The Two-way Dilemma
"The stakes for these kids can be life threatening. We often say we're doing death penalty cases if a person is fleeing persecution."
"If a judge makes a quick call and sends them back to their home country, they risk the fate of sending them back to possible death. And that's why it seems unrealistic that this bill would be workable."
Immigration Judge Dana Marks, president, National Association of Immigration Judges
"Listen, if you're 14, 5, 16, 17 years old, and you're coming from a country that's gang-infested -- when you have those types coming across the border, they're not children at that point. These kids have been brought up in a culture of thievery, a culture of murder, of rape. And now we are going to infuse them into the American culture. It's just ludicrous."
Florida Republican Congressman Rich Nugent
"[There are reports the children are] carrying swine flu, dengue fever, Ebola virus and tuberculosis."
Georgia Republican Congressman Phil Gingrey
"I have compassion for them. You should be flying them back home in a nice way."The Centers for Disease Control has confirmed that Ebola virus does not exist in the Americas. But that is somewhat beside the point. According to the Department of Homeland Security, over 52,000 unaccompanied children have been apprehended inside the borders of the United States of America in the past nine months. The flow has abated somewhat, but the illegal entries continue to proliferate. Some call it the children's crusade.
Kentucky Senator Rand Paul
It began in the gang-ridden middens of Honduras, in Guatemala and San Salvador, poverty stricken countries of Central America where violence is endemic and hope has been pulverized by the hopelessness of experience. The downtrodden and the poor, those facing a future of more of the same look to the land of hope and plenty as their salvation. Desperately poor parents borrow money to pay smugglers to get their children across the border from Mexico into the States.
There is an estimated 11 million illegal immigrants living in the United States. The Obama administration has attempted to bring into law a level of amnesty but his attempts have been blocked by the Republicans. A Republican administration before his, headed by President G.W. Bush was sympathetic to some kind of amnesty for illegal immigrants, but any thought of such a thing doesn't seem any closer to resolving the issue now that it had then.
Conservative Republicans would far prefer that all undocumented immigrants be 'sent home'. Immigrants who have lived most of their lives in the United States consider that their home, including their children growing up in fear and apprehension that they could at any time be revealed to be illegally in the country, a fact that impedes the completion of their education, and haunts their very futures.
A law enacted in 2008 requires child immigrants from Central America be granted immigration court hearings; with the current backlog that can take years. A Syracuse University study concluded that as of June 30, 41,541 juvenile cases and 333,862 other cases were backed up, awaiting their hearings. Fewer than half of the children are able to resort to legal representation while those with legal counsel are four times likelier to gain permission to remain in the U.S. than those without legal help.
President Obama's proposed $3.7-billion request to Congress is meant to fast track the process and give aid and support in housing children in secure facilities throughout the country. The hiring of additional immigration judges would be part of the plan, though the judges themselves claim added staff is only part of the problem since judges must be specifically trained in the complexities of immigration law to be enabled to act in their role.
And a problem that has always lingered in the minds of U.S. lawmakers finding sympathy with much of the population which has compassion for those living among them in desperation, remains a long way from solution. With the ingress of more and more desperate people fleeing hardship and violent crime in their home countries, it is a problem not amenable to being solved any time soon.
Labels: Child Welfare, Human Relations, Immigrants, Justice, United States
posted by Pieface @ Saturday, July 19, 2014
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