Deja Vu
It seems like some kind of flashback: “unaccompanied minors” stacking up at Border Patrol stations along the Mexican border. “Soft sided” shelters are up – we call them “tents”. And lines of mostly teenaged boys are being processed. This isn’t the Trump Administration, but it certainly looks like it.
We need to be clear about what caused the Trump issue with children, and what’s happening now. Throughout our history, folks who came across the border “illegally” were treated as those who committed a “civil” crime – like getting a traffic ticket. Yes, it was “against” the law, and yes, they were brought in front of a court for the action; but it wasn’t a jailable offense. Fines or “time served” was the usual result. Then the “civil” process of determining their immigration status – in short – whether they could stay or were deported – proceeded.
But the Trump Administration determined that crossing the border was now a “crime” requiring the “criminal” to be held in custody, jailed, until trial. Since families came across the border, and the Courts said that children could not be held in “jail”, then all of the children of those families became “unaccompanied minors” and were taken from their parents. Some, no make that many, were “lost” in the “system”. There are still over one hundred who have not been returned to their parents – some for more than two years.
All Over Again
And what happened to the “actual” unaccompanied minors who crossed the border? What about the thirteen or fifteen-year-old who came across without a family, without parents? In the Trump Administration, those kids were immediately deported, sent back. That solved “our” problem, but it put those kids in even greater danger. The most dangerous part of their journey was getting to and across the border. The US policy was to send them back, sometimes into the hands of the “coyotes”. They were often the ones that took advantage of them, financially and worse, as they took them over the “line”.
But most of those kids went “away”, so the Trump Administration didn’t have to deal with them. So what’s changed? Three things have.
Biden’s Plan
First, the Biden Administration is done with the “criminalization” of border crossing. So families coming across are processed, then released to return for trial later. That worked fine before Trump, and it’s working well now. Many who come across have family here, ready to support them. There are also agencies willing to help them out. So since the adults aren’t “criminalized”, then the children can stay with them. Ultimately a Court determines their status, and they are allowed to stay or are deported.
Second, The Biden Administration has determined that it in inhumane to send unaccompanied minors, mostly teenagers and mostly boys, back into the dangers of the border zones of Mexico. Those same kids have been stacked over there, some for months or more, at risk. So when they come across the border, they are taken into custody. They are safer, but they are a problem.
Third, the little detail that has upset our entire world: COVID. In the middle of an economic crisis in Central America, there’s a world pandemic. It certainly didn’t make anything better in El Salvador or Honduras. If anything, COVID has made things so much worse, that more people are willing to risk the journey to find somewhere better in America. And the idea of crowding anyone, kids, families, adults, into some custodial setting now has a new name: super spreader.
Problems Haven’t Changed
And since gangs are the greatest threat in those nations, it is the young men who are at greatest risks. Parents are faced with choices: either their boys join the gang, or they are killed. So they are sending many of their kids on the dangerous journey North to someplace where they might have a better chance.
Most of those “unaccompanied minors” have some connection in the US, relatives – some here legally, some not. Unlike the Trump era, there’s a plan for getting them to relatives – folks that can sponsor them while the Courts determine their status. International law and treaties signed by the United States require that immigrants get the chance to make a case for asylum. Fleeing gang violence is a valid reason. The Trump Administration ignored that legal issue.
But meanwhile there’s a time element. They’ve been “dammed up” across the border, and now there is release. So many arriving – they have to be processed, and the government has to determine that they are being released to a safe environment here in the US. There are plenty willing to exploit those kids here too, from forced labor to sexual exploitation.
Solutions Have
Yes, the tent cities are back. The Department of Health and Human Services is strapped to cover the current overwhelming demand, as well as maintain COVID protocols. And there are even more problems than just the teenagers. There are more families crossing the border, and those families are “stacking up” in processing. FEMA is sending emergency teams to the border to help. But it’s happening for the “right” reason.
That doesn’t make everything “better”, but it does give hope that, ultimately, the “right” thing will get done. Yes, more people are crossing the border, and staying in the United States. And certainly the word is out in Central America that the rules have changed once again. But the United States is “back” – in the words of Emma Lazarus:
“Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”
