During a congressional hearing Tuesday, new leadership from Customs and Border Protection suggested the US ought to start turning away children fleeing violence in Central America.
Testifying before the Senate Homeland Security Committee, CPB Chief Mark Morgan said the effort to help unaccompanied children and families (UAC) seeking safety in the US was too burdensome.
At the prompting of Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wisc.) on Tuesday, Morgan specifically told Senators that current efforts–to apprehend, process, and then safeguard refuge-seeking minors–is putting a strain on traditional border enforcement operations.
“The humanitarian mission,” Morgan said, “is impacting our ability, I think, to perform our national security mission.” He also claimed that drug-dealing gangs are using the the influx of refugees as cover for smuggling operations.
The flow across the US-Mexican border of unaccompanied children (UAC) and families escaping carnage in their home countries of Honduras, El Salvador, and Guatemala is on the rise again, with CPB reporting nearly 60,000 apprehensions in 2016—a 49-percent increase from the previous year.
Morgan also suggested dealing with the flow of UACs from those three countries by treating them like Mexican nationals, who are apprehended at the border, and then promptly deported—a procedure known as expedited removal (ER).
Morgan credited ER with drastically reducing the percentage of Mexicans trying to enter the US. “The individuals knew when they came they were being held, and then they were being removed,” he claimed. “That was a consequence, they knew that, and that served as a strong deterrence.”
When it comes to UACs, current law requires they be given safe-haven in the US until their asylum claims are adjudicated.
The process involves several government agencies. CBP is charged with arresting and processing refugees. The Department of Health and Human Services then cares for and finds housing for the individuals, as they await immigration court proceedings run by the Department of Justice’s Executive Office for Immigration Review.
“Right now, they know that if they make it to the border, they will be released into the interior of the United States,” Morgan told the committee.
“That’s a huge pull factor,” he added.
Sen. Johnson picked up on what the CBP chief was prescribing. “If we go back to the process of expedited removal—you know, with humanity—bring these kids and send them right back to Guatemala, Honduras, or El Salvador, we would dramatically reduce the incentive, and my guess is we would dramatically reduce the flow,” he said.
Morgan agreed, and returned to the Mexican national example. “We reduced that pull factor by instituting a system of consequences and expedited removal.”
After the exchange, Sen. Tom Carper (D-Del.) noted that unlike immigration from Mexico, UACs from Central America are literally running for their lives. He relayed a story of a 13-year-old from Guatemalan who fled to the US with his sister after a gang threatened to kill a member of his family if he refused to join them.
“I dare say if any of us lived in that kind of environment with our kids, we would probably want them to be out of Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, or whatever country it is, and into a safer place,” the Senator said.
Carper added that the US is to blame for much of the violence in those countries.
“We send them guns and money,” he said.
The Obama administration did attempt to discourage unaccompanied children and families fleeing to the US from Central America by detaining them indefinitely upon apprehension in CBP facilities. A federal court in DC ruled last February, however, that the practice was unconstitutional.
