Thank you, President Juan Orlando Hernandez of Honduras, for reforming our immigration laws all by yourself. But we can take it from here.
Hernandez believes that the US should treat the tidal wave of illegal children from his country who are crossing the border into the US “with the utmost care from the humanitarian perspective,” but don’t bother sending them back here because they have a “complete right” to find their illegal alien parents.
We’d be happy to treat the children in a sensitive and humane way. How much is Honduras planning to pay for their care and upkeep?
Just kidding, of course. We should probably just deduct a suitable amount from any aid we give them and apply it toward caring for the children. And the idea we would treat those children in any other way but humanely is an insult to the American people and government.
But “humane” treatment does not include facilitating their law breaking. And if their parents come to claim them, all the better. Then the reunited family can all be returned to Honduras, where I’m sure President Hernandez will welcome them with open arms.
Frankly, I don’t understand this, except in the context that the illegal kids are better off making a 2,000 mile journey by themselves through cartel country, and bandit country, while dodging the Mexican authorities, and then crossing the border where they are just as apt to die in the desert as they are to be reunited with their illegal parents.
A real humanitarian, that guy Hernandez.
The unprecedented rise in Honduran children fleeing to the U.S. is due to misinformation about American immigration laws and drug violence, the president of Honduras told Fusion on Friday.
“They might think they can gain legal status through this,” said President Juan Orlando Hernandez. “But on the other hand, this is a kind of displacement, because of the cartel wars and the Maras [gangs] in Central America.”
Speaking after an event at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce in Washington, D.C., Hernandez implored the American government to do more to combat drug trafficking in Honduras, saying that “for us, it’s an issue of life and death.”
The number of young migrants crossing into the U.S. illegally has risen exponentially in recent years. In particular, more children are crossing without a parent or guardian.
President Obama has called the influx of children an “urgent humanitarian situation” and the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) has been tasked with coordinating federal efforts to house and care for minors in federal custody.
Still, the administration has stressed that children who enter the country illegally will be subject to immigration law and, potentially, deportation.
Mark Greenberg, the acting assistant secretary of the Department of Health and Human Resources (HHS), which eventually takes custody of children apprehended at the border, explained the process at a press briefing on Thursday.
“Our duty is to get the child to a sponsor,” he said. “While they are with the sponsor, they are still fully subject to removal proceedings. And the sponsors have an obligation to cooperate with getting children to the proceedings, to cooperate in the removal process and to report to DHS and to the Justice Department if there’s a change in address.”
The administration has been unclear about what happens when undocumented parents living in the U.S. attempt to claim children who have been apprehended by federal authorities.
Secretary of Homeland Security Jeh Johnson said Thursday that HHS is, “required under the law to act pursuant to the best interest of the child.”
Well, that seals it. Those kids and their parents are here to stay. Just when has this administration ever done what was “required under the law” as it pertains to immigration? And surely in this case, that requirement will be to reunite the kids with their parents while looking the other way at their legal status.
I am all for doing whatever is possible to treat these children with compassion and humanity. But allowing them to stay here will only open the floodgates wider. If we return these tens of thousands of kids to where they came from, word is bound to get around to even the most backward hovel in Central America that the “misinformation” about kids getting to stay in America legally will be debunked.
And the president of Honduras can take responsibility for repatriating his own citizens who were “misinformed” in the first place.
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