By now I am sure most Americans have some familiarity with the large influx of children immigrants. My question for the thread is what do you think should be the solution to this problem.
My solution would be something like this
1.) Inspect all the children for any health or life threatening problems.
2.) Determine which children want to go back home.
3.) For the the children that want to stay we put them in the immigration system.
4.) We set them up with education/job training opportunities.
5.) When the children reach age 16 they should work to pay for the debt incurred by the state.
I don't think it's ethical to ask children to sign up for a service that puts them in debt that they must work off once they reach 16. They're just children - they won't understand the implications of the deal.
This is a very complex issue, which isn't going to be solved with simplistic hard-and-fast laws, or by throwing cash at it.
I would suggest our OP do a lot of research into the issue and reconsider their standpoint.
To our OP;
If these immigrants would re-pay their debts like you say, what about pensioners, the disabled, those on wealthfare etc.???
Should they all be forced to repay their wealthfare payments too?
Okay, as someone who actually knows something about this, let me give you all a brief understanding of what's going on. Please keep in mind that if I'm vague about something, it's deliberate.
1)Parents are told by smugglers (coyotes) in the affected Central American countries that America's immigration laws are lenient on children. They'll be able to come here and get educated and then have an opportunity to work when they turn 18. These are lies, or at least half-truths, but faced with desperate gang-ridden countries where their kid's chances ARE nil, it's not a hard sell. These parents are spending a LOT of money to give them some sort of chance. The smugglers and cartels are making a lot of money off this.
2)The children are generally abused on the trip, or at the very least malnourished. For girls, it can be sexual abuse, either from the smugglers themselves or from the boys they're kept with.
3)The children are brought to the border and either dumped at the river or just over the river. The children by and large surrender themselves to border control. The daily average apprehensions have been pretty consistently in the couple hundreds. The big part of this crisis has been that there were a lot more apprehensions every day than there were 'releases' (I'll get into that in a second).
4) The children are brought to one of two holding centers, one in Texas and the other in Arizona. These facilities are essentially internment camps, they were not set up to hold this many children and have been expanded rather rapidly. These kids are kept to minimum humanitarian standards and are not allowed to leave.
5) They stay there for a few days while they get an initial health screening done, however this influx is hugely overwhelming the staff there. This is not just a pediatric check-up, most of these kids have never had any kind of significant healthcare like you or I know before in their lives. Some of the girls are pregnant, either through sexual abuse on the travel, from their home country, or even from the boys that were transported over. In terms of vaccinations, it's a mess. Vaccines aren't one shot and you're done, most of these kids are going to need follow-ups the entire time they are in the US.
6) After/during this holding period placements are attempting to be found for them. The average length of stay at the holding facilities vary, but generally it's a few days until they are flown elsewhere. If they're placed, they're going to be placed with family here, or barring that there a couple options, including being kept at federal shelters, group homes or temporary housing. I don't understand this portion incredibly well, but there are a few alternatives. Housing these children is INCREDIBLY EXPENSIVE, especially if the feds are just footing the bill and not housing the kids themselves. The billions of dollars in funding they're looking for is actually quite reasonable.
7) Once placed, these kids await trial and sentencing. Most will be deported. Only a very small number are applying for asylum. All of them get due process and have their cases reviewed, which takes on average about two years. This is largely because the immigration courts are severely underfunded, and only just came out of a huge hiring freeze.
So the major issues here are funding and the socioeconomic issues with their home countries. Republicans are claiming we 'need to secure our border first', but that's total bull*****, they're just using this as an opportunity to score points against the president at the expense of the health and well being of children. I can't emphasize this enough, the vague notion of 'securing the border' will not affect the unaccompanied children issue we're having. Short of shooting them on the Mexican side or literally walling off the entirety of the Mexican border, it's a non-issue. These kids aren't sneaking into the country and taking our jobs, they're all willingly surrendering themselves and seeking out border patrol. We would have the exact same situation if we had manned watchtowers every 1,000ft along the border with drone recon. The right strategy is what is being done already - work with the home countries of these children to stem the tide that are leaving by pushing facts instead of the smuggler lies. It's been working, but there is still the matter of taking care of the kids who are here and those who will inevitably still come (a slim chance is better than none if you're child's life is in danger at home). We do need immigration reform, but that's a dirty word right now, even if it you're not talking about amnesty - remember the shake-up we just had in congress?
By now I am sure most Americans have some familiarity with the large influx of children immigrants. My question for the thread is what do you think should be the solution to this problem.
My solution would be something like this
1.) Inspect all the children for any health or life threatening problems.
As I mentioned above, this is much more complex than you think. These kids have been exposed to a lot of things we generally don't have much problems with here because we vaccinate early (except for the Jenny McCarthy fans).
2.) Determine which children want to go back home.
These kids are fleeing conditions were there is generally a direct risk to their life, especially the boys if they don't join a gang. I doubt this is an issue.
3.) For the the children that want to stay we put them in the immigration system.
What is the 'immigration system'? Do you mean we start working on their greencards? That would require a sweeping reform to immigration policy which will not happen with the direction Republicans are currently headed. Immigration law is as dense, if not more so, than IRS rules.
Not to mention we'd need these kid's parents to accomplish that. The best we can do is determine if any of these kids qualify for asylum at this point, but on a very small number are even applying (or know to apply), and the precedent is not good. Short of an actual declared war, it's doubtful many will be approved.
4.) We set them up with education/job training opportunities.
5.) When the children reach age 16 they should work to pay for the debt incurred by the state.
So Indentured Servitude? There a few problems here:
1) These kids are going to end up in a wide variety of places, from living with family to being placed in group homes or shelters. Applying this uniformly is problematic at best
2) Each slot in a group home or other program one of these kids takes is a slot taken from a state or federal program for an American kid
3) This is seriously expensive
4) This would not stem the tide of kids coming across, in fact it would give truth the lies smugglers are currently telling
5) I can imagine a whole number of issues associated with forcing kids into indentured servitude
So this may sound cold but.... why not just ship them back immediately? Go through the fastest cheapest process to figure out where the kid came from and send them back.
So this may sound cold but.... why not just ship them back immediately? Go through the fastest cheapest process to figure out where the kid came from and send them back.
The law and due process. We need to hear out their asylum requests, and we need to figure out what their disposition is and where they go. Some of these kids are as young as 7 or 8. I doubt they even know where they're from.
More funding for immigration courts would make it go much faster, though.
So this may sound cold but.... why not just ship them back immediately? Go through the fastest cheapest process to figure out where the kid came from and send them back.
Better yet, we could let producers of new drugs experiment on them. The end result is pretty much the same (they die very soon afterwards), but this way we get some value out of their lives. And we can hold our experiments up to ethical standards, minimizing suffering. Much better than what they'll encounter when they're sent back (pressed into gangs, enslaved, addicted to narcotics, murdered to set an example) and we also eliminate the considerable risk that we're sending them back to the wrong place.
There are even more upsides to this kind of program. The cost of producing new medicines will go down, the development rate will go up. The cocaine trade will suffer, gang warfare will diminish leading to greater political stability in these nations.
I suppose a downside could be that, as Jay points out, these kids will regularly be suffering from all sorts of ailments, which will make the results of these experiments not very representative for the general population of great, rich, successful nations. But then again, this side-effect might stimulate the companies performing these experiments to invest in the well-being of their subjects.
I know you are trying to tug at my heartstrings... but do you realize how insignificant helping these kids is?
Basically what you are saying is... all the kids in these countries are basically dead... so lets be nice to the ones whose parents spent their life saving to ship them up here via illegal means.
So we take these kids and some of them get to have asylum here... and every kid that was not illegally shipped here or that we still decide to ship back (after spending a bunch of money on them) are still screwed. I don't like drop in the bucket solutions. If we really want to help these kids, then the solution is to help the countries they are coming from. Not to act as a giant foster system.
So the major issues here are funding and the socioeconomic issues with their home countries. Republicans are claiming we 'need to secure our border first', but that's total bull*****, they're just using this as an opportunity to score points against the president at the expense of the health and well being of children. I can't emphasize this enough, the vague notion of 'securing the border' will not affect the unaccompanied children issue we're having. Short of shooting them on the Mexican side or literally walling off the entirety of the Mexican border, it's a non-issue. These kids aren't sneaking into the country and taking our jobs, they're all willingly surrendering themselves and seeking out border patrol.
Wait, I'm lost. How is fortifying the border not something we should be doing if any human trafficker can just waltz right in? Should we not be preventing people from smuggling humans around?
Wait, I'm lost. How is fortifying the border not something we should be doing if any human trafficker can just waltz right in? Should we not be preventing people from smuggling humans around?
I think what he's saying is that the kids are already walking up to border patrol. The problem isn't that they're sneaking past. The smuggling part is getting them to the border, not through it.
So the major issues here are funding and the socioeconomic issues with their home countries. Republicans are claiming we 'need to secure our border first', but that's total bull*****, they're just using this as an opportunity to score points against the president at the expense of the health and well being of children. I can't emphasize this enough, the vague notion of 'securing the border' will not affect the unaccompanied children issue we're having. Short of shooting them on the Mexican side or literally walling off the entirety of the Mexican border, it's a non-issue. These kids aren't sneaking into the country and taking our jobs, they're all willingly surrendering themselves and seeking out border patrol.
Wait, I'm lost. How is fortifying the border not something we should be doing if any human trafficker can just waltz right in? Should we not be preventing people from smuggling humans around?
This is also a good point... if we had a Great Wall of China style border then the trafficking to the US stops and the fleeing to the US stops because people will quickly learn that they actually can't get there.
Although the same would be true if we just shot people on the spot as they tried to cross... that would also probably stop the majority of attempts.
Wait, I'm lost. How is fortifying the border not something we should be doing if any human trafficker can just waltz right in? Should we not be preventing people from smuggling humans around?
The question here is what does fortifying the border mean? In terms of 'border security' right now, the goal isn't to build a giant fence that physically keeps people out (which is hugely impractical, especially since that's easy to circumvent), it's to apprehend the people who come across. It's to keep these people from sneaking in and living here illegally without any official immigration proceedings.
To restate, because this can't be clear enough: the issue isn't keeping people out, that's impractical with the size of our borders. No country on Earth is fully capable of simply keeping people 100% out. The issue is apprehending them before they have a chance to disappear into the country.
With the unaccompanied minors coming in, they're turning themselves in the moment they cross the border. It's not the same kind issue we have from the general threat of illegal immigration where they try to get into the country to live here without anyone knowing. You see the difference? Anything else is just partisan politics, on both sides. Amnesty isn't the answer, and neither is a wall. Better monitoring and enforcement and a streamlined system is.
Now, we should be doing what you describe Highroller, but the current humanitarian crisis has very little to do with that. Like I said, even if we had armed watchtower every 1,000 feet with drone recon taking photos, it wouldn't affect the current crisis because these kids are turning themselves in (short of changing the law to say we can shoot these people while they're on the Mexican side, which is quite obviously wrong).
This is also a good point... if we had a Great Wall of China style border then the trafficking to the US stops and the fleeing to the US stops because people will quickly learn that they actually can't get there.
Except the Great Wall only kept armies out, and even then not all the time. Small parties still raided over the wall with impunity.
With the unaccompanied minors coming in, they're turning themselves in the moment they cross the border. It's not the same kind issue we have from the general threat of illegal immigration where they try to get into the country to live here without anyone knowing. You see the difference? Anything else is just partisan politics, on both sides. Amnesty isn't the answer, and neither is a wall. Better monitoring and enforcement and a streamlined system is.
Now, we should be doing what you describe Highroller, but the current humanitarian crisis has very little to do with that. Like I said, even if we had armed watchtower every 1,000 feet with drone recon taking photos, it wouldn't affect the current crisis because these kids are turning themselves in (short of changing the law to say we can shoot these people while they're on the Mexican side, which is quite obviously wrong).
I'm still confused. If they're turning themselves in, why are we not then turning them over to the Mexican authorities and letting them deal with it?
With the unaccompanied minors coming in, they're turning themselves in the moment they cross the border. It's not the same kind issue we have from the general threat of illegal immigration where they try to get into the country to live here without anyone knowing. You see the difference? Anything else is just partisan politics, on both sides. Amnesty isn't the answer, and neither is a wall. Better monitoring and enforcement and a streamlined system is.
Now, we should be doing what you describe Highroller, but the current humanitarian crisis has very little to do with that. Like I said, even if we had armed watchtower every 1,000 feet with drone recon taking photos, it wouldn't affect the current crisis because these kids are turning themselves in (short of changing the law to say we can shoot these people while they're on the Mexican side, which is quite obviously wrong).
I'm still confused. If they're turning themselves in, why are we not then turning them over to the Mexican authorities and letting them deal with it?
Because they're not Mexican (or at least the vast majority aren't), and also because current laws require each child get some sort of due process once they're on US soil. These kids are all coming from further south and cutting through Mexico to get here. Most likely it is the Mexican Cartels behind a lot of these trips, but the kids themselves aren't Mexican and there isn't really any effective way to stop them before they reach the US (at least not without Mexico's help and we can all guess how likely effective help from them will be). If Mexican authorities wanted to deal with any of this, they'd be stopping them at their border.
A lot of the current efforts are being dedicated to stopping people from leaving by telling the truth about the situation here, that they will not be given the opportunity to get jobs and become citizens.
Another Update for you, Highroller. I didn't realize this, but part of the reason they can't be sent back so quickly is a 2008 or 2009 law that prevents it from countries that don't share a border with us.
question: why don't we use these kids as sort of a bargaining chip? Not to get concessions for the U.S., but to get the countries to get into gear to help themselves?
I mean, I'm honestly not sure about the details, and I have no clue how to go about it, but would that be a feasible thought? We take care of them in exchange for reforms of certain systems in the other countries? (obviously we would need a method to monitor said reforms, or this whole idea is pointless.)
I mean, I'm honestly not sure about the details, and I have no clue how to go about it, but would that be a feasible thought? We take care of them in exchange for reforms of certain systems in the other countries? (obviously we would need a method to monitor said reforms, or this whole idea is pointless.)
If these countries' governments were interested in expending effort to secure the kids' well being, they would do so without prompting from us. It isn't even necessarily fecklessness and corruption - although certainly those are rampant. But a hard, cynical look at priorities will reach the same conclusion. If you're a good, honest official in, say, Nicaragua, you've got an absolute mountain of crime problems on your plate. Human trafficking is comparatively* harmless to your country and its stability, and if the traffickers are headed towards America, why not let the big rich Americans handle them while you concentrate on the men with guns who are shooting your soldiers and police officers?
*Note I say comparatively.
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question: why don't we use these kids as sort of a bargaining chip? Not to get concessions for the U.S., but to get the countries to get into gear to help themselves?
How would you use them as a bargaining chip? Make concessions or we'll ____?
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What's the big deal? You could have played multiple Righteous Avengers for years now.
If these countries' governments were interested in expending effort to secure the kids' well being, they would do so without prompting from us. It isn't even necessarily fecklessness and corruption - although certainly those are rampant. But a hard, cynical look at priorities will reach the same conclusion. If you're a good, honest official in, say, Nicaragua, you've got an absolute mountain of crime problems on your plate. Human trafficking is comparatively* harmless to your country and its stability, and if the traffickers are headed towards America, why not let the big rich Americans handle them while you concentrate on the men with guns who are shooting your soldiers and police officers?
*Note I say comparatively.
A lot these third-world countries are hellholes because of this ridiculous War on Drugs that has been going on for 40 years now. Drug cartels would stand to lose a lot of power if many drugs were legalized and it would cause less children to be trying to flee north.
By now I am sure most Americans have some familiarity with the large influx of children immigrants. My question for the thread is what do you think should be the solution to this problem.
My solution would be something like this
1.) Inspect all the children for any health or life threatening problems.
2.) Determine which children want to go back home.
3.) For the the children that want to stay we put them in the immigration system.
4.) We set them up with education/job training opportunities.
5.) When the children reach age 16 they should work to pay for the debt incurred by the state.
The problem with this situation is that these children haven't been classified as refugees, which is what they are. Refugee status would give them international support and make helping them a lot easier. But it isn't something that's easy to grant and since the children are coming from several countries maybe impossible. The UN wants these kids to be called refugees and I really hope this happens. Also, refugee services like food stamps and Medicaid, are paid for by the federal government so the states themselves never feel a burden from the services refugees receive.
I don't think it's ethical to ask children to sign up for a service that puts them in debt that they must work off once they reach 16. They're just children - they won't understand the implications of the deal.
Current refugees, even the children, who come to the US have to pay the UN back for their travel to the US. A family of 5 might have $10,000 to pay back and though in most cases the parents pay their children's loans sometimes they don't. I know several refugee teens who have after school jobs just to pay their loans. 16 is a bad idea because a 16 year old isn't an adult but 18 is fine and a reality for many refugees in the US.
A lot these third-world countries are hellholes because of this ridiculous War on Drugs that has been going on for 40 years now. Drug cartels would stand to lose a lot of power if many drugs were legalized and it would cause less children to be trying to flee north.
I completely agree with you, until we begin to look at the classical mob mentality and some of the other aspects to these drug cartels. We may call them drug cartels, just as the old mobsters were into bootlegging, however their criminal enterprises were far and beyond that. We're so not talking about bootleggers and rum runner equals, like the early marijuana traffickers who were non violent but rapacious with the "great game" and the "chase," what has to be looked at is human slave trade, bribery, extortion, kidnapping, protection rackets, and other significant crimes.
While sex slavery might be able to be fixed with 18+ legal prostitution, we have to begin to look at pedophilia and other such mechanics that are to be looked at. Therefore, we may also discuss Japan's low rate of specific sex crimes and high rate of pornography in it's media industry. Which may also reflect American culture's shift in lowering crime rate with increased electronics usage among people under 27 and younger.
I'm not quite certain about these policy questions, as they tend to be wrapped up fairly tight. We also have the other issue with Salafist Jihadism or some of the mutations of Christianity such as one gang in Mexico that had cult-like mentality to it. I'm not steadfast that the free market can ultimately serve to protect civil society, it just gets rid of the softcore criminals and medium core. However, the hardcore criminals are a different beast.
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A lot these third-world countries are hellholes because of this ridiculous War on Drugs that has been going on for 40 years now. Drug cartels would stand to lose a lot of power if many drugs were legalized and it would cause less children to be trying to flee north.
That's simplistic and I think you know it. First of all, marijuana is the only major drug we can even think about legalizing. Legal, say, heroin is off the table; that's not "ridiculous", that's just a basic concern for public health.
Second, when a vicious criminal gang has its revenue flow threatened, it does not just pack up and go home. It tries to move into other trades. Violently. It's not like crime went away in America when Washington repealed Prohibition and the states took over the numbers rackets. If Americans were to gradually lose interest in illegal drugs, I expect the cartels would simply expand their operations in extortion and, yes, human trafficking. And if the American government were to suddenly announce that all drugs were legal, it would be even worse: the shock would set off massive wars south of the border, and possibly north of it. Yes, the loss of American drug money would probably weaken the cartels in the long run. But it wouldn't solve the problem.
And third, putting all the blame on America's policies is perversely Americocentric: it portrays the Latin countries as helpless victims that can only passively suffer the whims of Washington. But it's not as though America is exactly unique in banning drugs. (In fact, full marijuana legalization in Washington and Colorado, a modest beginning though it might be, actually makes the country more drug-progressive than even the Netherlands - where, contrary to myth, pot is merely decriminalized.) We're simply the biggest, richest market. And even if we were unique, Central Americans still can and must do more themselves to fight corruption and enforce their laws; they cannot simply throw up their hands, say it's all America's fault, and expect America to fix it. Gangs can be resisted, even when a law provides them with an extremely lucrative black market. Even at the height of American Prohibition, gang violence here was never as bad as it is down there, because there was enough active and un-corrupt law enforcement with enough resources to maintain a semblance of order. Of course, I'm not excusing the contribution of the United States to the cartel problem; the blood and chaos have got to be on the conscience of every American who buys from a drug dealer. But Americans are not the only ones with agency here.
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My solution would be something like this
1.) Inspect all the children for any health or life threatening problems.
2.) Determine which children want to go back home.
3.) For the the children that want to stay we put them in the immigration system.
4.) We set them up with education/job training opportunities.
5.) When the children reach age 16 they should work to pay for the debt incurred by the state.
And then what?
I've seen arguments that go "if they're sick, auto-send back the border; we don't need plague ridden foreigners!".
Isn't this a trap of some sort? Children will almost always choose to remain home unless it's been trained to say so otherwise.
"Sometimes, the situation is outracing a threat, sometimes it's ignoring it, and sometimes it involves sideboarding in 4x Hope//Pray." --Doug Linn
I would suggest our OP do a lot of research into the issue and reconsider their standpoint.
To our OP;
If these immigrants would re-pay their debts like you say, what about pensioners, the disabled, those on wealthfare etc.???
Should they all be forced to repay their wealthfare payments too?
1)Parents are told by smugglers (coyotes) in the affected Central American countries that America's immigration laws are lenient on children. They'll be able to come here and get educated and then have an opportunity to work when they turn 18. These are lies, or at least half-truths, but faced with desperate gang-ridden countries where their kid's chances ARE nil, it's not a hard sell. These parents are spending a LOT of money to give them some sort of chance. The smugglers and cartels are making a lot of money off this.
2)The children are generally abused on the trip, or at the very least malnourished. For girls, it can be sexual abuse, either from the smugglers themselves or from the boys they're kept with.
3)The children are brought to the border and either dumped at the river or just over the river. The children by and large surrender themselves to border control. The daily average apprehensions have been pretty consistently in the couple hundreds. The big part of this crisis has been that there were a lot more apprehensions every day than there were 'releases' (I'll get into that in a second).
4) The children are brought to one of two holding centers, one in Texas and the other in Arizona. These facilities are essentially internment camps, they were not set up to hold this many children and have been expanded rather rapidly. These kids are kept to minimum humanitarian standards and are not allowed to leave.
5) They stay there for a few days while they get an initial health screening done, however this influx is hugely overwhelming the staff there. This is not just a pediatric check-up, most of these kids have never had any kind of significant healthcare like you or I know before in their lives. Some of the girls are pregnant, either through sexual abuse on the travel, from their home country, or even from the boys that were transported over. In terms of vaccinations, it's a mess. Vaccines aren't one shot and you're done, most of these kids are going to need follow-ups the entire time they are in the US.
6) After/during this holding period placements are attempting to be found for them. The average length of stay at the holding facilities vary, but generally it's a few days until they are flown elsewhere. If they're placed, they're going to be placed with family here, or barring that there a couple options, including being kept at federal shelters, group homes or temporary housing. I don't understand this portion incredibly well, but there are a few alternatives. Housing these children is INCREDIBLY EXPENSIVE, especially if the feds are just footing the bill and not housing the kids themselves. The billions of dollars in funding they're looking for is actually quite reasonable.
7) Once placed, these kids await trial and sentencing. Most will be deported. Only a very small number are applying for asylum. All of them get due process and have their cases reviewed, which takes on average about two years. This is largely because the immigration courts are severely underfunded, and only just came out of a huge hiring freeze.
So the major issues here are funding and the socioeconomic issues with their home countries. Republicans are claiming we 'need to secure our border first', but that's total bull*****, they're just using this as an opportunity to score points against the president at the expense of the health and well being of children. I can't emphasize this enough, the vague notion of 'securing the border' will not affect the unaccompanied children issue we're having. Short of shooting them on the Mexican side or literally walling off the entirety of the Mexican border, it's a non-issue. These kids aren't sneaking into the country and taking our jobs, they're all willingly surrendering themselves and seeking out border patrol. We would have the exact same situation if we had manned watchtowers every 1,000ft along the border with drone recon. The right strategy is what is being done already - work with the home countries of these children to stem the tide that are leaving by pushing facts instead of the smuggler lies. It's been working, but there is still the matter of taking care of the kids who are here and those who will inevitably still come (a slim chance is better than none if you're child's life is in danger at home). We do need immigration reform, but that's a dirty word right now, even if it you're not talking about amnesty - remember the shake-up we just had in congress?
As I mentioned above, this is much more complex than you think. These kids have been exposed to a lot of things we generally don't have much problems with here because we vaccinate early (except for the Jenny McCarthy fans).
These kids are fleeing conditions were there is generally a direct risk to their life, especially the boys if they don't join a gang. I doubt this is an issue.
What is the 'immigration system'? Do you mean we start working on their greencards? That would require a sweeping reform to immigration policy which will not happen with the direction Republicans are currently headed. Immigration law is as dense, if not more so, than IRS rules.
Not to mention we'd need these kid's parents to accomplish that. The best we can do is determine if any of these kids qualify for asylum at this point, but on a very small number are even applying (or know to apply), and the precedent is not good. Short of an actual declared war, it's doubtful many will be approved.
So Indentured Servitude? There a few problems here:
1) These kids are going to end up in a wide variety of places, from living with family to being placed in group homes or shelters. Applying this uniformly is problematic at best
2) Each slot in a group home or other program one of these kids takes is a slot taken from a state or federal program for an American kid
3) This is seriously expensive
4) This would not stem the tide of kids coming across, in fact it would give truth the lies smugglers are currently telling
5) I can imagine a whole number of issues associated with forcing kids into indentured servitude
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The law and due process. We need to hear out their asylum requests, and we need to figure out what their disposition is and where they go. Some of these kids are as young as 7 or 8. I doubt they even know where they're from.
More funding for immigration courts would make it go much faster, though.
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I know you are trying to tug at my heartstrings... but do you realize how insignificant helping these kids is?
Basically what you are saying is... all the kids in these countries are basically dead... so lets be nice to the ones whose parents spent their life saving to ship them up here via illegal means.
So we take these kids and some of them get to have asylum here... and every kid that was not illegally shipped here or that we still decide to ship back (after spending a bunch of money on them) are still screwed. I don't like drop in the bucket solutions. If we really want to help these kids, then the solution is to help the countries they are coming from. Not to act as a giant foster system.
I think what he's saying is that the kids are already walking up to border patrol. The problem isn't that they're sneaking past. The smuggling part is getting them to the border, not through it.
This is also a good point... if we had a Great Wall of China style border then the trafficking to the US stops and the fleeing to the US stops because people will quickly learn that they actually can't get there.
Although the same would be true if we just shot people on the spot as they tried to cross... that would also probably stop the majority of attempts.
The question here is what does fortifying the border mean? In terms of 'border security' right now, the goal isn't to build a giant fence that physically keeps people out (which is hugely impractical, especially since that's easy to circumvent), it's to apprehend the people who come across. It's to keep these people from sneaking in and living here illegally without any official immigration proceedings.
To restate, because this can't be clear enough: the issue isn't keeping people out, that's impractical with the size of our borders. No country on Earth is fully capable of simply keeping people 100% out. The issue is apprehending them before they have a chance to disappear into the country.
With the unaccompanied minors coming in, they're turning themselves in the moment they cross the border. It's not the same kind issue we have from the general threat of illegal immigration where they try to get into the country to live here without anyone knowing. You see the difference? Anything else is just partisan politics, on both sides. Amnesty isn't the answer, and neither is a wall. Better monitoring and enforcement and a streamlined system is.
Now, we should be doing what you describe Highroller, but the current humanitarian crisis has very little to do with that. Like I said, even if we had armed watchtower every 1,000 feet with drone recon taking photos, it wouldn't affect the current crisis because these kids are turning themselves in (short of changing the law to say we can shoot these people while they're on the Mexican side, which is quite obviously wrong).
Edit to avoid double posting:
Except the Great Wall only kept armies out, and even then not all the time. Small parties still raided over the wall with impunity.
Is murdering people attempting to cross really the answer, though? I think most people will say no (even if it would be effective).
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Because they're not Mexican (or at least the vast majority aren't), and also because current laws require each child get some sort of due process once they're on US soil. These kids are all coming from further south and cutting through Mexico to get here. Most likely it is the Mexican Cartels behind a lot of these trips, but the kids themselves aren't Mexican and there isn't really any effective way to stop them before they reach the US (at least not without Mexico's help and we can all guess how likely effective help from them will be). If Mexican authorities wanted to deal with any of this, they'd be stopping them at their border.
A lot of the current efforts are being dedicated to stopping people from leaving by telling the truth about the situation here, that they will not be given the opportunity to get jobs and become citizens.
Another Update for you, Highroller. I didn't realize this, but part of the reason they can't be sent back so quickly is a 2008 or 2009 law that prevents it from countries that don't share a border with us.
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I mean, I'm honestly not sure about the details, and I have no clue how to go about it, but would that be a feasible thought? We take care of them in exchange for reforms of certain systems in the other countries? (obviously we would need a method to monitor said reforms, or this whole idea is pointless.)
"normality is a paved road: it is comfortable to walk, but no flowers grow there."
-Vincent Van Gogh
things I hate:
1. lists.
b. inconsistencies.
V. incorrect math.
2. quotes in signatures
III: irony.
there are two kinds of people in the world: those who can make reasonable conclusions based on conjecture.
*Note I say comparatively.
candidus inperti; si nil, his utere mecum.
Why not just have them pay taxes like normal people? You're suggesting indentured servitude for children.
"normality is a paved road: it is comfortable to walk, but no flowers grow there."
-Vincent Van Gogh
things I hate:
1. lists.
b. inconsistencies.
V. incorrect math.
2. quotes in signatures
III: irony.
there are two kinds of people in the world: those who can make reasonable conclusions based on conjecture.
A lot these third-world countries are hellholes because of this ridiculous War on Drugs that has been going on for 40 years now. Drug cartels would stand to lose a lot of power if many drugs were legalized and it would cause less children to be trying to flee north.
The problem with this situation is that these children haven't been classified as refugees, which is what they are. Refugee status would give them international support and make helping them a lot easier. But it isn't something that's easy to grant and since the children are coming from several countries maybe impossible. The UN wants these kids to be called refugees and I really hope this happens. Also, refugee services like food stamps and Medicaid, are paid for by the federal government so the states themselves never feel a burden from the services refugees receive.
If the UN gets involved then there will be some aid from them.
Current refugees, even the children, who come to the US have to pay the UN back for their travel to the US. A family of 5 might have $10,000 to pay back and though in most cases the parents pay their children's loans sometimes they don't. I know several refugee teens who have after school jobs just to pay their loans. 16 is a bad idea because a 16 year old isn't an adult but 18 is fine and a reality for many refugees in the US.
I completely agree with you, until we begin to look at the classical mob mentality and some of the other aspects to these drug cartels. We may call them drug cartels, just as the old mobsters were into bootlegging, however their criminal enterprises were far and beyond that. We're so not talking about bootleggers and rum runner equals, like the early marijuana traffickers who were non violent but rapacious with the "great game" and the "chase," what has to be looked at is human slave trade, bribery, extortion, kidnapping, protection rackets, and other significant crimes.
While sex slavery might be able to be fixed with 18+ legal prostitution, we have to begin to look at pedophilia and other such mechanics that are to be looked at. Therefore, we may also discuss Japan's low rate of specific sex crimes and high rate of pornography in it's media industry. Which may also reflect American culture's shift in lowering crime rate with increased electronics usage among people under 27 and younger.
I'm not quite certain about these policy questions, as they tend to be wrapped up fairly tight. We also have the other issue with Salafist Jihadism or some of the mutations of Christianity such as one gang in Mexico that had cult-like mentality to it. I'm not steadfast that the free market can ultimately serve to protect civil society, it just gets rid of the softcore criminals and medium core. However, the hardcore criminals are a different beast.
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Second, when a vicious criminal gang has its revenue flow threatened, it does not just pack up and go home. It tries to move into other trades. Violently. It's not like crime went away in America when Washington repealed Prohibition and the states took over the numbers rackets. If Americans were to gradually lose interest in illegal drugs, I expect the cartels would simply expand their operations in extortion and, yes, human trafficking. And if the American government were to suddenly announce that all drugs were legal, it would be even worse: the shock would set off massive wars south of the border, and possibly north of it. Yes, the loss of American drug money would probably weaken the cartels in the long run. But it wouldn't solve the problem.
And third, putting all the blame on America's policies is perversely Americocentric: it portrays the Latin countries as helpless victims that can only passively suffer the whims of Washington. But it's not as though America is exactly unique in banning drugs. (In fact, full marijuana legalization in Washington and Colorado, a modest beginning though it might be, actually makes the country more drug-progressive than even the Netherlands - where, contrary to myth, pot is merely decriminalized.) We're simply the biggest, richest market. And even if we were unique, Central Americans still can and must do more themselves to fight corruption and enforce their laws; they cannot simply throw up their hands, say it's all America's fault, and expect America to fix it. Gangs can be resisted, even when a law provides them with an extremely lucrative black market. Even at the height of American Prohibition, gang violence here was never as bad as it is down there, because there was enough active and un-corrupt law enforcement with enough resources to maintain a semblance of order. Of course, I'm not excusing the contribution of the United States to the cartel problem; the blood and chaos have got to be on the conscience of every American who buys from a drug dealer. But Americans are not the only ones with agency here.
candidus inperti; si nil, his utere mecum.