If Kids Matter U.S. Immigration Policy is Not Humanitarian

Your loyal columnist is not in the habit of saying, “I told you so…” but may I remind readers about a column I wrote a few weeks ago in which I warned that the U.S. was in for a bumpy immigration ride ahead.

“Massive human caravans from Honduras are already headed this way,” I wrote the first of February following President Biden’s 100-day ban on deportations. “Some predict throngs of Central American migrants will follow.” It was a no-brainer: if you announce to the world that your southernmost door is wide open people will come in.

Humanitarian, you say? Nope. Let’s look at the record numbers of underaged, unaccompanied kids who are making the dangerous trek to the U.S. In January, more than 5,700 kids presented themselves at the U.S. border. In February, the number jumped to 9,000. Almost 15,000 youngsters traveled at great peril in just the first two months of 2021.

Flickr free photo
Officials Say Coyotes Are Paid by Parents to Transport Children

Parents think about that. Would you allow your child to travel a route from, say, San Salvador to El Paso, Texas alone? Google Maps estimates the 2-thousand mile walk would take 28 days. Where would your child sleep? How would they eat? Where would they relieve themselves? How would they resist sexual advances?

Texas Governor Greg Abbott asked the Border Patrol, “What percentage of these youngsters were coming over with the assistance of drug cartels and the answer was 100%,” he said. “These kids are basically trafficked here by the drug cartels.” One can only guess what these young people will do to survive here and exactly how they will pay back the cartels.

So, that’s just the situation with migrant kids. Overall, at least 178,000 migrants were processed from Mexico into the United States in January and February. That doesn’t count the 8,000 refugees Governor Abbott told Fox News were apprehended the first week of March, nor those illegals who slipped into the country undetected. Also, some 71,000 Central Americans who had been waiting for entry via the recently dismantled “Remain in Mexico” amnesty program have now been welcomed into the U.S.

 Photo credit: Amnestyusa.org
Thousands of Migrants Are Streaming Toward the US Border

Bottom line: U.S. taxpayers are suddenly supporting nearly 260,000 newcomers, some of whom were released after testing positive for Covid-19.

I worry most about the young people. Have we adults, consumed with surviving this last dreadful year, forgotten to worry about the future of children? American youth has suffered through a depressing and sometimes suicidal pandemic year isolated by teachers who ignore science and keep classrooms closed. And Central American children have experienced all sorts of hell in their home countries and then endured a dangerous and exhausting journey north to the U.S. border. What is to become of this younger generation?

We pride ourselves on being a humane society but sending indigent parents in faraway lands a message that if you send your child on the journey to the U.S. everything will be okay is not humane. A policy that lures desperate people to travel thousands of miles over dangerous territory and face potentially violent cartel coyotes is not compassionate. Refugee tales of rape, extortion, hunger and death are well reported.

Photo credit:  wikimedia commons
Texas Governor Abbott Warns of Harm to Migrant Children

The political and media outrage machines like to focus on futile and divisive sidebar topics surrounding immigration. They spend time comparing past and present presidential decisions to house migrants in “cages vs. containers.” They argue about whether today’s massive influx should be labeled a mere “challenge,” as the Biden administration calls it, or a full blown “crisis” as a similar situation during the Trump administration was called by TV talking heads.

Hey, I have idea. Instead of breathless but meaningless media coverage and imperious executive orders from the White House automatically undoing past immigration policy, how about we have a full and frank debate in this country about this ever-worsening migrant situation? Citizens surely want to know why immigration laws already on the books are ignored, why sanctuary cities are allowed to exist.

Naturally, a debate about national security issues like this should take place on Capitol Hill but don’t hold your breath. This president has decided a fully open southern border is the way to go. And if you don’t like it you can lump it. Is that okay with you?

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24 Comments

  1. Diane Dimond on March 15, 2021 at 12:41 pm

    dschuhma@zianet.com writes:

    Your query at the end of today’s column in the ABQ Journal asks: >”Is that OK with you>”

    Answer: NO Not only NO but HELL NO. As I see it, president Biden has NO business opening up our southern border. We, who live near that border, will suffer immediately. The rest of the country will also be suffering but not so noticeable. This situation CANNOT go on for even the rest of 2021. It must be stopped. Otherwise we will have 90% of Central America coming here to STAY, not to mention those from other countries who are finding their way through Mexico. But since the Democrat Party is in full accord with Mr. Biden on this, I cannot see how it can be corrected. But it MUST be stopped. We cannot have everybody in the whole world come here. And what about those who struggle to get all the documentation together to come here legally? What’s the use they are probably saying.
    Thanks for this column. It might wake up some people. This MUST NOT continue!!

  2. Diane Dimond on March 15, 2021 at 12:42 pm

    Robert Sedberry writes:

    Hello Diane!

    Once again I really enjoyed your article ‘If kids matter, immigration policy isn’t humanitarian’ and I completely agree with you!

    New Mexico is going to be impacted very negatively by this new open border crap!

    The mainstream media keeps emphasizing ‘unaccompanied minor’ as if these kids got up one day, grabbed their backpack, and said ‘I’m going to walk to the USA alone…’

    Thank you for your insight into this crisis! Maybe some of the ‘TV talking Heads’ will read your OP ED and take the blinders off!

    Maybe, instead of our National Guard ‘guarding’ Capitol Hill they should help with the drug cartel at the southern border!!

    -Bob Sedberry from ABQ!

  3. Diane Dimond on March 15, 2021 at 12:43 pm

    Amy Thompson writes:

    Dear Diane,

    You are right on in your article of Saturday March 13, except for the the part where you assume the Central American kids have endured all sorts of hell in their own countries. I assure you, as a former Guatemalan teenager, who immigrated here (legally),
    that the only reason anyone wants to move here is have a better standard of living. No child, teen, or grownup is being persecuted by anybody or needs asylum of any sort. Our childhoods were pretty normal. We didn’t even know we were poor. All rich and middle class people there, are perfectly happy. The poor, maybe not having the same educational opportunities, look to the US as an option out of poverty.
    The newspaper says they are released to their sponsors. There are no sponsors. People with sponsors arrange for their residence in their own countries and come in a plane. Like I did when my citizen father sponsored me, and like my brother and son in law did, when I and my husband sponsored them. I don’t know how it is now, but all we needed to do was fill the application and send a copy of our income taxes to prove that they wouldn’t become a charge to the taxpayers. We took the responsibility of supporting them, until they were able to support themselves. By the way, the two men we sponsored went back to their own countries after a while, as did my father.
    Anyhow, people sell all they have and all they can borrow, and probably their future, and give it to the cartels, as you describe. People that work hard and get an education stay. (My reason for coming was to learn English, so I could get a better job back in Guatemala. During that time I met and married this nice American boy, so here I am, and very glad to live in the best country in the world, but I still miss my birth country and my family).

    Amalia Toscana Thompson
    Albuquerque, NM

  4. Diane Dimond on March 15, 2021 at 12:44 pm

    Mike writes:

    It is not alright with me!
    Why is so much of what effects so many dictated by so few?
    (Rhetorical question)

  5. Diane Dimond on March 15, 2021 at 1:01 pm

    MD49 Patriot writes:

    If this happened under Trump wouldn’t the left go through the roof?

  6. Diane Dimond on March 15, 2021 at 1:01 pm

    Michael Slimm writes:

    Illegals immigrants, have no rights!
    If they want to become a U.S. Citizens!!
    Then to the proper paperwork and start paying taxes!

  7. Diane Dimond on March 15, 2021 at 1:02 pm

    billy_f14 writes:

    And all 15,000 of those kids were or are being further exploited by the cartels that bought them in to slavery and sex trafficking.

    To Americans they’re kids. To cartels, coyotes and greedy parents, they’re just tools to be exploited.

    Way to go Biden. You’ve opened the slave trade.

  8. Diane Dimond on March 15, 2021 at 1:03 pm

    pax writes:

    Heck no, this is wrong.
    Is there any legal way do stop this nonsense.
    This man is not correct in any way shape or form.
    This is, “All”– of our Country not Biden’s or his ilk.
    The people of the United States have the right to choose who comes to our country not our government. Especially when that government has been usurped.
    The laws on the books should be utilized until they are rightfully changed.

  9. Diane Dimond on March 15, 2021 at 1:04 pm

    Ani V writes:

    It’s time to call illegal immigration by its right name : slave trafficking.
    And it’s fully supported by the left

  10. Diane Dimond on March 15, 2021 at 1:04 pm

    Max Bouknecht writes:

    There are no longer any “full and frank” debates. We live in a totalitarian socialist state. There is no political opposition.

  11. Diane Dimond on March 15, 2021 at 1:05 pm

    Bee Charmer writes:

    What happened to the millions of dollars that Biden just sent to that country a month ago? Why are the men from Honduras so weak? Go back and fix your country. America is tired of this BS!

  12. Diane Dimond on March 17, 2021 at 4:37 pm

    Rich Bradley writes:

    I understand leaving your own country….but can someone explain why Mexico isn’t a solution, since they are traveling through there anyway? Why is it US or nothing?

    • Diane Dimond on March 17, 2021 at 4:37 pm

      DD replies to Rich:

      Good question, Rich!

  13. Diane Dimond on March 17, 2021 at 4:37 pm

    Anthony Flacco writes:

    I say this is straight-up evil. There are Americans who see it and those who refuse, but the evil just lies there and stinks.

    • Diane Dimond on March 17, 2021 at 4:37 pm

      Diane replies to Anthony:

      Couldn’t have said it better, Anthony.

  14. Diane Dimond on March 17, 2021 at 4:38 pm

    Diane replies to Anthony:

    Couldn’t have said it better, Anthony.

  15. Diane Dimond on March 18, 2021 at 1:52 pm

    Michael Hughes writes:

    WHERE ARE THERE PARENTS? WHO WILL BRING THEM UP?

    • Diane Dimond on March 18, 2021 at 1:53 pm

      DD replies to Michael:

      Another very good question! Here’s another: what kind of future can these migrant children hope to have?

  16. Diane Dimond on March 18, 2021 at 1:53 pm

    John Michael Koroly writes:

    Thank you for posting this, Diane Dimond.

  17. Diane Dimond on March 18, 2021 at 1:53 pm

    Fred Mizzi writes:

    This problem has took years of inactivity to develop to this level, like racism, if not addressed, it doesn’t go away it manifests, and the usual answer, is surprisingly, moot.

  18. Diane Dimond on March 18, 2021 at 1:54 pm

    Joe Andrews writes:

    Well… I won’t have to pay my workers 15.00 per hour if they are all illegals! #beatingthemattheirowngame

  19. Diane Dimond on March 19, 2021 at 11:48 am

    Roy Merritt writes:

    The better solution is to stop interference in their economies like sanctions against Venezuela. Instead, encourage multinational companies to build THERE with good wages. Encourage governments to support capitalism THERE. It has helped China.

    • Diane Dimond on March 19, 2021 at 11:49 am

      Diane replies to Roy:

      Better yet – why don’t their own countries initiate wooing multinational companies to help provide more good jobs for their people? Oh, that’s right….they haven’t invested in educating their populations or curbing government corruption and crime rates in their countries. See the problem? US sanctions are designed to FORCE those countries (most corrupt) leaders to do the right thing by their people. Do sanctions work? Naw, probably not.

  20. Diane Dimond on March 19, 2021 at 11:49 am

    Carla Ginn writes:

    This awful, and I don’t see any end in sight. The dems need to see this too and get their act together before their own party comes unraveled. Can only hope. So stressful! SW is getting brunt of this, and NM will never be the same.

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