UN Rights Chief Sounds Alarm over US Child Migrant Expulsions

[Judi Lynn]

Source: Agence France-Presse

UN Rights Chief Sounds Alarm over US Child Migrant Expulsions
World | Agence France-Presse | Updated: August 01, 2014 01:05 IST

Geneva: UN human rights chief Navi Pillay has raised the alarm over Washington's plans to scale up the deportation of illegal child migrants from Central America. "There are almost 57,000 unaccompanied children in the United States. I'm particularly concerned because the United States appears to be taking steps to deport most of these children," Pillay told reporters.

The arrival of huge numbers of unaccompanied children has overwhelmed US authorities lacking the financial and legal means to curb the illegal influx.

President Barack Obama has insisted new arrivals will be sent home, and US lawmakers introduced a plan earlier this month to speed up repatriation.

Washington has declared the influx a humanitarian crisis. Most of the children come from El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras where youths are fleeing poverty and gang violence.

Pillay said victims should be offered a haven and cared for. "Deportation should only take place if their protection is guaranteed at the places they are being sent to," she said.



Read more: http://www.ndtv.com/article/world/un-rights-chief-sounds-alarm-over-us-child-migrant-expulsions-568787?curl=1406836235

[Louisiana1976]

1. I'm with Pillay--the victims should be offered a haven and cared for. Deporting them is criminal.

[JDPriestly]

3. Can you take a child into your home?

It's easier to deal with the immigration of families. We already have a lack of good foster homes for children born in the US who are neglected, abandoned or abused.

It's easy to say, let's offer them refuge. It is very hard to give the children the kind of individual care they need.

If they have family members here, they should be reqauired to sponsor their immigrant family member just as we did with WWII refugees. A religious or charitable organization could also sponsor the children.

The social services for American-born children (and adults who cannot care for themselves well) are insufficient, terribly deficient. Taking in children who have survived trauma is a big task.

I question whether the social structure of the US can handle this. We will need many people, many families to volunterer to take and sponsor a child. Otherwise, saying we should take them is just feel-good fantasy.

Again, could you personally take a homeless refugee child into your home.

[Throckmorton]

20. Yes, I am a foster parent already

I do it all the time.

[JDPriestly]

22. Great! You are doing a wonderful thing.

[bemildred]

2. Pillay is correct. nt

[JDPriestly]

4. Are you ready to take a child into your home?

Who will house, clothe, educate and feed the children. We already have a homeless crisis in the US that we don't properly deal with. We also have abandoned, neglected and abused children and not enough foster homes.

On any given day, there are approximately 397,000 children in out-of-home care in the United States.

During the last year about 640,000 children spent some time in out-of-home care in the United States.

Children entering foster care remain there on average for nearly two years.

Despite the common perception that most children in foster care are young children, the average age of the children in foster care is over nine years old.

http://www.childrensrights.org/issues-resources/foster-care/facts-about-foster-care/

In the US a child is not legally able to live alone until at least 18. They can't enter into enforceable contracts, etc., so they need someone to sign for them to get an apartment or a credit card.

We don't have enough jobs for our American-boron young people at this time. We are not doing right by them.

So, if people want to accept these children from Central America, it will be up to individuals and churches and schools to open their homes and sponsor the children.

Can you do that?

[bemildred]

5. Pillay is correct.

They are refugees, the government has an obligation to not deport them to anyplace where they will not be safe.

[JDPriestly]

7. As I said, the question is are you able and willing to take a child

refugee into your home?

Children deserve homes, not refugee camps with fancy names.

[bemildred]

8. Please see post #5, repeat as necessary. nt

[JDPriestly]

10. The government cannot nurture children. They can pay foster parents

and institutions for the cost of taking care of children, but that does not answer the question: where will so many unaccompanied children live and go to school?

This is a practical issue. The US is very poorly prepared to handle a crisis like this. Because of global warming, it is probably the first of many more to come.

Should we also take refugees from Africa? the Middle East? Asia?

Who should take them? There are so many refugees around the world. What are the practical answers to the situation of violence in countries like Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador? That is the most important question.

[customerserviceguy]

13. Thank you

You and I have had our disagreements on various issues over the years, but I'm glad to see you make an eloquent case for not just throwing out the welcome mat. The United States is not the lifeboat for the sinking parts of Latin America.

[WHEN CRABS ROAR]

18. In the law of the sea, all are required to be life boats,

not just the US, but you do realize that in Latin America the US is responsible for a lot of the problems, even the gangs originated from the US. We trained their military leaders on tactics and torture at the School of the Americas, we supported their corrupt systems and leaders and now those problems are coming home and we need to deal with them in a very correct way.
We are all one and interconnected.

http://www.un.org/en/documents/udhr/

read article 14, hell, read them all.

[customerserviceguy]

24. If all of the continents and islands were boats, you'd be right

Admiralty law and realty law are very different from each other, but maybe you didn't like my analogy.

How about the President picking one of these banana republics, and kicking the crap out of its government, army, and police, and putting in folks who would be able to make that place the safe haven?

Makes about as much sense as "come one, come all, free everything for you here!" No positive change would come to the lands that saw the draining of its youth to the escape pod. As you may recall, all those malcontents leaving Europe for the New World didn't help European nations get any more civilized, they kept fighting ever expanding and destructive wars, until they got sick enough of war.

[JDPriestly]

23. We should do our share to help the drowning in my opinion.

But it will take more than just kind hearts to take care of these children. These are not normal refugees who come as adults and can work and make their way with just a little help. These children will require a lot of services, and that will cost a lot of money.

[customerserviceguy]

25. If the streets of the US

were paved with gold, as previous generations of immigrants were told it was, maybe we'd be able to do more. Much of the current INS law and policy was formulated during the economic boom times of the mid-Sixties, when we thought that we could take in all kinds of people and assimilate them through chain migration.

Clearly, we've hit an age of limits that few could see fifty years ago. We still have many here who really haven't pulled out of the recession/depression. We also admit about a million legal immigrants a year, and we have our hands full with that, too.

[JDPriestly]

26. You have some good points. It is a matter of public will.

The US government is not equipped to take care of so many refugee children. Private organizations and individuals could step in, but it is a huge job.

We, and especially those in the Reagan administration caused or greatly contributed to the problems in Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador. The war in that area in the 1980s was an unnecessary, useless exercise of hubris on the part of the Reagan administration that led to much of the problem today.

There is a flaw in the thinking expressed in the article I cite below:

Explaining why Nicaraguan UAC are not part of the recent surge may help explain why so many are coming from El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras — the so-called Northern Triangle.

Nicaragua has low rates of violent crime, gang membership, and fewer family connections to the United States than the Northern Triangle.

If U.S. policy was the main reason why there is a sudden surge of UAC, it should also pull UAC from Nicaragua. This suggests that other factors like the high levels of violence and strong family connections are the main reasons why UAC from the Northern Triangle are coming and why Nicaraguan UAC are absent.

http://www.cato.org/publications/commentary/why-arent-child-migrants-fleeing-us-nicaragua

Here is the truth: Nicaraguan children are not fleeing to the US. And the crime surge taking place in Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala is not occurring in Nicaragua. But -- guess who is the president of Nicaragua?

None other than Reagan's bete noire: Daniel Ortega

José Daniel Ortega Saavedra (Spanish: [ðaˈnje̞l o̞rˈte̞ɣa]; born November 11, 1945) is a Nicaraguan politician who has been President of Nicaragua since 2007; previously he was leader of Nicaragua from 1979 to 1990, first as Coordinator of the Junta of National Reconstruction and then as President. A leader in the socialist Sandinista National Liberation Front (Frente Sandinista de Liberación Nacional, FSLN), his policies in government have seen the implementation of leftist reforms across Nicaragua.

Born into a working-class family, from an early age Ortega opposed ruling President Anastasio Somoza Debayle, widely recognized as a dictator, and became involved in the underground movement against his regime. Joining the Sandinistas, he also travelled to Cuba to receive training in guerilla warfare from Fidel Castro's Marxist-Leninist government. After the Nicaraguan Revolution resulted in the overthrow and exile of Somoza's government, Ortega became President of the ruling multipartisan Junta of National Reconstruction. A Marxist-Leninist, his first period in office was characterized by a controversial program of nationalization, land reform, wealth redistribution and literacy programs.

Ortega's relationship with the United States was never very cordial, due to U.S. support for Somoza prior to the revolution.[1][2] Although the U.S. supplied post-revolution Nicaragua with ten of millions of dollars in economic aid,[3] relations broke down when the Sandinistas supplied weapons to leftist El Salvadoran rebels (something which Ortega later admitted occurred).[4] The Reagan administration of the United States funded the opposing rebel groups, known as the Contras, resulting in a vicious civil war. There was a UN brokered peace settlement in 1990, after which democratic elections were held. Ortega was defeated by Violeta Chamorro in the 1990 presidential election, but he remained an important figure in Nicaraguan opposition politics, gradually moderating in his political position from Marxism–Leninism to democratic socialism. He was an unsuccessful candidate for president in 1996 and 2001, before winning the 2006 presidential election.[5] He has made alliances with fellow Latin American socialists, such as Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez, and under his leadership, Nicaragua joined the Bolivarian Alliance for the Americas.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Ortega

Low crime. Low gang activity. Daniel Ortega, Nicaragua and, horrors, (I am not a Socialist.) socialism if not communism.

The countries in which we most successfully defeated communism are those with the serious crime and gang activity and therefore the most homeless, refugee children today. Who would ever have predicted that?

Reagan goofed. Big time. And today's Republicans are going to have to find the money to pay the bill for that big goof. Bad decisions come back to bite us.

[customerserviceguy]

27. All true, but

we didn't see the mass exodus of unaccompanied minors in the decades after the Reagan Administration, it's only gotten really bad recently. Maybe the Rethugs are right, and the policy to defer (and thus avoid) deportation of children brought here by their parents has been exaggerated by greedy smugglers into an amnesty hope that is drawing more of them.

I support the President's stated positions lately that he intends to deport the majority of them, it will keep some at home.

[Dragonfli]

12. I am a broke physically ill Widower but would certainly take one into my home rather than

send that child back to face probable death. Better living in poverty alive without "the perfect family" than fearing for one's actually life.

[JDPriestly]

15. All good ideas.

[Liberalynn]

17. I agree that other nations should be asked to help with this crisis

and take some of these children in.

[christx30]

6. Where is the UN on

the causes of the influx? What are they doing about the wars and the crime and the corrupt governments that push the kids north? They love to complain about the US government. Fix shit down there, and there will be no need for the kids to leave their families.

[markpkessinger]

21. Not to mention the war on drugs waged by the U.S. . . .

. . . while we're speaking of causes of the current crisis.

[Dragonfli]

9. What? For some reason I thought it was the Republicans trying to kick them out.

Does President Obama realize what it is they are fleeing from? If so, I just don't understand this, not at all.

[customerserviceguy]

11. Hey, maybe she should sail a boat

from South Africa up the Rio Grande, and she can take them home with her. I'm wondering why some here don't call for boats from Africa and Asia to bring kids here who don't have the luxury of walking across the desert.

[WHEN CRABS ROAR]

16. How many here have read the Universal Declaration of Human Rights?

The US signed on to this in 1948, check out article 14, better yet, read the whole thing.

http://www.un.org/en/documents/udhr/

[freshwest]

19. Read it before. Always inspirational. Wonder if it's being taught in Americans schools?

Oh, wait...

We're living an era when millions of Americans have swallowed the JBS, Libertarian, Koch and Infowars view on the UN: EVIL!!!

They're destroying the best ideals that humanity had to offer.

Only a few of those they call 'the elite' like JFK, RFK, Kerry and Obama have read these and took it to heart.

Even if they couldn't make it come true because of the RWNJ cults.

But thanks for the post, we should not forget it.