Illegal Immigrant Children: An Opportunity for the Gospel
By Greg Koenig
I
t’s a serious movement that can affect you directly or indirectly. According to U.S. Customs and Border Protection, from October 1, 2013, to September 3, 2014, more than 66,000 unaccompanied children were apprehended at the United States’ southwest border. All things considered, perhaps that initially doesn’t sound particularly dramatic. After all, during the 1990s, more than 1.5 million illegal immigrants crossed the southwest border into the country every year. Although U.S. border control strategies have reduced the total significantly, the number of illegal aliens returned to their countries of origin in 2013 was more than 420,000. So what is it that is worth special notice? For one thing, the 66,000 immigrants are children typically between the ages of 12 and 17, but many as young as 5 years old. For another, they’re unaccompanied— traveling alone or with other children, on foot, in passenger vans, even riding precariously atop the cars of a U.S.bound Mexican freight train sometimes called “La Bestia” (The Beast). For yet another, the current number—which continues to grow—is nearly double the total for the preceding year. The total has risen sharply each year since 2011, when it was just over 16,000. The phenomenon has even acquired a name as it has unfolded: immigration officials and the media are calling it “the surge.” Early statistics tracking the surge show the majority of these children coming from Mexico, but there has been a steady increase from the
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The Lutheran Layman November-December 2014
Central American “Northern Triangle” countries of Guatemala, El Salvador, and Honduras. In 2014, the proportions are almost equivalent, with the most children coming from Honduras.
Where are They? Because of agreements the United States has with its contiguous neighbors Mexico and Canada, most Mexican children are immediately returned to Mexico after a brief screening. For children from non-contiguous countries of origin, the process is more complex. They are placed in a standard deportation process through immigration court: after they are apprehended, they are transferred within 72 hours to the Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of Refugee Resettlement and then placed in temporary shelters to await their court hearings. The average length of time a child is detained in a shelter is 35 days. If a child has family members in the United States, as is often the case, the Office of Refugee Resettlement will attempt to release custody of the child to those relatives or to individual/ organizational sponsors. Upon release, a child is expected to enroll in a U.S. school.
Why the Surge? There has been speculation that existing immigration agreements and relaxation of deportation policy have contributed to the increase in the numbers of children coming to the United States. However, this does not account for the fact that children from El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras are also leaving their countries and
crossing illegally into Mexico, Panama, Nicaragua, Belize, and Costa Rica. Recent studies suggest that the reasons have nothing to do with policies or politics. In one study made by the United Nations High Council on Refugees, 404 unaccompanied children from the four countries were interviewed. Reasons the children gave for coming to the U.S. included extreme poverty in the country of origin versus the hope for better opportunity, exploitation by human traffickers (a concern almost unique to Mexican children), and the intention to reunite with a relative already in the U.S. But the primary reason the majority of these children gave for their flight to the United States was violence— particularly the escalating violence connected with gangs and the drug trade, but also domestic violence (although fewer girls than boys are coming to the United States, most of the girls who are apprehended also are likely to be fleeing sexual violence). Because of this, the immigration cases of these children become still more complex. In the document titled 1951 Convention relating to the Status of Refugees as amended by the 1967 Protocol relating to the Status of Refugees, a person who can be defined as a refugee is guaranteed international protection from being returned to a dangerous situation (or “refoulement”). Thus immigration courts are having to determine whether many of the children coming from these four countries in Latin America are eligible for refugee status.