Are kids still being held in cages? Are all migrants being let into the U.S.?
7 simple questions on what's happening at the U.S.-Mexico border answered by a child services expert.
7 simple questions on what's happening at the U.S.-Mexico border answered by a child services expert.
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00:00In about November of this past year, one of the higher courts decided that it was not
00:15legal to force unaccompanied children, and that's children that appeared at the border
00:20without their families, to be automatically sent back.
00:24And so they've been arriving and being, they've been processed along the border.
00:29And then as we dismantle the MPP and we're allowing those families to come in, some of
00:33whom have been waiting in Mexico for 14 months, attempting to have their case heard, we're
00:39seeing an increase of the number of people who are in CBP stations and attempting to
00:45be processed and be allowed into the country.
00:52The driving factor is desperation.
00:54It's that people have been stuck in Mexico, in squalid, very unsafe, dangerous situations
01:00for over a year because of MPP.
01:03People haven't been able to legally get here for the past four years prior to this administration.
01:10And because a global pandemic decimated communities and regions of Central America such that people
01:19are desperate to get out and seek safety and be with their loved ones and be well taken
01:26care of and not in violent situations.
01:29Kids are trying to be able to go to school without being threatened by gang members,
01:33and they're trying to see their mom or whoever it is that this adult caretaker that they
01:39think is here in the United States, then can offer them a safe place to live.
01:47The unaccompanied minors arriving at the border are predominantly teenagers from the
01:52Northern Triangle, which includes El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras.
01:56We're seeing larger numbers of older indigenous teen boys from Guatemala.
02:01It's a lot of teenagers, but we are seeing children as young as two years old attempting
02:07to come into the United States, seeking to reunify with their loved ones and family members
02:12that are here.
02:16Under President Obama, it's one of the first times we saw a really large number of unaccompanied
02:22children, which is children arriving without their parents, arrive at the border all at
02:27once and sort of overwhelm the system that's along the border.
02:31And that was because those facilities were put into place thinking that they were going
02:35to house Mexican migrant men in their 20s and 30s, who would only be held in those facilities
02:42for a few hours and then immediately sent back.
02:44When a lot of children arrived all at once and there wasn't enough space or beds for
02:48those children to be, the facilities along the border became overcrowded.
02:53What happened under President Trump was much, much worse in that it was intentional dismantling
02:59of a system.
03:00And it was programs that were put in place with the specific intent of deterring migrants
03:08from coming and punishing those migrants from coming by forcibly separating parents
03:14from their children and placing those parents into criminal proceedings as traffickers or
03:19smugglers or simply for illegally entering the country and then processing those children
03:24as if they were unaccompanied.
03:30As far as whether or not kids are still in cages, kids are still being housed in custom
03:38border patrol cells called yeletas, which means icebox or freezers because they are
03:46kept so cold.
03:47They are overcrowded.
03:49They don't have clean water or access to the right kind of food or blankets or clean bathrooms.
03:58That is still happening.
04:00I think the major difference is that there is a coordinated effort to get children into
04:09the least restrictive setting and to get them into places that are better suited for children.
04:17President Biden is attempting to humanely and in a way that honors the dignity and vulnerability
04:24of children, allow them to enter the country and process them in a way that is safe and
04:30child-centered.
04:31Unfortunately, there's not enough infrastructure to do that because of the numbers that we're
04:37seeing and because of certain environmental factors complicated by COVID.
04:48What happens normally is a child goes into what's called a shelter, but let's not
04:54forget it's a detention center.
04:56They're not free to leave.
04:57They're not with their families.
05:00These are all over the country.
05:02They're assigned a case manager and a social worker while they're in the detention.
05:06They're also assigned legal service providers who can give them Know Your Rights presentations
05:12and screen them for relief.
05:14If they get scheduled for court or some other emergency happens, the lawyers can actually
05:19represent the children in court.
05:21What most of these children are hoping for is that they are reunified with their loved
05:27one, be it a mom or dad or older brother or godmother or aunt, somebody in the United
05:34States.
05:36And then after that happens, they're in deportation proceedings.
05:41They also have to go to immigration court and prove to the immigration judge that they
05:46qualify for some sort of benefit that allows them to stay here.
05:52No, we are still expelling immigrants using Title 42, which, like I said before, is a
06:03policy that says that because of the pandemic and COVID that we are allowed to automatically
06:09expel or deport people to their country of origin or to Mexico.
06:15So no, not everybody who's showing up is being allowed to seek asylum.
06:20Which is what people who are escaping violence in their country should do if they want to
06:29legally seek refuge in this country.