Protecting unaccompanied minors at the border

[Bootstrap]

What's the best way to protect unaccompanied minors at the border? What is most likely to keep them safe?

[Josh]

Children should not be wandering across national borders by themselves, period. The best thing to do to keep children safe is to have strong border security, including a wall and other physical barriers to prevent entry, which will reduce traffic at places besides ports of entry.

At designated ports of entry, officers check everyone's documentation and can determine if an unaccompanied minor is in need of help. (The other country often controls the area leading up to a port of entry, too, and can make sure situations like an unaccompanied minor with no documentation doesn't even enter the port of entry; that's how the border crossing in Tijuana is. A Mexican official checks to make sure you have a passport or something else acceptable before you get in the line.)

In the event children are found wandering around, they should immediately be placed into state custody, it determined where they came from, and be repatriated there. Presumably these children have parents, so a place to start would be contacting their parents. If that isn't successful, their country of nationality should take responsibility for them.

[HondurasKeiser]

It's not simply the issue of "unaccompanied minors". Many migrants from Honduras, knowing that it is easier to cross and receive a temporary asylum stay if they have children, will take with them children that are not theirs. Sometimes the children belong to romantic partners, sometimes friends, sometimes their relatives of some sort or other. There have been stories of very poor children being kidnapped in Honduras for that very purpose. At the border of course they present them as their own. What happens to the children once they cross the border probably depends on the beneficence of the adult that brought them. Certainly some of them end up like this: Alone and Exploited, Migrant Children Work Brutal Jobs Across the U.S.: Arriving in record numbers, they’re ending up in dangerous jobs that violate child labor laws — including in factories that make products for well-known brands like Cheetos and Fruit of the Loom.

[Bootstrap]

It's not simply the issue of "unaccompanied minors". Many migrants from Honduras, knowing that it is easier to cross and receive a temporary asylum stay if they have children, will take with them children that are not theirs.

Is that still true? My impression has been that it's mostly unaccompanied minors who are making it through these days. That has its own problems.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/migrant-ch ... um-border/

Since President Biden took office, Border Patrol agents have encountered more than 2,100 unaccompanied migrant children who are believed to have left their families voluntarily in order to seek asylum in the U.S, according to government data obtained by CBS News.

Between January 20 and April 5, Border Patrol agents came across at least 2,121 unaccompanied migrant children who had been previously expelled under the public health law known as Title 42 when they tried to cross with their families.

While most single adults and some families arriving at the southwest border are turned away under Title 42 without being able to apply for asylum, the Biden administration made an exception for unaccompanied children, who are being transferred to the Department Health and Human Services (HHS), as required by anti-trafficking law.

[Bootstrap]

Here are some things I think these children need to be protected from.

1. Drug gangs, human trafficking, and persecution in their homeland. Some children are just economic migrants, but some are not. And "economic migrants" often includes people forced into prostitution or drug gangs, this is part of what poverty can lead to.
2. Coyotes and traffickers that they encounter along the route. Often, parents accompany their children to the border to protect them.
3. Rampant criminality and gangs in the encampments near the border.
4. Border patrol agents who have sexually and physically abused children, often with a sense of immunity.
5. Mexican officials who have done even worse.
6. Overcrowded, unsafe detention facilities.
7. Trafficking within the United States, including illegal child labor. (HK provided a link to a rather good NY Times investigation on this.)

I don't think "sending them back" keeps them safe. I don't think there's any such thing as a wall so secure that people can't get past it - and even if there were, I don't think it would protect them from many of these things. So suppose we think it's really important to protect these children. What would we do?

What part should we play as Christians? What should Christian organizations do to protect these children?

There are organizations that specialize in protecting children and combating human trafficking. What are they calling for, and why?

[HondurasKeiser]

It's not simply the issue of "unaccompanied minors". Many migrants from Honduras, knowing that it is easier to cross and receive a temporary asylum stay if they have children, will take with them children that are not theirs.

Is that still true? My impression has been that it's mostly unaccompanied minors who are making it through these days. That has its own problems.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/migrant-ch ... um-border/

Since President Biden took office, Border Patrol agents have encountered more than 2,100 unaccompanied migrant children who are believed to have left their families voluntarily in order to seek asylum in the U.S, according to government data obtained by CBS News.

Between January 20 and April 5, Border Patrol agents came across at least 2,121 unaccompanied migrant children who had been previously expelled under the public health law known as Title 42 when they tried to cross with their families.

While most single adults and some families arriving at the southwest border are turned away under Title 42 without being able to apply for asylum, the Biden administration made an exception for unaccompanied children, who are being transferred to the Department Health and Human Services (HHS), as required by anti-trafficking law.

Both are happening. I know quite a few instances of what I described that happened this past year.

[Bootstrap]

Both are happening. I know quite a few instances of what I described that happened this past year.

Where they able to enter the country and be treated as a family unit?

[Josh]

Here are some things I think these children need to be protected from.

1. Drug gangs, human trafficking, and persecution in their homeland. Some children are just economic migrants, but some are not. And "economic migrants" often includes people forced into prostitution or drug gangs, this is part of what poverty can lead to.

I agree. None of us have jurisdiction over those other countries and America doesn't either, though. I don't think America should assume law enforcement responsibility for other countries.

[*] Coyotes and traffickers that they encounter along the route. Often, parents accompany their children to the border to protect them.
[*] Rampant criminality and gangs in the encampments near the border.

If parents accompany children, they aren't unaccompanied minors.

[*] Border patrol agents who have sexually and physically abused children, often with a sense of immunity.

Is this rife amongst the U.S. border patrol? I have been under the impression it is a professional law enforcement agency.

[*] Mexican officials who have done even worse.

Short of an invasion of Mexico and making it a U.S. territory, we can't do much about that.

[*] Overcrowded, unsafe detention facilities.

This is an unavoidable side effect of the huge increase in migrants coming across the border. The best way to prevent overcrowding is have taller, better walls.

[*] Trafficking within the United States, including illegal child labor. (HK provided a link to a rather good NY Times investigation on this.)[/list]

If you don't want trafficking of child labour, you're going to have accept that trafficking of undocumented-immigrant labour has to stop. And that means to stop the charade where migrants come across the border to work illegally.

I don't think "sending them back" keeps them safe.

Sure it does. They are in the same safety position as they would have been before sneaking across the border. Once it becomes clear anyone who who is interdicted gets sent back, illegal border crossings will decrease, too.

I don't think there's any such thing as a wall so secure that people can't get past it - and even if there were, I don't think it would protect them from many of these things. So suppose we think it's really important to protect these children. What would we do?

Right now there is virtually no border security at all. Some very simple things like allowing Texas to set up its own wall would really help cut down on these illegal border crossings, and make sure crossings only happen at orderly ports of entry. Doing so will help protect children.

What part should we play as Christians? What should Christian organizations do to protect these children?

We can't do anything because we aren't law enforcement. If you want to help I suppose you could become a border patrol officer, but as a Christian I couldn't do that.

There are organizations that specialize in protecting children and combating human trafficking. What are they calling for, and why?

I generally do not trust highly politicised NGOs who seem to have their own agendas that have nothing to do with preventing human trafficking, but instead have agendas to try to import as many migrants as possible to the United States.

[HondurasKeiser]

Both are happening. I know quite a few instances of what I described that happened this past year.

Where they able to enter the country and be treated as a family unit?

I’m not sure about how any of them were processed but I know that they’re all currently in the States .

[Bootstrap]

Here are some things I think these children need to be protected from.

1. Drug gangs, human trafficking, and persecution in their homeland. Some children are just economic migrants, but some are not. And "economic migrants" often includes people forced into prostitution or drug gangs, this is part of what poverty can lead to.

I agree. None of us have jurisdiction over those other countries and America doesn't either, though. I don't think America should assume law enforcement responsibility for other countries.

But if victims flee these countries and come here, "am I my brother's keeper"?

Giving someone a safe place to build a life is not law enforcement. For children who are facing these things, sending them back and washing our hands of them seems blatantly wrong to me. Someone needs to hear them out, find out what they are facing, make sure that they will have a good chance to be safe at the end of the day.

That's how I would want my children or your children to be treated.

What part should we play as Christians? What should Christian organizations do to protect these children?

We can't do anything because we aren't law enforcement. If you want to help I suppose you could become a border patrol officer, but as a Christian I couldn't do that.

I disagree. I have done a lot of volunteer work with refugees. None of that is law enforcement. I think we can do a lot more to help than law enforcement can.

I think the role of Christians looks more like this:

True evangelical faith is of such a nature it cannot lie dormant, but spreads itself out in all kinds of righteousness and fruits of love;

it dies to flesh and blood;
it destroys all lusts and forbidden desires;
it seeks, serves and fears God in its inmost soul;
it clothes the naked;
it feeds the hungry;
it comforts the sorrowful;
it shelters the destitute;
it aids and consoles the sad;
it does good to those who do it harm;
b it serves those that harm it;
it prays for those who persecute it;
it teaches, admonishes and judges us with the Word of the Lord;
it seeks those who are lost;
it binds up what is wounded;
it heals the sick;
it saves what is strong (sound);
it becomes all things to all people.

The persecution, suffering and anguish that come to it for the sake of the Lord’s truth have become a glorious joy and comfort to it.”

And parts of that role seem very relevant here.