 |
THE GUARDIAN
While the sudden rise of unaccompanied children at the Texas border has quickly become a humanitarian problem and a political tussle, minors trying to enter the US in significant numbers are not a new phenomenon.
US border patrol agents encountered 16,114 from Mexico alone in fiscal year 2009 (beginning October 2008). While arrivals from Mexico have remained relatively stable in the past six years, there has been a dramatic spike in those from Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras.
In fiscal year 2009, US officials encountered 968 unaccompanied minors from Honduras; in 2013, 6,747; this year, through 15 June the figure was 15,027. In the past nine months, US border officials have come across about 52,000 unaccompanied minors from the four countries, compared with 19,418 in 2009.
The Rio Grande Valley in south Texas has become the preferred point of entry, with arrivals up 178% year on year, mirroring a general trend that has seen immigrants attempt to cross the border in Texas rather than Arizona, where security has been tightened in recent years.
Republicans in Washington and Texas have been quick to try to make political capital out of the crisis, accusing the Obama administration of failing to secure the border, pursuing lax immigration policies and not doing enough to solve the current problems.
Government officials have stressed that the vast majority of the arrivals are fleeing poverty and violence in Central America, where gangs are endemic and murder rates are among the highest in the world, while non-profit groups have echoed President Obama’s description of the situation as a humanitarian crisis. Obama said in a speech last month that it underlines the need for comprehensive immigration reform, which has stalled, and he is exploring the possibility of taking executive action.
 |
Henry Cuellar, a Democratic Texas state representative, told reporters last month that unfounded rumours of “permisos”, permits to stay in the US, had stoked the increase. Some Republicans have argued that this perception has been boosted by the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals programme, introduced in 2012, which offers limited immigration status to certain children who arrived in the US before 15 June 2007.
It is in the interests of smugglers – who often have ties to violent drug gangs – to spread misinformation. But threats to the safety of the young people and families who make long, dangerous and often expensive journeys to the US are often very real.
A report released in March [pdf] by the UN refugee agency, which last year interviewed 404 unaccompanied or separated minors from Mexico, El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras, found that “many of these displaced children faced grave danger and hardship in their countries of origin”. Others are seeking to be reunited with family in the US.
A 2012 report [pdf] by the non-profit Vera Institute of Justice found that about 40% of children in the custody of the office of refugee resettlement (ORR) were identified as eligible to avoid removal.
Undocumented migrants who have crossed into the US and been apprehended are taken to border patrol facilities and given basic background and medical screenings. Unaccompanied minors from Canada or Mexico are usually swiftly returned back across the border, provided they are not potential human trafficking victims or have a possible asylum claim.
But unaccompanied children from countries that do not share a border with the US must go through a different process. They must be handed over to ORR officials within 72 hours, though it seems that agents are struggling to meet this deadline given the sheer weight of numbers. They are also guaranteed a hearing before an immigration judge. This has its origin in an attempt by Congress in 2007-08 to expand protection to human trafficking victims: the William Wilberforce Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act of 2008 was one of the last pieces of legislation enacted under the presidency of George W Bush and was passed with bipartisan support.
 |
| President George W. Bush signing the William Wilberforce Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act of 2008. Credit Charles Dharapak/Associated Press |
Pending the outcome of cases – which could take years, given the strain on the system – social workers will try to place the children with family members already in the US. Some families are being swiftly released, allowed to join up with relatives or sponsors elsewhere in the country and told to appear in immigration court for a hearing later. Charities at the border are providing families with basics such as food and clean clothes. Many migrants rely on non-profit organisations for legal help, since they are very rarely entitled to public defenders.
If a migrant claims to have a “credible fear” of persecution or torture were he or she to be sent home, asylum officers will conduct an interview to determine the validity of the claim. The claimant may then get a full hearing in front of a judge. A rise in “credible fear” assertions in recent weeks has prompted officials to send more asylum officers to the border.
Relatively few minors from countries other than Mexico are deported by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice), according to the Los Angeles Times: 1,669 in 2013, compared with 8,143 in 2008.
Detailed assessments and decisions on whether to detain migrants are made by Ice, a federal body set up in the wake of the 9/11 attacks. Ice runs a variety of detention facilities across the country.
Reports from the Texas border and elsewhere have indicated that some government facilities are overcrowded, leading to unsanitary conditions.
There have also been concerns about uncomfortable temperatures and unsuitable food, while the American Civil Liberties Union has alleged widespread verbal physical and sexual abuse of children at the hands of US border officials.
 |