Central American Undocumented Women and Children flood U.S.-Mexico Border and Immigration Legal System

By: Jose G. Landa, Copyright 2014, Eagle Pass Business Journal, Inc.

Extreme poverty, gang warfare, and hopelessness caused by their respective governments or authorities supported by United States foreign policy during the past 20-30 years has forced many undocumented women and children from Central American countries such as Honduras, Guatemala, and El Salvador to flood the United States-Mexico border as well as the American Immigration Legal System during the past several years, particularly the current fiscal year, seeking political asylum and other legal immigration remedies available to them.

According to U.S. Department of Homeland Security information, the U.S. Border Patrol apprehended approximately 31,000 juveniles, mostly unaccompanied and undocumented, from October 2011 to October 2012 on the U.S.-Mexico border. However, from October 1, 2013 to May 31, 2014, the U.S. Border Patrol has apprehended 47,017 unaccompanied and undocumented children under 18 years old at the U.S.-Mexico border, mostly at the Texas-Mexico border in the Rio Grande Valley. During the first week of this month in June 2014, approximately 1,000 unaccompanied and undocumented children who crossed illegally into Texas were apprehended and subsequently flown to emergency shelters in Arizona.

The flood of undocumented women and children from Central American countries has forced the United States government to open children and family shelters for these people in federal military installations such as Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio, Texas, place some of them in non-profit shelters in El Paso and throughout the country, and release some of them to relatives in the United States with a Bond and a Notice to Appear before an Immigration Court Judge in the immediate future.

The American legal system has been caught unprepared to handle so many thousands of these cases, especially children as they require that U.S. Border Patrol place them in a shelter or release them to a family member within the U.S. after 72 hours of being apprehended, causing the federal government to scramble with its legal system to adjudicate the thousands of undocumented children and women cases.

Mexican and Central American cartels have taken advantage of this humanitarian crisis by spreading false rumors that President Obama is granting permits for undocumented women and children and profiting from ferrying these people from Central America to the Texas-Mexico border charging between $3,000 to $10,000 for each person and advising them to turn themselves in to the U.S. Border Patrol upon reaching the American side of the Rio Grande River, while overburdening the U.S. Department of Homeland Security resources and personnel to process these undocumented aliens so they can import and transport drugs and other illegal activities into the United States and vice-versa with ease.

U.S. House of Representative Henry Cuellar (D-Laredo) had denounced the federal government’s inability to handle this floodgate of undocumented Central American women and children entering the U.S.-Mexico border, calling on President Obama to implement policies and procedures for handling these cases. Congressman Cuellar notes that thousands of undocumented women and children released to family members within the United States fail to appear for their Immigration Court hearings, and, once inside the United States they remain as undocumented aliens until by happenstance are detected or detained somewhere inside the United States.

U.S. Senator John Cornyn (R-Texas) requested that the United States collaborate with Mexico to seal its border with Guatemala and other Central American countries by providing assistance to Mexico.

Texas state leaders such as Governor Rick Perry, Attorney General Greg Abbott, and House Speaker Joe Strauss have authorized the expenditure of up to $30 million by the Texas Department of Public Safety to increase its patrol of the Texas-Mexico border in an effort to combat illegal drug trafficking, alien smuggling, firearms smuggling, and money laundering by Mexican cartels into Texas.

The Republican Party leaders in the U.S. House of Representatives and U.S. Senate have refused to bring pending comprehensive Immigration Reform legislation for a vote previously approved by the Democratic Party-led U.S. Senate, exacerbating the current Central American undocumented women and children immigration crisis facing the United States.

A total collaborative effort between all countries affected and a united American political, legal, and foreign policy response is needed to resolve the current Central American undocumented women and children immigration crisis flooding the U.S.-Mexico border.