US vs. Its Children

In the last few days, Secretary of Homeland Security John Kelly has considered the possibility of separating immigrant children from their undocumented fathers or mothers upon being detained at the frontier with Mexico. As might be expected, the idea has generated protest and concern, including those expressed by the foreign relations secretary, Luis Videgaray.

However, we forget this practice already exists and affects a great many people daily. There is nothing new in Kelly’s threats. The minors who are separated from their mothers and fathers because of their detention and exportation have been deeply harmed. This isn’t about people who recently arrived in the United States through the frontier; it’s about a population that is part of their community.

When Mexican immigrants have succeeded in staying in the United States for a long time, even if it is in an undocumented way, they progressively integrate themselves into their society in the fullest sense. They have families, jobs, connections with neighbors and communities; they rent or buy homes, contribute economically and pay taxes.

Of course, along with families come sons and daughters, and upon being born in the United States, they are citizens of that country, and thanks to their parents, they are also Mexicans. There is an enormous number of people who have dual nationality and are bilingual and bicultural: approximately 11.5 million. At present, the most vulnerable are undocumented children of mothers or fathers who at any moment could be deported, as has happened intensively at least since 2008.

The year 2011 was tragic with regard to the separation of families. The number of persons deported to Mexico who left their minor-aged children in the United States exceeded 50,000. In the years following, if the numbers decreased, the situation was no less serious. In 2014, the number was more than 30,000; in 2015, almost 21,000; in 2016, about 23,000. A similar figure is expected for 2017.

From his perspective, Kelly’s announcement is simply the continuation of something very serious that has been going on daily for 10 years. If we add that around 90 percent of the separated minors are U.S. citizens, the picture gets even more complicated.

The deportation of mothers and fathers is direct aggression against minors. With regard to their greater interest, under international standards governing the protection of children, and also considering U.S. legislation on children, it is an unjustifiable attack on minors; it is the United States against its own children, regardless of whether the mothers or fathers are undocumented. These little people are its citizens, without a doubt. The United States doesn’t care about how the hard emotional and material cost of their separation violates them.

The dialogue and eventual agreement between Mexico and the United States on immigration matters could take on as its central theme the cases of these children who are citizens of both countries. Their protection is the obligation of both governments. In the pursuit of their greater interest, they should open paths for the reunion of families, considering the deportation of the last years, and by doing that regulate the return and permanence of mothers and fathers with their children in the United States; and in the same way, actively promote the naturalization of those who live there and find themselves in the situation of binational and bicultural families.

In the short term, the new judicial resources available to the Mexican consulates in the United States should be focused on efforts to avoid these separations, arguing that it is in the greater interest of children, shared by both countries, to open, through this door, the exercise of the rights of all children.