June 23, 2018-As the U.S. government began reuniting migrant children with their parents, who are being held for illegally crossing the U.S. border, the prospects for immigration reform in Congress appeared dead.
The massive migration from Central America to the United States and the U.S. government’s inability to handle it have created a crisis with both human and economic costs. The issues involved relate to bureaucratic incompetence, human smuggling, transnational crime, and a broken political system.
Many Children And Parents Remain Apart
Under pressure mounting pressure from an outrages public, the U.S. government started reuniting parents held under prosecution with their children.
According to CBS News, the government returned 500 of the 2,300 children held in detention centers with their parents and plans to reunite the remaining 1,800 families by Sunday. But reports on the reunification appear confused. The U.S. Customs and Border Protection said it planned to return all the children it held, but the majority of children who were separated from parents, along with unaccompanied migrant children, are in the custody of the Department of Health and Human Services. And that department has not released any information as of June 23 11:00 a.m.
It is not clear when the government will reunite the remaining migrant children with their families. The HHS department has reportedly created a reunification task force.
Human Trafficking in the U.S.
Meanwhile, as this news unfolded, a Senate subcommittee on investigations reported that the federal agencies have made major mistakes in placing children with sponsors. According to the report, in 2014, HHS’s Unaccompanied Children Program handed some Guatemalan nationals over to human traffickers who forced them to labor at an egg farm in Marion, Ohio. Among other problems, the U.S. agency “commonly places children with alleged distant relatives or family friends without setting eyes on the sponsor or his environment.”
“One thing we found out was that nobody was really accountable. People were pointing fingers at each other, and the kids were falling through the cracks,” said Sen. Rob Portman, R-Ohio, the subcommittee chairman.
Portman said the U.S. government is “not effectively prepared to deal with influx” of migrant children and should reunite them with their parents. He called on Congress to pass legislation, S. 3036, the Keeping Families Together Act, to reunite parents and children.
A ‘Zero-Tolerance’ Policy
The separation came as a result of President Donald Trump‘s “zero tolerance” on illegal immigration policy. In April, Attorney General Jeff Sessions ordered attorney generals on the Southwest border to begin prosecuting migrants.
“You are on the front lines of this battle,” Sessions wrote in a memo in April. “Keep us informed, and don’t hesitate to give us suggestions for improvement. Remember, our goal is not simply more cases. It is to end the illegality in our immigration system.”
As a result, border officials began treating migrants as criminals, prosecuting parents and separating them from their children. It gave border patrol officials wide discretion to implement the policy as they saw fit, without little to no guidance or support for the separated families.
Soon, child welfare advocates, former workers at the detention facilities, lawyers representing the parents, and the parents themselves started reporting stories of abuse, neglect and trauma. One heartbreaking account in The New Yorker relates the experience of a physician meeting a traumatized eight-year old in an immigration detention center in Texas. Another story in NPR, doctors warn of the psychological effect on young children of separating them from their parents.
On Wednesday, Trump signed an executive order, which suggested a reversal in policy. But even that is unclear and fraught with legal questions.
Congress Stalemate Despite DACA Fix
House congressional leaders reportedly reached a compromise that would provide clarity for the longstanding issue of the legal status of people, known as the “Dreamers” or “DACA kids” who came to the United States as minors.
“The DACA fix that we have essentially allows them to apply for what is called a merit-based visa — that other immigrants can apply for as well — and that would lead them to a green card after a certain period of time,” said McCaul, according to a news report. “But it is also triggered to the funding of building the President’s wall.”
Nevertheless, the leaders again postponed bringing a package of immigration reforms back to the floor for a vote, perhaps indefinitely
A Failed Negotiating Tactic?
Trump appeared to use the tough zero-tolerance policy as a tool to push Congress to pass legislation. But that strategy, if intended, appears to have failed. Earlier in the week, Trump met with House and Senate lawmakers to urge them to pass some immigration reforms.
It’s noteworthy that the president’s party already has a majority in both houses of Congress — with 235 Republicans versus 193 Democrats in the House and 51 Republicans versus 47 Democrats and two Independents who caucus with Democrats in the Senate.
Trump further shifted his strategy, holding an event with American families of victims of perpetrators who came to the country illegally and posting tweets that media stories about the treatment of children in facilities are false and Democrats “are to blame” for Congress’s inability to pass legislation. By Friday, Trump was posting tweets on Twitter that “Republicans should stop wasting their time on Immigration until after” the November elections. “We can pass great legislation after the Red Wave!”
Lawmakers said Trump’s shift and his lack of support for any one bill effectively killed prospects for reform.
“Game over,” said Rep. Mark Sanford, R-S.C., a proponent of passing immigration reforms whom Trump has targeted and criticized. “It takes the wind out of the sails of what might have been a productive week.”
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