National Journal:
By Rachel Roubein
July 7, 2015
The
stories were harrowing, and they were everywhere: accounts of parents
paying smugglers thousands of dollars, of Central American children
trekking cross-country with
coyotes, of kids crossing the southwest border alone and then spending
days in overcrowded detention centers.
Last
summer, these tales dominated the political media—and the July
congressional session. A year later, the plight of young immigrants has
barely been a blip on the larger
D.C. radar. The numbers have decreased, and so too have the calls for
action and the volume of hearings on the Hill. And—Donald Trump
aside—the immigration issue in general isn't getting the same attention
now as it did in recent years.
President
Obama referred to last year's border crisis as "an urgent humanitarian
situation." A rush of unaccompanied minors were arriving on U.S. soil,
in part fleeing
the escalating violence, gang recruitment, and economic disparities
that plagued Central America's Northern Triangle. Members spent the
summer debating the $3.7 billion emergency supplemental request Obama
made a year ago this week to attempt to curb the uptick
in child arrivals.
The
administration has increased the number of shelters and beds for
unaccompanied minors. Images of young kids crossing the border have
faded from the front pages and
from cable news as their numbers decreased.
But
immigration advocates warn that the problem isn't over. "It's not like
the issue has gone away—in fact, anything but," said Wendy Young, Kids
in Need of Defense president.
At
a Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee hearing
Tuesday to review last year's border crisis, Philip Miller—assistant
director of field operations,
enforcement, and removal operations of U.S. Immigration and Customs
Enforcement—said without funding requested by the Obama administration,
he "would have fear that we would begin to backslide and lose some of
the gains that we have experienced in the past
year."
Since
last summer, more children have reportedly been intercepted before they
reach the United States, and the poverty and violence driving people to
leave hasn't dissipated.
The
initial uptick began in March 2014, when more than 7,000 unaccompanied
minors crossed the southwest border. These numbers increased through
June, as more than 10,600
came to the United States, then dropped off for the remainder of fiscal
2014, according to the Homeland Security Department.
The
month-to-month totals have remained steady. In March, a little over
2,000 unaccompanied minors from Central America crossed the southwest
border; in June, more than
2,900 childhood arrivals came across the same border, according to
preliminary numbers that U.S. Customs and Border Protection provided to
National Journal. (The numbers are considered final after they are
checked again at the end of the fiscal year.)
Experts
say a variety of factors contributed to this change: Additional
manpower was dispatched to the border. The administration began a media
campaign in the Northern
Triangle. And the U.S. worked with Mexico and Central America in an
attempt to curb the influx of unaccompanied minors, according to a
Migration Policy Institute report titled "Unaccompanied Child Migration
to the United States: The Tension Between Protection
and Prevention."
But
the report raises skepticism that these efforts will yield lasting
change: "Yet while these measures successfully slowed the pace of child
and family flows, they have
a limited focus: on deterrence and enforcement at the U.S. border and
along migrant transit routes."
On
Capitol Hill, the immigration debate has been fairly quiet this
session. Obama's executive order on immigration—which would provide
temporary deportation relief and
work permits to as many as 5 million undocumented immigrants—is winding
its way through the court system. And many Republicans still believe
that the Obama administration's policies have made the situation worse.
"As
President Obama has taken actions to weaken the enforcement of our
immigration laws and provide benefits to unlawful immigrants, word has
spread around the globe that
our immigration laws can be violated with impunity," House Judiciary
Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte said in a statement to National
Journal.
Goodlatte—who
was a member of a House Republican working group to address the border
crisis—pointed to two bills that his committee approved this year. One
helps ensure
unaccompanied minors are returned home safely, while the other refers
to asylum reforms.
Rep.
Mario Diaz-Balart, who also was part of the working group, told
National Journal that the situation has not been fixed. He said he wants
to see a very detailed plan
from the administration.
"I
think some of us would be helpful if there was a real aggressive effort
to deal with these narco-human-trafficking gangs," the Florida
Republican said.
For
the administration's part, Obama's annual budget request asked for $1
billion to go toward helping alleviate the economic disparities and
violence in El Salvador,
Guatemala, and Honduras. Under Obama's plan, over $400 million would go
toward prosperity and regional integration, more than $300 million to
enhanced security, and nearly $250 million toward improved governance,
according to a White House fact sheet titled
"Promoting Prosperity, Security, and Good Governance in Central
America." The administration also has put out an overall strategy on
Central America.
Additionally,
late last year, the administration began allowing parents from the
Northern Triangle who are legally in the United States to request that
their children
still living in their home country can come to America as refugees.
But
structural change in the region is needed to really address the push
factors that make parents send their children on journeys to the United
States, according to Marc
Rosenblum, MPI U.S. Immigration Policy Program deputy director. And the
governments of El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras have come together
to create a plan of attack, called the "Plan of the Alliance for
Prosperity in the Northern Triangle," which was
released in November.
The only way to really halt the flow of migrants crossing the border, Rosenblum said, is: "Give people less reasons to flee."
For more information, go to: www.beverlyhillsimmigrationlaw.com
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