I wanted to draw your attention to an editorial at the Christian Science Monitor on the sharp increase in the number of unaccompanied minors coming into the United States across the Mexican border:
Some observers suggest that the US has earned a reputation in Latin American countries for being “soft†on undocumented women and children, a policy, they say, that only encourages more of them to cross the border. Some of the children are being allowed to join family members already in the US legally. Others are being passed along to private aid organizations for temporary shelter.
Politicians in both US political parties, as well as private aid agencies, wonder how the US will be able to afford to care for such an influx of vulnerable children and, in some cases, their mothers. The cost of dealing with children entering the US illegally is expected to rise to $2 billion in 2015, up from $868 million in 2014, the Obama administration estimates.
It is in the nature of Americans – as well as in American self-interest – to want to help improve, through aid and diplomacy, the economic and political situations south of its border so that fewer desperate individuals, including children, will try to cross into the US illegally. The US can also try to put a stronger fence around its “yard†to keep unwanted immigrants and their problems outside.
But once a child is here, on the doorstep, Americans know that bringing that child inside and providing help is their only choice.
Something that has gone too long unremarked upon is that this isn’t just another American problem. Children aren’t coming from Guatemala and Honduras through 1,000 miles of Mexico by transporter beam. I do not believe such a thing could occur without Mexican acquiescence or connivance. This is a regional issue and we should be engaged in multi-lateral talks that include not just Mexico but the “donor” countries as well. Aid to assist these countries in helping the desperate people coming here would be cheaper than stemming a humanitarian disaster after it’s already arrived on our doorstep.
This is yet another example of unexpected secondary effects. There are so many to choose from! Dilatory American policy. Public musing by high officials. Confused immigration policy. The dangers of agricultural monoculture.
Some of the children are teens with gang affiliations, it seems. And the Mexican cartels seem to be behind this both because there’s some money to be made in human trafficking and because the flood of people makes drug trafficking easier.
And I thought this flood of people was supposed to lessen, not increase.
And as long as we keep bringing those children in and letting them stay, they will keep coming. We should look after our own before taking on everyone else’s problems.
Regarding the “donor countries”, in the case of Guatemala the political situation has been steadily deteriorating over the past year since Rios Montt’s conviction for genocide was overturned. More recently I think the reformer Attorney General Paz y Paz is being pushed out of office. This has to be causing fear among the people whose families lived through the horrors of the country’s long civil war.
Since the reasons for the exodus aren’t just economic, I’m skeptical whether aid would help.
As a Hispanic myself; who pays taxes through the nose to support the Amerikan breeders and the mis-education of their offspring, let me say that I would prefer to support Latino kids. Let them come!
If the breeders have the right to pop out kids willy-nilly, why shouldn’t I have the right to designate my tax dollars to a kid from North and Central America?
International adoptions are a thing.