
Times Argus
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Article published Aug 17, 2006
Illegal immigrant crackdown could leave thousands of children stranded
WASHINGTON — Last year, immigration officers raided a poultry plant near Arkadelphia, Ark. and arrested 119 illegal immigrants. Thirty children were left stranded without parents, many at daycare centers or in schools.
After much confusion, some spent the night with relatives or friends, and nine others — including a 1-month-old baby — took shelter at La Primera Iglesia Bautista, a Baptist church that served as a refuge for the children while their parents were being deported.
With many states passing bills to crack down on employers who hire illegal immigrants and the federal government considering a strong House-passed enforcement bill, thousands of children across the country could be facing a similar fate, immigrant advocates and legal experts say.
"This is not a situation … we want to be promoting, There are infants left without formula, without diapers," said Flavia Jimenez, immigration policy analyst at the National Council of La Raza, a Hispanic civil rights organization.
"Enforcement only" legislation without a chance for illegal workers to gain legal residency will lead to more families being torn apart and children left without parents, she added.
But critics of illegal immigration say that the parents made the decision to come to the United States illegally and endanger their own children and that the federal government should not be criticized for enforcing the law.
John Keeley, spokesman for the Center for Immigration Studies, a think tank in Washington that advocates stronger immigration controls, said that in the United States, "we have the expectation that parents act in the best interest of minor children."
"Illegal aliens who bring their children into the United States or have them here do the exact opposite, because under the law they are subject to potential deportation every day and that is clearly not in the best interest of the children," he said.
In addition, Keeley said that the number of "sob stories" of children left behind will increase with more enforcement because the government has failed to stem the tide of illegal immigration for so long.
In the Arkadelphia raid, about 100 children were left without at least one parent, and 30 had both parents deported. Most of the illegal immigrant parents told federal officials that they did not have children, fearing that the minors would be arrested, incarcerated or permanently taken away from their families, according to Jimenez, who studied the Arkadelphia raid.
The Pew Hispanic Center, a non-partisan research group in Washington, estimates that about 12 million illegal immigrants live in the United States. Of those, 1.8 million are children, according to the center, which analyzes Census reports.
In addition, the center estimates that an additional 3.1 million children born in the United States have illegal immigrant parents.
These children pose a particular legal dilemma if their parents are held for deportation, said Noreen M. Sugrue, a professor at the Women and Gender in Global Perspectives program at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
"Do we really want to put American citizens in detention camps? '' she asked.
If children are not reunited with their parents and there is no one to care for them, states are obligated to put them in foster care, legal experts said.
In some cases, deported parents leave their children in the United States with grandparents, other relatives or friends so they can have a good education and other opportunities.
Kathleen Moccio, director of pro-bono development at the American Immigration Lawyers Association, said that immigrant parents might be returning to a dangerous or economically desperate situation in their home country. For example, in some areas in Central America, violent gangs prey on pre-teen and teenage children, and deported parents might prefer to keep their child in a safe community in the United States, she said.
In other instances, children return to their parents' native country. Those who are U.S. citizens, however, have the option to return to the United States, which some do as adults, with less education and less understanding of the culture and language than they would have had growing up in this country, Sugrue said.
The plight of children born to illegal immigrants in the United States has become a political issue.
In recent appearances, Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez, a Cuban immigrant, has mentioned the children while pushing the Bush administration's plan for a large temporary worker program for foreign workers, including current illegal immigrants.
Massive deportations "would require separating parents from their 3 million American-born children," he said, earlier this month at the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank in Washington. "Some say the children could decide if they go with their parents or stay. Can you imagine that?"
A group of Republican House members tried unsuccessfully last year to offer an amendment — drafted by Rep. Nathan Deal, R-Ga. — to repeal birthright citizenship for children of illegal immigrants. The children are sometimes referred to as "anchor babies" because once they turn 18, they can petition for relatives from abroad to come legally to the United States. In addition, U.S. citizen children are entitled to federal and state benefits that their illegal immigrant parents are not.
Deal and other lawmakers argue that the children pose a heavy financial drain on schools and healthcare systems, including Medicaid. All sides agree on one thing — the number of American born children of immigrants continues to increase.
According to a study by the Center for Immigration Studies, 23 percent of all American births in 2002 were to immigrant mothers, both legal and illegal — a record higher than during the peak of the previous great immigration wave in 1910.
The House passed a strong enforcement bill in December that would make illegal presence in the United States a felony and require businesses to check an electronic database to determine if employees are in the United States legally. Penalties for hiring illegal workers would include fines as high as $20,000 for each worker and possible jail time.
Democrats opposed to the bill said it would turn more than a million children into felons.
The Senate passed a bill earlier this year which includes a temporary worker plan that would allow an additional 200,000 immigrants to work in the United States. But House Republican leaders have rejected that approach and are holding hearings across the country to support their enforcement measure.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
