The crisis unfolding on the Mexican-American border is growing increasingly complex in terms of both human and political costs, with at least 57,000 unaccompanied minors from Central America having crossed the border illegally since October and with that number likely to exceed 90,000 by the end of the year. With space to house the migrants in short supply, resources to feed and clothe the growing population at minimal levels and the current political climate being less than optimal for dealing with this crisis objectively, the situation is quickly and definitively deteriorating.
In communities such as Murrieta, California, and Oracle, Arizona, protesters have actively blocked the transportation of the migrant children into their towns, calling on the government to send them back to their countries. Despite the White House’s pleas for Central America to take a bolder stance to prevent mothers and children from making the trek to the border, the political and economic situation in El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras — including prolonged civil and military strife, drug trafficking violence and widespread poverty — have convinced many that the more-than-3,000 miles journey is their best shot at a safer life.
Many of these protesters argue that the notion that the United States is taking in the migrants legitimizes the illegal border crossings.
“Their very hope was realized when we took them in. Nobody was turned back and what I believe, and I think a lot of Americans would agree, is instead of accepting these 90,000, they should have — the humanitarian way to address this is reunite them with their families and their country of origin because this 90,000 is going to be hundreds of thousands,” Paul Babeu, sheriff of Pinal County, Arizona, told CNN.
In large part, the nation’s inability to turn back the migrants is an effect of legislation from the George W. Bush administration. Approved almost unanimously in December 2008, the William Wilberforce Trafficking Victims Protection Action Act requires that children who appear in the U.S. without an accompanying parent from nations other than Canada or Mexico receive an immigration hearing before a judge prior to being deported. The law was established as a protective measure for children involved in sex trafficking, and was meant to prevent children taken from remote nations from being shipped back home without the courts taking the time to consider the details of the specific case.
While the law — which Bush signed and advocated for as a last-minute boost to his legacy — was passed with the best intentions, it actually created a backlog in which migrant children may wait years to appear before a judge. As no deportation order can be issued prior to the court hearing, these children end up living with relatives in the U.S., attending school and slowly growing Americanized. By the time they are ordered back to their home nations, many have come to relate more with the U.S. as home than with their home nations.
With Congress failing to increase funding to immigration courts at a rate consistent with other increases to immigration enforcement — a 70 percent increase in funding from 2002 to 2013, compared to 300 percent for immigration enforcement — there are simply not enough judges, clerks and court space to efficiently and timely process the growing caseload.
This creates a situation in which the child migrants are without status legally. Without a hearing, they cannot be found eligible to be deported, but they also cannot be extended legal refugee status. This creates a legal “no-man zone” for these minors — unable to be sent home, but ineligible for permanent settlement in the U.S.
This also perpetuates a cycle that is exacerbating the crisis: Seeing that there is a court backlog that would stall deportation, Central American parents send their children to the U.S., knowing that by the time the courts finally get to their children, they would have received access to a quality education and a better standard of living for years.
Meanwhile, the addition of the new children will make the backlog worse, causing longer lags in deportation processing, which encourages more parents to send their kids north. President Barack Obama’s 2012 presidential order stopping the deportation of migrant children living in the U.S. for more than five years conflated the problem, convincing more parents to trust their kids to border smugglers, or “coyotes.”
On Tuesday, Sen. John Cornyn and Rep. Henry Cuellar introduced a plan that would amend the Trafficking Victims Protection Action Act to make access to an immigration hearing not necessary for deportation. The proposed bill, however, allows the child to request a hearing, if he or she so desires, which would have to take place within 72 hours. Some Democrats, such as Sen. Dick Durbin, have balked at this proposal, as it denies the children legal representation. Additionally, unless the child is informed of his or her right to receive a hearing and is educated on why a hearing may be beneficial, the benefits of the child’s right to have his or her case heard may be lost.
With tempers continuing to flare among protesters, with many states and local communities struggling to find room and resources for the growing flow of migrants and with the Republicans rejecting the president’s call for $3.7 billion in emergency funds for the Department of Health and Human Services — the agency in charge of caring for the young migrants — and to bolster the border in favor for their own yet-to-be-revealed plan, the border crisis is likely to get worse before it gets better. Increasingly, the world is looking at the U.S. not only to handle the migrant children compassionately, but also to find a way to deal with the problems in Central America so that fewer parents would feel it necessary to separate from their children in such a dangerous way.
“This is a category of migrants from Central America and Mexico itself who cross the border with the United States under extreme conditions and in pursuit of a hope that in most cases turns out to be vain,” Pope Francis said during a Vatican Radio address on Monday.
The pontiff also called on America to welcome and protect these children. “Many people forced to emigrate suffer, and often, die tragically. Many of their rights are violated. They are obliged to separate from their families and, unfortunately, continue to be the subject of racist and xenophobic attitudes.”