6/25/2018 - Carl Horowitz Townhall.com
The scripts and media
images are indelible. Roughly 2,300 minors from south of our border are living
in temporary shelters in the U.S., many of them sobbing over separation from
their parents, in the process winning the hearts though not necessarily the
minds of morally unctuous politicians, corporate executives, journalists and
clergy. These pop-up humanitarians are using the crisis as a pretext to
denounce President Trump and prod Congress into enacting pending amnesty
legislation.
Their bluster should be
ignored. This is a stage-managed crisis. Its intent is to embarrass the current
administration whose “crime” is enforcing laws long neglected by previous
administrations. That Trump caved into his critics by signing an executive
order on June 20 barring family separations, predictably, has not quelled the
outcry.
In recent months,
illegal immigration from Mexico, often by people passing through Mexico, has
exploded. In a press conference held Monday, June 18, Homeland Security
Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen laid out the situation:
"…(I)n the last
three months we have seen illegal immigration on our Southern Border exceed
50,000 people each month – multiples over each month last year. Since this time
last year, there has been a 325 percent increase in Unaccompanied Alien Children
and a 435 percent increase in family units entering the country illegally. Over
the last ten years, there has been a 1,700 percent increase in asylum claims,
resulting in an asylum backlog today, in our country of 600,000 cases.
"Since 2013, the
United States has admitted more than a half a million illegal immigrant minors
and family units from Central America – most of whom today are at large in the
United States.
"At the same time,
large criminal organizations such as MS-13 have violated our borders and gained
a deadly foothold within the United States."
This is an accurate
assessment. Yet high-minded cynics are determined to put the Trump
administration on trial. Our nation is a haven for victims of persecution, they
say. As such, any attempt to separate children from their lawbreaking elders,
even for a few weeks, constitutes a gross human rights outrage.
The setting for this
moral theater is longstanding federal law mandating the federal government to
provide temporary support for alien minors unaccompanied by detained parents
who entered illegally. The much-publicized detention centers are not
“concentration camps.” The Trump administration put forth its “zero tolerance”
policy for illegal entry into the U.S. not to punish children, but to discourage
further wanton lawbreaking. This policy is intended to prevent suffering
of children, not impose it. It is authorized by the Immigration and Nationality
Act and the Homeland Security Act.
Unfortunately, many
opinion leaders in this country are reading something sinister into this. Sen.
Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., in an interview on MSNBC’s “All in with Chris
Hayes,” accused the Trump administration of “using these children as hostages.”
In a tweet, Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., called the zero-tolerance policy “an
affront to the decency of the American people.” Former First Lady Laura Bush,
in a guest opinion piece for the June 17 Washington Post, wrote, “This
zero-tolerance policy is cruel.” Apple Computer CEO Tim Cook denounced
administration enforcement as “inhumane.” And avowed Trump supporter Franklin
Graham, head of the nonprofit Samaritan’s Purse and son of late evangelist
Billy Graham, called the family separations “disgraceful.”
Such comments are blind
to reality. The current border crisis is the culmination of decades of laws,
policies, court decisions and enforcement practices pushed by open-borders
fanatics. And almost without question it is being timed to facilitate
congressional passage of amnesty legislation. Wrapped in the rhetoric of
bipartisanship, such legislation, far from resolving the border crisis, would
exacerbate it.
Let’s look at some
inconvenient facts.
Most of the
unauthorized immigrants entering the U.S. through the Mexican border actually
are from Central America.
According to information
from the dozens of Mexican consulates located here, fewer than 25 of the
roughly 2,300 minors taken from their parents – about one percent – are
Mexican. The vast majority are from El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras; most
unaccompanied Mexican children already have been deported. It is a mark of the
failure of Mexican authorities as well as our own that our southern border
remains porous despite large increases in U.S. Border Patrol deployment.
Many “parents” of these
children are anything but that.
Many of the people who
brought the children here are smugglers, known colloquially as “coyotes,” who
for a price take people from Mexico and drop them off at unspecified U.S.
locations not far inland. Obviously, these children did not have the money to
pay the smugglers. Someone is covering the expense. These smugglers are not humanitarians.
They don’t do anything for free. They are akin to operators of “rescue ships”
ferrying African migrants across dangerous Mediterranean waters to Europe. Even
with coyotes out of the picture, many adults accompanying the children who come
here are not their parents. When debriefed by law enforcement, many cannot
answer even basic questions about their supposed offspring.
The parents, not the
Trump administration, have created “family separation.”
Even assuming that
asylum-seeking adults who transported minor children to the U.S. are the
parents, they have a lot to answer for. They effectively are using these
children as political cover in an effort to win asylum status. And in making
that long trip from Central America into the U.S., they are exposing their
children to a wide range of dangerous situations, both natural and man-made.
Many adults who seek
asylum are coached to lie.
Under federal law, an
alien who enters our country illegally must demonstrate a “credible fear” of
persecution back home to avoid removal. Many are gaming the system. It is an
open secret that asylum-seeking adults from abroad are coached on how to
concoct tales of woe in filling out a written application and then explaining
their situation in face-to-face interviews. This is a racket. Back in 2012,
fully 26 individuals, including several lawyers, were indicted in Manhattan
federal court for submitting fraudulent applications on behalf of alien
applicants.
The Trump
administration has been trying to move unaccompanied children to long-term
housing.
The administration is
doing everything it can to find alternatives to detention centers.
Unfortunately, this task requires coordination with outside parties. And it’s
not necessarily getting it. Three commercial air carriers – American, United
and Frontier Airlines – each recently announced they will not fly unaccompanied
alien youths from “cages” to dormitory-style shelters in various states. This
high-minded response will have the unintended effect of keeping kids in
detention centers that much longer – a self-fulfilling prophecy.
There is something
contemptible about using children as love objects for political gain. The
current crisis started long before Donald Trump moved into the White House. For
decades, Congress, the courts and a succession of administrations have allowed
our nation to be overwhelmed by illegal immigration freeloading from the U.S.
public benefit trough. The Trump administration is trying to manage the
consequences. Homeland Security Secretary Nielsen said Monday: “Congress and
the courts created this problem, and Congress alone can fix it. Until then, we
will enforce every law we have on the books to defend the sovereignty and
security of the United States.” She’s right. And any subsequent immigration
legislation must reflect the national interest. America is still a nation, not
a borderless global sanctuary.
Carl F. Horowitz is
senior fellow at the National Legal and Policy Center, a Falls Church,
Va.-based nonprofit group dedicated to promoting ethics and accountability in
American public life.
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