At the recent, annual, summer meeting of state Catholic conference directors—your columnist’s 38th and last—extra time was devoted to discussing the humanitarian crisis involving the surge of unaccompanied or separated, refugee children and youth arriving at the U.S./Mexico border. The well-documented interests of the Holy See and the U.S. Church, reflecting concerns from Catholic social teaching, as well as the public-policy challenges and political controversy at both federal and state levels were aspects of the discussion.
(Admittedly, use of “refugee” as a modifier is open to challenge, but we use it purposely. Here’s why: The horrific conditions and desperate circumstances from which so many of these children are fleeing—conditions of danger from pervasive crime, gang-related coercion and violence, drug and human trafficking, extreme poverty, family disintegration—justify a presumption of refugee status, at least until an immigration court—called for by federal law—determines otherwise on a case-by-case basis. In other words, these are not mere immigrants; generalized evidence of intolerable danger is sufficient to justify a presumption, albeit rebuttable, that they are refugees seeking asylum. A study by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees found that 58 percent of 404 unaccompanied children arriving in the U.S. from Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador “were forcibly displaced because they suffered or faced harms that indicated a potential or actual need for international protection.”)
Two of our state-conference colleagues just days earlier had attended the 2014 National Migration Conference co-sponsored by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ department for Migration and Refugee Services and the Catholic Legal Immigration Network, Inc. These directors reported on what they had heard and learned. It was timely and compelling.
For instance, a backgrounder from the national conference describes the phenomenon numerically. Since 2011, the number of unaccompanied, migrating children has risen dramatically, with over 13,000 in Fiscal Year 2012 and 24,000 in Fiscal Year 2013. This year, more than 52,000 have arrived since last October 1, with the number expected to surge to 90,000 by the end of the current fiscal year September 30.
Probably the most significant aspect of our session was the recommendation that we read the report issued by a USCCB/MRS delegation that traveled to southern Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador last November to collect information and assess the plight of child migrants. The delegation was led by Bishop Mark Seitz of El Paso. It included the executive director of CLINIC, the director of the Washington office of the International Catholic Migration Commission, three staffers from USCCB/MRS and Father Daniel Groody, Professor of Theology at Notre Dame and consultant to the U.S. Bishops’ Committee on Migration.
The report, which acknowledges that “there are no simple answers” to why so many children are making the dangerous journey north, includes findings and recommendations.
The report’s overview is that a series of interrelated factors have contributed to this dramatic increase in migration and that a “perfect storm” of a number of these root causes has created the phenomenon. “Push factors include the absence of economic opportunity, the lack of quality education and access to education generally, and the resulting inability for individuals to financially support themselves and their families in their home countries/local communities. The desire to reunify with family in the U.S., in part driven by these forces, also has contributed.
“While these factors were omnipresent, the delegation found that one overriding factor has played a decisive and forceful role in recent years: generalized violence at the state and local levels and a corresponding breakdown of the rule of law have threatened citizen security and created a culture of fear and hopelessness….[V]iolence and coercion, including extortion, kidnapping, threats, and coercive and forcible recruitment of children into criminal activity are perpetrated by transnational criminal organizations; gangs have become part of everyday life in all of these countries, exerting control over communities.”
The delegation’s report, entitled Mission to Central America: The Flight of Unaccompanied Children to the United States, is available at this website: www.usccb.org/about/migration-and-refugee-services. Other resources are there as well, including testimony Bishop Seitz presented to the Judiciary Committee of the U.S. House of Representatives on June 25.
A few other facts and thoughts on this serious subject:
Over three-fourths of the children are fleeing Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala, the countries that have, respectively, the first, fourth and fifth highest homicide rates in the world.
The backlog in the immigration courts is mind-boggling: 375,000 immigration cases pending adjudication; fewer than 250 judges; the average length of time a case is pending is currently 578 days. A fix here is needed badly.
Kudos to Nebraska’s First District U.S. Representative, Jeff Fortenberry, for not adding his name and signature to the politicized, harshly-worded letter Governor Heineman generated, requesting that the U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services provide specific, identifying information about the 200-plus refugee children sent to Nebraska (and their location and sponsors), in order to ensure that they can be denied taxpayer-funded assistance.
