Other countries are looking to us as a role model. How we treat these kids may impact how other arrival countries such as Belize and Mexico treat them.
Between 65 and 80 percent of these children, it is estimated, have legitimate humanitarian concerns – which means, if U.S. law is applied fairly, they might win asylum here.
During the past dozen years – during the George W. Bush Administration (he signed it) – Congress passed some laws designed to protect children from trafficking and other problems. House Republicans – picking up on an Obama Administration hint – voted recently to rescind/suspend a number of the provisions of these laws.
The House bill passed would suspend provisions of a couple of laws that give kids more opportunities to have a lawyer, a chance to stay in the homes of extended family members, to be interviewed by social workers (not Border Patrol agents), and not just two weeks to trial.
The Senate has apparently not voted on this bill.
Teresa Waggener, the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) Office of General Assembly’s immigration advocate/immigration lawyer, suggested that the “deferred action for child arrivals” is NOT a special administrative policy of the Obama Administration but is called for in the prior legislation. Waggener also suggested that, if the House Republican move was successful, this would NOT slow the flow of unaccompanied, undocumented kids across the borders, because these kids are responding to conditions in their own countries (“push”), not to policies/practices in potential destination countries (“pull”).
PC(USA) mission co-worker Leslie Vogel stressed the U.S. roots of the immigration crisis: U.S. involvement in Central American civil wars, and also U.S. export of gangs to Central American countries (aided by U.S. policies to deport gang members).
Many of the unaccompanied kids are fleeing gang activity, or the general lack of law and order, especially in the three countries. In particular, young men are fleeing being impressed into gangs and young women are feeling being raped by gang members. More broadly, young people are fleeing violence, both gang violence and domestic violence. Some kids also have economic reasons – all the more so with the Central America-wide drought right now and the long-term effects of the Central America Free Trade Agreement, which is devastating some farmers in these countries – all the more so with the shift to genetically engineered seeds and Monsanto’s domination of this sector.
Sometimes the “coyotes” who help bring kids up from Central American countries are in fact trusted members of the kids’ communities. Sometimes the gangs and drug smugglers are in fact part of the “coyote” efforts. In addition to harassing and assaulting kids on their way up, drug smugglers may force kids to bring drugs up with them. They are also likely to charge much more if they know a kid has an extended family member in the United States – as they de facto hold the kids hostage until the U.S. relative pays. Kids and their families may pay $5,000, for example, for up to three attempts.
Sometimes, family reunification is an issue, as one or more parent may have already gone ahead to the United States and the kids are following, or the parents are sending their kids in advance.
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