Daily Mail: The vast majority of children youth apprehended crossing the U.S. – Mexico border end up staying in the country, a new study has revealed.
Only 3,525 of the nearly 47,ooo juveniles youths entering the U.S. illegally were deported during fiscal year 2013 by immigration judges, researchers found – and an additional 888 were permitted to voluntarily return home.
The findings came from Bipartisan Policy Center analysis of data from the Department of Homeland Security, they were first published Friday in the Wall Street Journal.
The vast majority of these children youth are Central Americans crossing the border without relatives as they try to reunite with family already here, and their numbers are growing each year, according to various reports.
President Barack Obama has ordered them held in shelters to provide basic human necessities while their situations are sorted out, and has insisted they will not be allowed to stay.
But they are staying, and in far greater numbers than ever before.
“They’re here, and they’re staying, and whatever else might happen to them is at least a year or more away,” Doris Meissner, director of the Immigration Policy Program at the nonpartisan Migration Policy Institute, told the Journal.
“Until people’s experience changes, more are going to continue to come because they’re achieving what they need: safety and reunification with their families.”
The president has repeatedly pleased with Mexico and other countries to the south of Texas to help stem the tide of immigration, but officials in those countries are virtually helpless to close their borders.
Many of the immigrants are often fleeing violent drug gangs or are living in desperate poverty. They see the American dream as their only hope, as their children’s only future.
Data showed that judges deported or allowed about two-third of the 6,437 juveniles youths that came before immigration courts to leave voluntarily, according to the Journal. Of those orders, more than 2,600 were entered without the child even present.
A further 362 were granted legal status and the rest of the cases were terminated without any decision having been made – they were not allowed to stay but also were not told to go home.
DHS statistic further revealed that only 1,600 children youth were actually forced out of the U.S. That is the lowest number since at least 2009.
The backlog of juvenile youth cases was nearly 42,000 at the end of June, and court dates are often set years in advance, records showed.
DCG