Increase in Unaccompanied Children Entering the U.S.

In each of the past three years, the U.S. government has apprehended and detained about 8,000 unaccompanied children entering the this country . In the first quarter of 2012, the government saw a 77% jump in those apprehensions. The government has detained and sheltered more than 4,000 children since October.

Some believe children are fleeing increased gang recruitment in their home countries in Mexico and in Central America. Others say that because of increased border enforcement adults who are in this country without permission cannot easily go back and visit their children, so they are choosing to bring those children north.

Here are a couple of articles that talk about the increase in children coming to the U.S..

--Sonia Nazario

Detained immigrant children moving to air base

Updated 02:33 p.m., Tuesday, April 17, 2012

SAN ANTONIO (AP) — Federal officials are making an Air Force base near San Antonio the temporary home of 100 unescorted children stopped by the U.S. Border Patrol because a network of contracted shelters is overwhelmed with more kids than it can accommodate.

The first of the children arrived at Lackland Air Force Base on Monday, the San Antonio Express-News (http://bit.ly/J7LGNk) reported. The children, apprehended at different times and locations, are under the charge of the Unaccompanied Children's Services division of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

Lackland spokesman Brent Boller tells the newspaper that the base is "simply providing the temporary housing" in an unused 1,000-student dorm with showers and a dining hall.

HHS has taken in 7,000 to 8,000 illegal immigrant children in each of the past three years, but sheltered more than 4,000 since October. It has seen a 77 percent jump in the number of children in the first quarter of 2012.

"All anyone can do is speculate about what's going on," Lavinia Limon, president of the U.S. Committee for Refugees and Immigrants, told the Express-News.

The children have been distributed among 10 states, where they receive government-provided housing, health care and psychiatric treatment. Nearly 9 of every 10 immigrant children are reunited with their families.

Unaccompanied children are not housed in immigrant detention centers, Linda Brandmiller, immigration services director for Catholic Charities in San Antonio.

Two-thirds of the children are from Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras, while 12 percent are from Mexico. About 80 percent are boys, with 83 percent being older than 14.

Half of the children crossing the border are caught by the Border Patrol, Limon said. Most of those contacting her organization for help say they fled forced recruitment into gangs or prostitution, she said.

"The children are recruited quite early and it is very difficult for them to resist, and so the ones who don't want to be part of those kinds of activities take off," she said.

Organizations that receive government grants to care for the children at their own shelters will also oversee their care at Lackland, according to a statement from HHS.

"HHS appreciates the collaboration, cooperation and assistance of (the Department of Defense), (Department of Homeland Security) and state and local officials," the statement said.

Cristina Costantini

Cristina.Costantini@huffingtonpost.com

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Spike In Undocumented Immigrant Children Prompts Use Of Military 

Base As Shelter

Posted: 04/18/2012 7:41 am Updated: 04/18/2012 4:05 pm

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      The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) 
and the Air Force turned a San Antonio Air Force base 
into temporary shelter for 100 undocumented children Monday, 
after being overwhelmed by unusually high rates of underage 
border-crossers, according to a report by theSan Antonio Express-News.

U.S. Department of Health and Human Services

      Although the number of migrants attempting to cross the border
illegally has plummeted in the past five years, the number of
children entering the country illegally without guardians has steadily
risen in recent years and months, according to the Unaccompanied
Children’s Services division of HHS. This spike has prompted temporary
fixes like the base shelter, and has strained already-limited resources
for the federal agencies and legal advocates who represent undocumented
children.

    Nationally, immigration remains a heated topic. On Sunday,
GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney called for a Dream Act-style bill
to allow some undocumented immigrants who entered the United States
as children to become citizens, though he pledged in January to veto
the current Dream Act—a measure supported by 91 percent of Latinos.

    In the past three years, HHS estimates that it has taken in around
8,000 such children. But since October, the agency has housed more
than 4,000, a 77 percent hike from the first quarter of last year,
according to a report by The Associated Press. According to HHS,
the agency currently has more than 2,100 undocumented children
in their custody.

     Though the recent rise in undocumented children is as of yet
unaccounted for, advocates at Kids In Need of Defense (KIND),
an organization which provides pro-bono legal representation to
unaccompanied minors, told The Huffington Post that many children
who come to the United States alone do so to escape domestic
abuse, political turmoil and human trafficking.

     “Kids don’t just travel across international borders unless there
is something wrong with their life,” Wendy Young, the president
of KIND, told The Huffington Post.

     Two-thirds of the minors that started trickling into San Antonio’s
Lackland Air Force Base on Monday are from Guatemala, El Salvador
and Honduras, while 12 percent are from Mexico. About 80 percent
of the minors are male, and 83 percent are older than 14, according
to an AP report—though the Women’s Refugee Commission has 
found that 14 is the average age of an unaccompanied child in 
immigration custody.

     The San Antonio Express-News reported that the 100 children will
stay in an empty 1,000-student dorm, equipped with showers and
a dining hall, until the government figures out what to do with each
of them. According to the AP, HHS will eventually distribute the
100 children among 13 states, where they will “receive government-
provided housing, health care and psychiatric treatment” and await
trial.

     An unaccompanied minor in HHS custody faces a hearing in which
an immigration judge decides if he or she will be sent back home,
reunited with a legal guardian in the United States or granted
asylum. Nine out of 10 are reunited with a family member,
the AP reports.

     Yet, under current U.S. law, unaccompanied children are not guaranteed
lawyers in deportation and asylum cases. While pro-bono lawyers have
done their best to fill this void, in 2011, nearly half of all such children
went in front of a judge without any form of representation, according
to Elaine Komis, a spokesperson for the Executive Office for
Immigration Review in the Department of Justice.

     According to Young, the president of KIND, a child with representation
is three times more likely to be granted asylum than a child without.

     Jennifer Podkul, who has represented nearly 200 unaccompanied
minors in her five years serving a pro-bono lawyer, told The Huffington
Post that she and her colleagues are overwhelmed.

     "We can’t move quickly enough from one case to the next,” she said.
“We just can’t keep up.”

     Judge Bruce Einhorn, a retired U.S. immigration judge who oversaw
children’s immigration cases for nearly two decades, told The Huffington
Post that without lawyers, minors are often left without any
representation at all, unable to adequately argue their own case.

     “It’s like dealing with someone in a boat in the middle of a lake with
no guide and no oars,” Einhorn said. “It’s much easier for a child to
have someone in the boat with them rowing.”

Enrique and his family now ...

I recently visited Enrique, 27, and his family in Florida, and stayed at their white cinder block home one night.

There is good news and bad news.

First, the good. Enrique vowed when he brought his girlfriend Maria Isabel to the U.S. and asked her to leave their daughter behind, that the separation from their child would be brief. Enrique made good on his pledge. Six months after Maria Isabel’s arrival, they had amassed the $5,000 needed to pay a smuggler to bring Jasmin to the U.S. “He didn’t want,” says Enrique’s mother Lourdes,” to have Jasmin go through what happened to him.”

The bad news: Enrique’s drug addiction progressed and he hit a new low a year and a half ago. He was struggling with unemployment. When he did work, he would often spend his checks on drugs and alcohol. Sometimes, Enrique would come over to his mother’s house in the middle of the night, knocking on Lourdes’ bedroom door, begging for money.

Maria Isabel, 30, was threatening to leave Enrique. She was carrying all of the family’s expenses on her job as a hotel maid, cleaning 29 rooms a day for $7.50 an hour.

Maria Isabel, who had become like a daughter to Lourdes, often turned to her for comfort. Lourdes invited Maria Isabel and Jasmin to move in to her home last year. Lourdes told Enrique he could also move in under certain conditions: no drug use at her house. She believed that if Enrique lived with her, he would get better.

Since then, Enrique has cut back on his drug use. He pays $300 a month to Lourdes in rent and confines his drug binges to every other weekend. Even if he gets home at 3am on Monday, he will sleep three hours and get up the next day and go paint houses outdoors in the Florida humidity and heat.

Before, when Lourdes pressed him to give up drugs altogether, he shut her down. Now, when Lourdes goes out on an errand, she asks Enrique to come along. In the car, she reminds him: what kind of role model are you providing for your daughter? She tells him he could lose Maria Isabel. “Open your eyes. Open your eyes. You will never find someone like Isabel,” Lourdes says.

Enrique is silent. Sometimes, he cries.

“It’s hard,” he tells his mother.

He vows that when he turns 33, he will stop.

Lourdes has hope.

“Everything reaches a limit,” says Lourdes. “He will reach a point where he says: enough. I pray for him. And that God listens to our prayers. He will change. I don’t know when, but he will change.”

Already, he is loving with Lourdes. He has largely moved past resentments he had towards her after they first reunited. Each morning, he finds his mother in the house, gives her a kiss and a hug, and tells her he loves her.

LOURDES

Lourdes was re-born as an evangelical Christian four years ago, and is now a leader in her church. After three years of study, she is an entercedora, someone who can put hands on people and pray to help them. She attends church or church meetings two to four times a week.

Lourdes married her boyfriend of 12 years in May 2010. She works taking care of the elderly in their homes. She wants to become a certified nursing assistant. She also hopes to someday buy a house that has more than one bathroom. She dreams of her U.S.-born daughter, Diana, going beyond her high school degree and graduating from college.

JASMIN

Lourdes is showering Jasmin, 10, with the love and attention she could not give Enrique as a child. Jasmin and Lourdes are inseparable. Often, Jasmin tags along when Lourdes goes to her job.

Jasmin, an A and B student, speaks perfect English and her favorite topic is math. She loves Justin Bieber. She has crooked teeth, a round face, a big smile and curly hair. Enrique dotes on Jasmin, watching SpongeBob and iCarly with her. Jasmin tells her mother that she desperately wants to have a sister. Maria Isabel refuses to have another child while Enrique remains mired in drugs. “I keep on waiting,” Jasmin says.

BELKY

Enrique’s sister, Belky, is living in Honduras and in 2010 married her long time boyfriend Yovani. Lourdes recently bought Belky a $600 refrigerator so her daughter could make and sell popsicles. She sends her daughter boxes stuffed with used clothing to re-sell in Honduras.

Lourdes is proud of her daughter, staying in constant contact through text messaging, but feels somewhat cheated that Belky never completed college. Lourdes remembers how her knees turned raw scrubbing floors so she could send Belky money to study in Honduras.

Belky’s son, now four years old, looks up at airplanes flying overhead and wishes he could go visit the United States. Belky hopes she can take her son to visit Lourdes and Enrique soon.

MIRIAN

Lourdes’ sister Mirian returned to Honduras and her children in 2009, determined to return to them before they developed resentments towards her for leaving them.

If you have any additional questions about the family, feel free to email me: sonia@sonianazario.com

Note from Sonia Nazario: This is a compelling editorial by a journalist in El Salvador who has recently spent a lot of time along the rails in Mexico, documenting the situation with Central American migrants there. I found what he wrote, translated here, very compelling. It will give you a sense of how things have deteriorated for migrants traveling through Mexico atop freight trains in recent years.

CENTRAL AMERICA: SEE YOU AT THE NEXT MASSACRE

[Translation of an article from El Faro of El Salvador for August 26. See the original here .]

By Óscar Martínez

I don’t understand the uproar over the 72 migrants Los Zetas assassinated in Mexico. I guess it was because of the number of bodies piled up together, in plain view in the picture from the ranch in San Fernando, Tamaulipas, just across the border from Brownsville, Texas. It’s a worm of corpses rolled up against the wall of a ruined shed in that wilderness in the middle of nowhere, out there at the end of the little dirt road. Some of the corpses had their hands tied behind their backs. Others were lying piled on top of each other, in the parts of the worm that were swollen. I don’t understand the uproar over the massacre of so many migrants.

The big news media, of Mexico, of El Salvador, Honduras, Guatemala, even of the United States, of Spain and South America, have used their front pages, their important sections, their top news spots, to cover the massacre of migrants in Mexico. I don’t understand the uproar in such big media.

The politicians, the ones from Mexico, from Central America, from Brazil, Ecuador, have rushed to sit in their press conference chairs in front of those media and to apppear later on the front pages. It’s true, not just any politicians. They are the heads of departments, of institutions, of organizations. They are even the presidents themselves of those countries, who have said, as the one from Mexico said, that the perpetrators of the massacre in San Fernando are “animals.” I don’t understand such an uproar by so many importaint politicians.

I don’t understand it because uproar usually follows surprise. I don’t understand it, and if pressed I would say they are faking it. They are putting on those serious expressions, those dry gestures. They are making a show with their ink, with their technology, with their ability to contract a cable news service.

The massacre in San Fernando, Tamaulipas, close, very, very close to the United States, up there where the undocumented have almost arrived, is not surprising. The massacre of San Fernando, where a Central American migrant arrives after more than 20 days of travelling, is just one more event, a shocking one, but just one more. The massacre at San Fernando, up there where a Central American arrives after boarding more than eight trains as a stowaway, was predictable. The massacre of the undocumented in Mexico began in early 2007.

What began once more this week are the press conferences by remorseful officials. What began this week are the big headlines in the media that didn’t know where Tamaulipas was or what the devil an undocumented Central American would be doing in those parts. What began this week is the circus. But that will be over soon. That won’t last many years or many months or even many weeks.

It’s a lie what Alejandro Poiré, secretary of the National Security Council of Mexico and spokesman on matters of organized crime, said yesterday. He said that in the past few months they have gotten information that some criminal organizations participate in kidnapping and extortion of migrants. It’s a lie. They have known it for a long time. The FBI was saying it by the end of 2007. The Human Rights Commission of Mexico was saying it in the middle of last year. They said it very clearly. Their report was titled “Special Report on the Kidnapping of Migrants in Mexico.” It said that close to 10,000 undocumented migrants, mainly Central Americans, had been kidnapped in the last six months alone. It also told the full name, first and last, of that “criminal organization.” It is called “Los Zetas,” it is an organized group that has existed since 1997, which the Gulf Cartel founded, which was born with the recruiting of élite military to train assassins. It also said that Mexican municipal and state officials participated in those kidnappings. It said that they occurred in broad daylight in towns and states that also have names: Tenosique, Tabasco, Coatzacoalcos, Medias Aguas, Tierra Blanca, Veracruz, Ixtepec, Oaxaca, Saltillo, Coahuila, Reynosa, Nuevo Laredo, Tamaulipas. Tamaulipas. It’s a lie that Poiré and those he speaks for learned of this “a few months ago.” Unos pinches meses, a Mexican would say, a few stinking months.

It’s a lie, as Antonio Díaz, coordinator of advisers for the National Institute for Migration of Mexico, said yesterday, it’s a lie that so far in 2010 they have learned of around seven kidnappings of migrants by ciminal organizations. It’s a lie, because we shared a table on Monday, July 5, at six in the afternoon in the Human Rights Commission in the the Mexican capital. At that table we said that while we were giving our talk there were migrants being kidnapped, and not seven, we said, but hundreds. Hundreds. And he agreed.

It’s a lie that the Central American officials who have spent the day giving press conferences on the massacre are dismayed. And if that dismay is real, it doesn’t matter much. They too have known for a long time. They have quioted us, the members of El Faro who have covered migration in Mexico, to meetings with the foreign offices of El Salvador and Guatemala, with officials of the Sistema de Integración Centroamericana and other agencies. And we said and we presented documents that list hundreds of kidnappings that have occurred for years in those places that have names, by those criminal organizations that have names. Los Zetas. We told them it was a humanitarian crisis, that it was a massacre, that it should be told at the highest levels and when they shook our hands and said goodbye, they said that they believed us, that they really believed us, and that they were outraged, horrified.

And now they will say, at least those from El Salvador will say, that they have set up two new consulates. That is true. One is in Arriaga and the other is in Acayucan. But it’s a lie that they think that that is a solution. They do not believe it or what they told us was a lie. They said yes, they understood our argument that a consulate is more an administrative office than an office concerned with those other cases, the cases of massacres, of kidnappings, of rapes. They also said they believed it was at the highest levels that voices had to be raised, that this did not require a shout from a vice-chancellor for Salvadorans overseas, but from a president, from many presidents, who see how the migrants are assassinated in their attempts to reach the United States.

It’s a lie, so many headlines in so many important media are a lie because they have sent no one permanenetly to watch over this constant massacre. It’s a lie because they still believe that the lady who successfully opened apupusería in Los Angeles deserves the same coverage in their pages on migration as a kidnaping, or rapes, or mutilations. Or rather the coverage they give the press conferences where these kidnappings, rapes, mutilations, are talked about. Because when it comes to getting muddy, they only mddy up their front pages with ink, never their boots or their reporters, because they don’t want to muddy up their wallets.

If they were only to get muddy, if they were to leave their conferences, if they stopped agreeing when they say they believe something only later to do nothing. If they were only to stop lying. They would know that from Tamaulipas Los Zetas control an entire system of kidnapping of Central Americans. They would know that Los Zetas infiltrate groups of Central Americans on the trains to find the migrants who have families in the United States, those they can beat 500, 800, 1,000 or even 5,000 dollars out of in quick kidnappings. They would know that in every estaca (and they would know that Los Zeta command posts are called estacas) there is a butcher (and they would know that the butchers are men who cut up migrants no one answers for into small pieces and put them in barrels and burn them). They would know that there are dozens of ranches in Mexico like the San Fernando ranch and that there are corpses buried in many of them. They would know that in San Fernando there are no journalists who write about Los Zetas (nor in Tenosique, or in Medias Aguas, or Orizaba, not in Tierra Blanca, or in Saltillo, and they would also know where those places are) because they kill them. They would know that from Tamaulipas Los Zetas have controlled the routes of the coyotes since 2007. They would know that those who don’t pay die and that even though they don’t see the corpses they are there.

You are not surprised, none of you. You have raised this uproar to appear surprised. You are liars. You will once again forget about a massacre that began in 2007. For you there is only one way of saying good-bye: I’ll see you at the next massacre.

Parade Magazine: What Freshman Are Reading Fall 2010

Maria Hinojosa Public Television Interview

Here's a link to a lovely interview done by Maria Hinojosa's One on One on PBS. It just aired in Boston and will likely run on other public television stations around the country later this year.