Almost 19,000 Migrant Children Stopped At U.S. Border in March, Most Ever In A Month

Speaker 1: 00:00 Children have become the latest victims in the broken immigration system between the U S and Latin America, us customs and border protection reports, 19,000 unaccompanied children and teenagers entered the U S last month, the largest monthly total ever recently, we've seen two heartbreaking examples of this trend. Two children, a five and a six year old brother and sister from Mexico were found abandoned near the border in Southwestern San Diego County. On Monday, last week, shocking video was released of smugglers dropping a three and a five-year-old into this country from the border fence in New Mexico. Joining me is Carmen Chavez. She's executive director of Casa Cornelia law center, and Carmen, welcome to the program. Thank you so much for having me. I guess the big question is why, why are children either being smuggled or entering this country without their parents? Do you have any insight into that question? Speaker 2: 01:00 I think that one needs to understand what are the current country conditions from which these children are coming from. For many decades, there has been reported substantiated and corroborated reports of extreme violence within the three major countries of which many of these children are coming from not the only countries, but the three that are the most prominent, uh, Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala. And so that cycle of violence and that inability to find protection under current systemic protection that either the police or the military in those countries has risen to the level where there is a great uncertainty and mass incidents of violence. Addition to that, a lot of these children are finding or experiencing violence within their home as well. So issues of being in great bodily harm, a threat of great bodily harm, or having had family members that have been killed is one of the reasons that has fueled persons coming, not just children, but adults as well. Speaker 1: 02:10 Now, in both instances that I mentioned of children being abandoned or tossed over the border border patrol says a parent has been located in this country. What's the likelihood that those children will be reunited with their parents. Speaker 2: 02:26 The law has certain requirements in the treatment of unaccompanied minors for a lot of good reasons, a good public policy. And just the fact that these are very, a very vulnerable population. So upon an encounter with a CBP or border patrol and detention, there is they have 72 hours to make these kinds of determinations as you're you're suggesting. And one of them is, uh, should the child be released or should they be sent to a shelter? Currently, there is something called an emergency intake sites, which we see at the convention center, but there are other temporary shelters the children would go, and that's where they would identify if there is a parent or parents or a close relative that would qualify as a sponsor for that child. And so then begins the process of releasing the child to, to the parent. And I should underscore that the child upon apprehension and processing is placed in removal proceedings often, uh, understood as deportation, uh, immigration court proceedings, where their case will continue and they need to appear, uh, before the immigration judge who makes the determination of they ultimately would be able to stay or not. Speaker 1: 03:45 Do you think the Biden administration is doing the right things for these kids, Speaker 2: 03:49 Current Biden administration, what they are doing right is that they are now following the rules and regulations for the process of unaccompanied minors that find themselves along the border. And so they are now in that process and ensuring that the children are receiving the appropriate care that is afforded under the law to vulnerable populations, such as these, what they could do differently. I think that they're trying to find every which way to, to ensure streamline, make it more effective in terms of the process. And it remains to be seen what, what they can do to improve. I think that, um, right now they're trying to ensure that there's a holistic approach to receiving the children. So we will see in the next weeks how these outcomes are expressed, the process that's being put into effect now is a process that should have always been in effect. Speaker 2: 04:45 And so expelling children as they were under the previous administration has helped cause this circumstance not to mention the desperation of the persons that has never changed. The country conditions have not been, have not changed, have not improved. And so the reasons for these children that have fled, and there's a different reasons why persons flea, including minors, that hasn't changed. So I think that this bottleneck as is described could have been lessened if the process had been followed. So the current arrival of the unaccompanied children is the inevitable result of children being prevented from seeking Haven last year, because the reasons for their flight have not been addressed. So until the children are protected in their countries of origin, say from violence inside or outside their home able to seek redress from functioning governments, they will continue to flee. Speaker 1: 05:39 I've been speaking with Carmen Chavez, executive director at Casa Cornelia law center. Carmen, thank you very much. Speaker 2: 05:46 Thank you so much. There's a lot of feelings around, around this. And the bottom line is that these are children and as is often the set a country will be judged on it. Treats children, whether they're citizens, Speaker 3: 06:12 [inaudible].