Paul Revere by Cyrus Dallin, North End, Boston

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Monday, July 14, 2014

Humanitarian Crisis at the Border



Please watch the video in the link below:


America's child migrant crisis, explained in 2 minutes


"Unaccompanied children who are caught crossing into the US are supposed to stay in the custody of Border Patrol agents for no more than 72 hours. During that time, they're screened by a Border Patrol officer. Children coming from Mexico have to prove to the Border Patrol officer that they fear persecution or trafficking in order to stay. Otherwise, they're returned. (It's believed that President Obama plans to ask Congress to extend this to Central American children as well.)

Children who pass the Border Patrol screening, or aren't subjected to it, are sent into the custody of the Office of Refugee Resettlement — part of the Department of Health and Human Services. Because the government is so overwhelmed by the current influx, many of these children are being held in Border Patrol custody for more than 72 hours, or being held in intermediate detention centers — some of which are makeshift spaces on military bases. Once the Office of Refugee Resettlement receives a child, it's responsible for keeping the child in an HHS facility while it finds a relative or family friend who can take the child on. (The current crunch has made it difficult for HHS to screen relatives appropriately.)

If no relative can be found, the child is placed in long-term foster care. Meanwhile, the child's immigration case is being processed. In some cases, an asylum officer evaluates a child's claim for asylum; in other cases, the child goes through immigration court, where they might receive asylum or request Special Immigrant Juvenile Status (for children who can't be reunited with their families because of 'abuse, negligence or neglect')."


More here:

Thousands of children are fleeing Central America to Texas — alone



 The conservative blogsphere has exploded with emotional, and mostly inaccurate, reporting on the current crisis. 


From the New York Times, Sunday, July 13, 2014:

There is a reasonable way to confront the influx of Central American children at the southern border, and the White House is getting it mostly right. It has asked Congress for $3.7 billion in emergency funds to pay for more immigration judges, for legal assistance to children and parents, and to help care for tens of thousands of children in shelters in Texas and elsewhere. 
  
The request seeks more money for the Border Patrol, and for speedier prosecutions and deportations of adults with children, repatriating migrants and addressing causes fueling the exodus in El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras. And it includes an ad campaign to urge parents there to keep their children at home. ... 
 
 But instead of supporting the package, Republicans are throwing up roadblocks. And through dangerous overreaction, some are urging actions that would make the situation worse. They want to make the children’s deportations speedier by amending or repealing the Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act, a 2008 law signed by President George W. Bush that gave new legal and humanitarian protections to unaccompanied migrant children from countries other than Mexico or Canada. 

"Republicans could fix the problem on the border, but they're not about to surrender a talking point just because it stops a metric ton of human misery. On this issue, as with nearly every other, they much prefer 'look how bad a job Obama is doing' to 'look how good a job we're doing.' Government doing a bad job, no matter where the fault lies, is considered a win by this Republican Party." --Mark Sumner




Question of the day.



14 comments:

Les Carpenter said...

Question of the Day: Is it the responsibility of the tax paying citizens of the United States to continue to foot the bill for rampant illegal entry into the United States by foreigners?

The obvious answer to that question is an unequivocal no!!!

But is IS the responsibility of the United States government (House of Representatives) to pass an effective immigration reform law that effectively limits and then controls immigration at a reasonable level.

The 3.7 billion is a ridiculously high number IMNHO to "process" these illegals as processing should be returning them to their country of origin and their parents post haste.

On this point we can agree, republicans are indeed more interested in politics and hyperbole that they hope will damage the President than doing anything really constructive.

I'm just waiting to see both the President and the Congress resolve this long festering and growing issue. I'm not going to be holding out much "hope that much if anything changes.

Sad It Is.

Jerry Critter said...

Adults and children should not be treated the same.

skudrunner said...

3.7 billion dollars for what?
They should either enforce the laws that are on the books, if your illegal your illegal. No more undocumented tourist or visiting illegal.

Enforce the laws or open the border to everyone and let the games begin. Someone needs to take those less than $15.00 per hour jobs and all we really need to do is just print a little more money.

Why was presbo so reluctant to visit the border. He stated he wasn't interested in a photo op, don't tell the guy he played pool with or the people he cut in line that he was not interested in a photo op.

Ray Cranston said...

The TPers want to solve the problem by sending children back to their certain deaths because they're useless disease carrying brown people. And they blame Obama for it all, even tho this country has meddled in the political affairs of central America for years which is really the cause of the violence in those countries. But its Obama's fault because ____________fill in the blank.

Les Carpenter said...

Tyf, this is precisely the kind if diatribe and BS that makes your case as worthless as worthless can be.

Your type are as much scum as you accuse you political opponents of being. Enjoy your cess pool Tyf.

Shaw Kenawe said...

I don't necessarily agree with the tone of TYF's comment, but he/she didn't attack anyone here so I allow it. I've seen much, much worse emotional comments on the conservative blogs where they call Pres. Obama a Commie who hates America and who wants to destroy it.

It's TYF,s opinion, and compared with what I've read lately concerning the border crisis, it is tame.

Les Carpenter said...

Fair enough Shaw, I've seem Tyf comments elsewhere. Nuff said?

Ducky's here said...

This comes from the BBC

So much of this is fueled by irrational hatred that reason has little value.

Les Carpenter said...

When reason is absent play to emotion eh Ducky?

Anonymous said...

TYF had it right. The conservatives have been in hysterics over this crisis and they show their hatred of refugees and brown people. I wonder if their revulsion of these children would be as strong if they were, say, Canadian children fleeing from murderers and gangs in their country?

Count on the baggers to always be on the wrong side of an issue.

Les Carpenter said...

Anon, BS and hypothetical situations will not carry the day with reasonable people. Reason will. Something both the extreme right wing and the extreme left wing are sorely lacking in.

But dungeons, dragons, lollipops, and rainbows seem to work for some.

Les Carpenter said...

Jon Stewart on Immigration Crises - Kids Edition.

Dervish Sanders said...

Question of the Day: Is it the responsibility of the tax paying citizens of the United States to continue to foot the bill for "rampant" illegal entry into the United States by foreigners?

The obvious answer to that question is an unequivocal YES!!!

Why? What other choice is there? Shoot them on sight and dump the bodies on the other side of the border? How else is this not going to cost us anything? Also, it is the RIGHT thing to do. But humanitarianism could very well be incompatible with Libertarianism (my opinion is that it is).

Dervish Sanders said...

Re: TYF comment... I read this as an accurate description of how TPers view these people and not how TYF views them. But it is possible the other commenters who took the descriptors to be ones TYF himself would use know more than me.

Re: RN saying we should be "returning them to their country of origin and their parents post haste"... sounds expensive... the locating of their parents part. More than simply turning them over to the government of where they came from. Unless those governments cooperate and foot the bill on their side (we turn them over and those governments locate the parents and facilitate a reunion... which could be unlikely - that they would agree to this).

Not that it matters, as that won't be how we will be proceeding. And Jerry is correct. Children should absolutely not be treated the same as adults.