With the midterm elections, Iraq crisis overseas, and of course the fanfare over Hillary Clinton’s book release, an alarming event is currently going unnoticed. The current immigration crisis has not been widely publicized, but has escalated to the point that immigrant children are being crammed into warehouses because there is simply no space to house the increasing flow of illegal immigrants across the border. Some are simply being released at bus stops. The Obama administration’s blatant disregard for enforcing immigration laws has led to the crisis now overwhelming our borders.
The number of immigrant children served by the Office of Refugee Resettlement, which is responsible for the youth, soared to 13,625 in fiscal year 2012 and 24,668 in 2013, according to the office. So far this year, in just six months, the agency has counted more than 42,000, and that number is expected to rise to 90,000 by the end of the year. If all ages are factored in, migrants are now arriving at a rate of more than 35,000 per month. More than 47,000 unaccompanied children have been caught illegally crossing the Mexican border into Texas since October 2013, a 92% increase from one year ago, according to a Border Patrol memo.
Border agents are overwhelmed and unable to process so many children. More than 1,000 were transferred during a recent two-week stretch to a warehouse in Nogales, Ariz., where they are being processed before being sent to shelters in various states and then reunited with family members already in the U.S.
The surge is getting so bad that according the Department of Homeland Security, officials have simply started releasing the immigrants at bus stations in the United States with vague instructions to await a court date. Rep. Henry Cuellar, a Democrat who represents part of the Texas border region, said he was informed that 8,000 immigrants have been let go in the Rio Grande Valley in recent months, with an additional 3,300 freed in other border communities.
One of the reasons for the surge, as told by migrants themselves, is a perceived notion that immigrants who arrive with children will be allowed to stay. In Central America, these reports are rapidly spreading by word of mouth. Under U.S. law, the federal government is required to care for unaccompanied minors, and has started housing immigrant children in military facilities as far away as California in response to the Texas influx. President Obama’s DACA decree allows thousands of illegal immigrants to remain in the United States if they came at a young age; this perpetuates the image that children will be allowed to stay in the U.S., even if they came illegally. Obama’s public refusals to deport immigrants who illegally arrived in the country and fit the DREAM Act requirements almost certainly contributes to this perpetuation as well, yet the Obama administration continues to defend its actions. Could it be because, as Joe Biden said, they believe illegal immigrants are already Americans anyway?
Border Patrol agents in the Rio Grande Valley sector of Texas recently questioned 230 illegal immigrants about why they came. The results showed overwhelmingly that the immigrants were motivated by the belief that they would be allowed to stay in the United States, and not by conditions in their homelands, as Democrat lawmakers are trying to claim. Texas state Rep. Jonathan Stickland points out that eliminating benefits at the state level the immigrants can receive, such as healthcare, will reduce the draw, as well.
In the words of Senator Ted Cruz, “The parents think, ‘If I send my child [to the U.S.], my child will have amnesty.’ That’s what the president of the U.S. has said. It is the exact opposite of a humane approach to immigration or to securing our borders.” A Texas Department of Public Safety report obtained by The Wall Street Journal said more than 8,300 people were apprehended by the Border Patrol in the Rio Grande Valley in one week, from May 28 to June 4.
Meanwhile, immigrants are filling up facilities so fast that it’s impossible to keep up. Many are cramming in people at double the capacity, with kids sleeping shoulder to shoulder on concrete floors. In South Texas, where the bulk of the surge is coming through, more than 1,600 youths have filled up 13 shelters, said Kimi Jackson, of the South Texas Pro Bono Asylum Representation Project. The McAllen Border Patrol, which has space to detain 250 immigrants, instead houses 1,500 daily. Federal officials have also opened temporary facilities at Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio, in Ventura, Calif., and in Fort Sill, Okla., to deal with the overflow. It’s easy to guess who’s footing the bill for the millions of dollars in resources going to handle this problem.
Texas lawmakers recently signed off on a plan to spend $1.3 million per week to keep up with border security, after receiving no response for help from the federal government. Gov. Rick Perry said in a statement, “Texas can’t afford to wait for Washington to act on this crisis and we will not sit idly by while the safety and security of our citizens are threatened. Until the federal government recognizes the danger it’s putting our citizens in by its inaction to secure the border, Texas law enforcement must do everything they can to keep our citizens and communities safe.”
Herein are even more problems: Crime is increasing rapidly north of the border, especially drug-related and violent crimes, endangering communities. The situation has become so bad that Rep. Candice S. Miller, Republican of Michigan and vice chairwoman of the House Homeland Security Committee, has called on the Obama administration to deploy the National Guard along the Texas-Mexico border. Citizens around the country are angry that hundreds of undocumented aliens are being haphazardly housed in their town. In Lawrenceville, Va., Health and Human Services was forced to apologize when outraged citizens discovered the plan, and most of them worried about their own kids’ safety.
While the Obama administration claims in-country violence as the principal reason for the influx, immigrants’ testimony says otherwise. Border Patrol agents have testified that the vast majority of apprehended youths tell them that they have made the northward journey because they think they will be allowed to stay. The White House’s fallback claim seems to be that if you don’t like what’s happening at the border, pass comprehensive immigration reform. If Obama had actually reformed the immigration system, an issue he ran on in both 2008 and 2012, state and local officials wouldn’t be dealing with this problem; there are simply not enough resources to dam the creek that Obama has opened wide.
As far as fixing the ever-increasing influx, it seems the White House‘s plan is to deter through accelerated deportations and nudge foreign leaders to tell their people that there are no new legal ways to enter the U.S. However, since U.S. federal law has not stopped the influx, how much of an impact does the Obama administration really think these “suggestions” to foreign leaders will have?
Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst of Texas said it directly: “The federal government has abdicated its responsibility to secure the border and protect this country from the consequences of illegal immigration.” After years of ignoring the law, the failure of the Obama administration to enforce federal immigration policy and his continued statements to not deport illegal immigrants, has directly led to this mass influx of tens of thousands — and is now endangering the citizens of this country and severely straining a system already pushed to the brink.
