Feds see surge in children crossing US border amid concerns over immigration policy
By Judson Berger
Published December 23, 2013
FoxNews.com
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In this Dec. 1, 2011 file photo, a Guatemalan boy who was found in the Mexican desert is shown arriving at the international airport in Guatemala City.Reuters
The number of children caught crossing the U.S. border has surged over the last two years, raising questions about whether the Obama administration's changing immigration policies are creating a magnet.
Statistics released late last week show 24,668 "unaccompanied alien children" were placed last year in the care of the federal agency that, by law, is responsible for them. That's nearly double the number from 2012, and nearly quadruple the number in years past.
As is often the case with immigration statistics, it's unclear what is driving the increase. The surge could be driven in part by better enforcement, and immigration officers doing a better job catching border crossers.
But critics point to other factors. A federal judge in Texas claimed earlier this month that the Department of Homeland Security has been delivering children smuggled across the U.S.-Mexico border to their illegal immigrant parents. In June 2012, the administration decided to give a reprieve to young illegal immigrants who came to the U.S. as children.
Though the latter would not apply to people who just arrived, critics say these policies send a clear message south of the border: The rewards of trying to cross into the U.S. outweigh the risks.
Chris Crane, who heads The National ICE Council immigration officer union, said agents are being "overrun" with children crossing the border.
"We can't keep up with it," he said.
According to the Office of Refugee Resettlement, most of the minors come from Central America -- largely Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras.
The stats show a big spike over the past two years. The office recorded an "unprecedented increase" in 2012, with the number jumping from an average of 6,775 to 13,625.
The numbers refer to children who are intercepted by the Department of Homeland Security. Under federal law, many of those children are transferred to the Office of Refugee Resettlement, within the Department of Health and Human Services.
They are supposed to be entered into immigration proceedings, though Judge Andrew Hanen questioned whether this was necessarily happening, particularly in cases where minors were reunited with their parents.
Most of the children are housed through a network of federally funded care centers. But as the traffic increases, those are becoming over-burdened. The situation drew national attention in 2012 when Lackland Air Force Base in Texas was used to house dozens of children.
The children can, in some cases, be placed with relatives. But Hanen, in his Dec. 13 order, claimed the practice is going too far. He accused the government of effectively aiding the drug cartels which play a big role in human smuggling rings and claimed the practice is "encouraging" more smuggling. (It's unclear to what extent the ORR statistics count those who are transported to their parents in the U.S.).
Some of the children who cross illegally into the U.S. can petition for legal status. According to the Office of Refugee Resettlement, those seeking asylum or who can demonstrate they were abused or abandoned by their parents in their native country can be eligible. Non-profits sometimes provide legal representation for these individuals. One such group, Kids in Need of Defense, notes that many are escaping "abuse or persecution" in coming to the U.S.
While dealing with the influx of children and teens crossing the border, the Obama administration has tried to prioritize deportations for those who have committed crimes while in the U.S. -- while going easy on so-called "DREAM Act"-style cases.
Hanen wrote that his court is "not blind to the needs of a minor child," and recognizes the right of prosecutors to use their "discretion" in such cases.
However, he wrote, "those who hear that they should not fear prosecution or deportation will not hesitate, and obviously have not hesitated, to [violate immigration law]."
Ira Mehlman, spokesman with the Federation for American Immigration Reform, called the judge's accusations "fairly astounding."
He claimed that "non-enforcement policies" are what's behind the increase in illegal crossings, though noted that the practice of linking up children with relatives in the U.S. has "been going on for awhile."
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2013...r-immigration/
The Dream Act By Executive Order Draws In New Wave Of Illegal Immigrants
Posted 12/26/2013 07:02 PM ET
investors.com
The Border Patrol and other agencies report a "surge" of unaccompanied minors coming across our border. It coincides with the White House's de facto amnesty via the Dream Act to reward such lawbreaking.
The Office of Refugee Resettlement noted a "surge" in unaccompanied alien children in its year-end report last week, pointing out that 24,668 foreign minors in the country illegally were placed in the care of a federal de facto baby-sitting service because no parents were around to care for them.
Last year's number was a near doubling from 2012, and nearly quadruple what it was at the start of the decade, according to a report on Fox News.
The surge just happens to coincide with the one opening in immigration that involves young people — the Dream Act. Though it never came to a vote in the Senate in 2010 after passing in the House in 2009, it's now being enforced by President Obama's executive order, enabling young illegals to jump the immigration queue to please the open borders lobby.
As a result, the U.S. Customs and Border Protection reports in fiscal 2011-12 that child migrants apprehended at the border have surged 208% from Honduras (from 974 to 2,997), 145% from Guatemala (1,565 to 3,835), 138% from El Salvador (1,394 to 3,314), and 19% from Mexico (11,768 to 13,974) over the year earlier.
Don't tell us this is just the ravages of the drug war — which has hit these four countries unevenly, the hardest hit being Honduras at the top of the list and Mexico at the bottom. The far more likely reason is the economies of these countries — with Honduras the worst and Mexico the best — which points to economic migrations, the draw of the Dream Act.
A search of the Google Honduras, Google Mexico, Google Guatemala and Google El Salvador websites shows significant spikes on search terms such as "Dream Act," "Acta Sueno" and particularly "Ley Dream" on days when Congress voted for the Dream Act (December 2010), on the days when President Obama issued an executive order to loosen the requirements and add waivers to the Dream Act, and when federal bureaucrats began taking Dream Act applications (August 2012).
In Honduras, where the jump in border apprehensions was the highest, the Internet traffic spikes from that country on those days were also the highest.
It all points to the inevitable consequence of extending amnesty to lawbreakers at the expense of the law-abiding — which is to say, more laws broken.
Of course parents are going to send their young people to the U.S. if it's easier to get residency illegally than legally. Of course they will send their unaccompanied minor children if they see their neighbors' children getting such rewards themselves.
And it's ridiculous to say that the law applies only to children who have been in the U.S. for five years as the Dream Act specifies.
If the waivers alone that are being issued don't ring the dinner triangle, the idea that amnesty is pretty much like standing on the subway platform waiting for the next subway — because the U.S. has issued something like 15 wholesale amnesties since 1986 — pretty well lays out the game for those who would be illegals.
And the game is this: Get here any way you can, wait, and you'll be rewarded.
Foreigners know very well that if it's going to be done at all, it better be done now, because no other U.S. president will likely be such a pushover as President Obama. And given the bipartisan failure on this issue, that's saying a lot.
What isn't reported is just how dangerous and damaging the idea of sending unaccompanied minor children to the U.S. is — it not only breaks up families and deprives children of their parents at a vulnerable time when they need them, it exposes them to human traffickers, labor exploitation and gangs.
It's happening, though, because of the magnetic pull of the Dream Act and the siren calls of the open borders lobby. They encourage illegal immigration and demand federal services for those here illegaly.
As we said, it's an illegal magnet. And it harms us all.
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