The Gangs of ORR
By Thomas Allen

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Remember how the U.S. responded to 911 by setting up the Department of Homeland Security (DHS)? DHS was supposed to defend the homeland and do a better job at securing its borders than the old INS.
But the Homeland Security Act expressly barred the DHS from enforcing immigration law in some cases.

Certain "Unaccompanied Alien Children" (UAC’s) apprehended trying to enter the country illegally are now the sole responsibility of a federal social services agency, the Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR). ORR, part of the Department of Health and Human Services, has launched its own new agency to deal with UAC’s, the Division of Unaccompanied Children.

The new bureaucracy has explicitly stated it has no interest in enforcing immigration law and does not even cooperate with the department pledged to perform that function.

Media accounts of "unaccompanied children" caught at the border typically feature doe-eyed 12 year olds crossing the border to flee persecution at home, join up with charmingly delighted parents in the U.S. But, for ORR’s purposes a UAC is any individual who claims to be non-Mexican and claims to be under the age of 18. The agency has stopped using forensic techniques formerly employed to verify claims of an individual’s age and is pushing for a law which gives ORR the exclusive right to verify age for any individual, using as evidence the claimant’s own statements about his age.

In contrast to adult illegal aliens, UAC’s cannot be subjected to expedited removal. They generally face a lower standard of proof of persecution when making an asylum claim. It is a valuable status. Virtually any minor can be considered "unaccompanied" even when caught together with his family. If, as is common, the youth is held in a detention center separate from his parents, he is deemed "unaccompanied" and thus a temporary ward of the federal government. He then has the right to remain in the country even as the rest of his family is deported.

[color=violet]Mexican minors caught trying to cross the border are usually returned to Mexico as a "voluntary return". This enables them, like the adults, to attempt another border crossingâ€â€