No Solution for Undocumented Minors

Republicans are using the crisis surrounding undocumented minors to attack Obama, bury immigration reform and unite their base during an election year — shame on them. Shame on anyone who boasts they are guarding the American way of life (which is unquestionably based on a melting pot). And what about the rights of undocumented minors? What do the Republicans say? Democrats are on the defensive, noting that after the current congressional recess, which ends on July 8, Congress has only 16 working days before starting its August recess. Unless something changes, there will be no solution to the humanitarian crisis surrounding undocumented minors — or to immigration reform. As a result, Democratic members of Congress warn that President Obama will have to act on his own, using unilateral measures to alleviate the immigration crisis. He will most likely focus first on humanitarian aspects related to undocumented minors.

Although Congress could find a solution, obstructionist Republicans place a far greater value on politics than human tragedy. For the moment, nothing can help alleviate the situation faced by thousands of undocumented minors who are piling up in shelters, which are really just detention centers used to accelerate deportations. Statistics and political arguments come and go, but the narrative in Washington, Honduras, El Salvador, Guatemala and Mexico is dominated by images of minors crammed together on the floor where they sleep (or try to sleep) in detention centers called shelters. The other part of the narrative in Washington is that Obama waited too long before responding to the great humanitarian tragedy that started in Central America and moved across the border into Mexico, and is now blowing up on U.S. soil.

The central question for the U.S. is how to stop the flow of undocumented minors who thought that they would be safe by crossing the border. Just look at their faces! In the so-called shelters, minors are facing immigration hearings, which will be resolved one by one. A law prohibiting the deportation of migrant children after their arrival in the U.S. — if their country of origin does not share a border with the U.S. — ties the hands of the Department of Homeland Security. Assuming the interpretation is correct, only Mexican children can be immediately and almost automatically deported. The rest will face immigration hearings.

The children’s motives for taking on the dangers of the journey to the U.S. from Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador or Mexico are the hope of a better life, reunion with their parents in the U.S., escape from poverty, unmet basic needs and unemployment, and to flee the gang violence that besieges them. Given these fragile conditions, what happens when the children hear rumors that minors will not be deported and that once they cross the border, they will find new opportunities? Those with special interests — such as those who traffic in children and organs, and drug lords who need cheap labor — feed the migration flows with obviously vulnerable minors … and the list of horror stories is unending.

The minors are exposed to infinite threats. First, they must cross Mexico, facing constant danger (the least of which would be detentions by migration authorities) in order to reach the U.S. border. Then [they must face] human traffickers, gangs and drug dealers. If they arrive on U.S. soil, the minors may be chased and detained, or harassed by youth gangs and drug lords who see them as cheap labor.

There are many unknowns yet to be resolved. For example, will undocumented minors from Central America be returned to the countries of origin, or will they just be left on the other side of the border with Mexico? That does not seem practical, since they’ll simply wait for another chance to cross into the U.S.