Thoughts on the illegal immigration from the southern borders?

This is a super complicated issue. I think the legal standing is that unaccompanied children who are not from Mexico or Canada have a legal right to stay. I think that the law states that after 48 hours in detention, the children are to be turned over to Health and Human Services. I think that if you are of Irish heritage--as I am--or Chinese, Polish or Jewish, then the issues of immigration and how well they were treated becomes more personal. Every few decades it seems as though we find a group of people we state are not worthy of basic human rights of food, water, and safety. They become the scapegoat for everything that ails the country. Do I think we should have a porous border...no. I think that could be dangerous to our national security. But I do not see how a war on children will make us safer.

PO1 Medley, I completely understand where you are coming form but to neglect your own children and take on the responsibility of other children does not set with me at all. What kind of legacy are we leaving our children abandon you own to take care of illegals? Just my thoughts.

SCPO David Lockwood OH yeah, I agree we INSIDE the U.S. have much to be concerned about regarding non-immigrant children. However, there is a system in place (which must be tweeked) in each and every state. It's up to the individual states' elected officials to get their heads out of the sand and make the right thing happen for children born in the U.S.

There are few states that can handle a massive influx of these children coming in across the border illegally. Protecting the border and the issues for illegal immigrants is NOT a state mandate - it is a Federal mandate..

So, if we are truely concerned about our own children then we need to get into the fray and chastise our state-level elected officials. It's what has to happen - the federal government should not be doing that. We as citizens of our individual states need to stand up and be counted for the best in the interest of our children. If we are not standing up to be counted and relying on some one else to do everything for you without any involvement in the process by yourself - then you who refuse to stand up and chastise your state-level elected officials on those issues that matter should really STFU. In my book, if you're not involved then your opinion shouldn't count.

The children crossing our southern borders must be dealt with fairly and equitably. We don't have to like it - but it must be done. I do NOT want to have to explain to my 9 year old granddaughter why we, as one of the strongest nations on earth, would take an innocent young girl like herself, different only in the fact the other girl was not born here in the U.S. and force that child back into the desert just because "we're too busy doing other things".

I have been pondering this issue for a while, and reading the 'for' and 'against' about these so-called children at the border. Having a friend in the Border Patrol who is on the ground on the Texas border, which is, by the way, the LARGEST border, leaving us with a really LARGE problem... but I digress, the thing is, my friend says these "Children are mostly older teenagers, about a third of them calmly talk about gang and drug cartel affiliations. Not exactly the wide-eyed, terrified little kids that everyone wants to think they are. Secondly, a third of them arrive very sick, and yes, they were often sent here because their families know they will recieve medical care they can't afford or can't find. Lastly, the few children who are actually children, who arrive here in the arms of their family members, are few and far between... though they arrive, usually after being brutalized by the "Coyotes" their people hired to get them across. Can you imagine a traumatized nine year old girl, who arrives here after being raped by the "trustworthy" person your parents hired to keep you safe? Most of the girls do arrive in that state, because there are no adults who care about their welfare with them.
Now, the thing is, if these people hadn't heard all these comments about how their children, should they arrive early, and be educated in this country, have a shot at staying, those kids would never have left their parent's arms. In trying to secure a better future for their kids, these people have destroyed them, but that's not discussed by all those people who fawn over the "Poor children' and demand we pull them into our system.
My daughter cannot get help for her son. She paid out her entire child support check to get him seen by a doctor, and she is on CHAMPUS! She can't get food stamps, because she makes about a thousand a month. She can't get her son into day care so that she can actually find a better job, because she can't afford it.
Keeping that fact in mind, you might understand my outrage, when I find out that Illegal Immigrants can apply for food stamps, affordl day care, and housing, because that is in the budget, but the family of a soldier with PTSD so bad they won't allow him to live with them, cannot get help from the government? What is wrong with this picture?

So do we stop the counter drug ops? Or do we put more emphasis on State, USAID and other soft power agencies to help those countries get back into working order.

LTC Paul Labrador Sir, in my opinion, I would end the drug war. I believe that we're repeating the mistake we made with alcohol prohibition in the 20's that gave rise to the mafia. Most of the violence occurring in South/Central America is directly due to drug cartels fighting for power. The cost in lives and money by making these drugs illegal (especially marijuana) I feel far out paces the negative impact of the drugs themselves. In all honestly, even heroin addicts can live relatively long and healthy lives if given the drug. It's the need to commit crimes (or be imprisoned due to the drugs) that are causative of many of our worst problems. We imprison more people than any other country on earth.

Apologize up front for the lengthy post. Got a burr under my saddle and have been doing research off and on today.

This is a hard question from all sides of the equation, particularly because if you don't hold the view of someone else, then the "negative" is applied to you (you're 'heartless', 'clueless', 'socialist', etc). Before I get too far off of PO1 (Join to see)'s question of "Let them in or turn them away", my answer is "it depends". Call me heartless (from the left) or call me deluded (from the right), but I'm moderate in my outlook on the immigration problem.

I agree with MAJ (Join to see) that our own policies are the root of the problem. Part of it is the Act from 2008, part of it is the DREAM act, part of it is the backup in immigration courts, part of it is non-enforcement, part of it ... and so on. The bottom line is that yes, we created this mess and neither side is blameless in creating that mess. Yet we seem to be more interested in blaming people than fixing the issue.

BTW, to be accurate MAJ Dews, the William Wilberforce Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act of 2008 (TVPRA) was introduced by a democratic senator, sponsored by people from both parties, passed by a democratically controlled House, passed by a split Senate, and signed into law by the republican president. Anyone trying to infer that it was all President Bush's doing because he signed the law is just playing partisan politics. Now, if instead that president decided on his own that he wouldn't enforce an existing law, then I would agree that you could lay it at his doorstep.

Since everyone seems to be talking about it, I decided to read the TVPRA directly instead of listening to the talking points on either side. Additionally, I looked at the Immigration Reform and Control Act from 1986, Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000, published statistics from the border patrol, reports from Congressional Research, and a few others.

My observations:
- The people that wrote the TVPRA must have exciting hobbies like watching paint dry, grass grow, etc.
- The focus of the TVPRA was not immigration. The focus was on how to more effectively combat human trafficking. The specific part of it in the spotlight deals with Unauthorized Alien Children (UAC) - the Govt's definition of a UAC is "aliens under the age of 18 who come to the United States without authorization or overstay their visa, and are without a parent or legal guardian."
- The Southwest Border is where the majority of illegal aliens enter this country.
- The arrests of illegal aliens has steadily been declining along the Southwest Border since FY05 (almost 1.2M) until FY11 (about 350k), at which they started increasing again (up to 420k in FY13)
- The number of agents along the Southwest Border grew rapidly in the 3 years since Operation Jump Start (FY06) and FY09 (from about 10k to 17.4k). Manning for FY13 is at 18.6k
- The increase in the number of illegal immigrants in country has been rising since 2009 (about 800k/year). It was declining for a few years previously due to the recession (enforcement was greater than influx).
- The crisis that keeps being reported in the media is because a comparison between June 14 and June 13 showed a 100% spike in the number of UACs coming through the Southwest Border. What doesn't seem to get a lot of press is that there was an almost a 500% spike in 'family units'. The raw numbers are about equally split between the two categories and overall there is about a 66% growth (about 75k). Extrapolating, that means a growth of about 150k over last year's numbers (~670k ... about where we were at the end of 2008).
- The numbers thrown around for the number of illegal aliens in this country are SWAGs - it could be as low as 7M or as high as 20M - the median SWAG is about 12M
- Most people favor speeding up the legal process for dealing with UACs in order to determine if they should be granted asylum or be deported.
- Most people support some type of immigration reform and some type of pathway is supported by the majority of people, but has slipped a lot in the last five months.

Now some of my questions/opinions:
- Does the TVPRA apply in many cases for illegal children? I'll leave it to the legal scholars, but from what I saw, there is a good argument for it NOT applying. If you apply the government's definition of a UAC, then why is this being applied to UACs that have parents that are here illegally? Either they don't have family here (UAC provisions of TVPRA do apply) or they do (it doesn't apply) - not both. Yet, proponents of UACs staying say that the law requires them to do so.
- If the TVPRA was the reason for the influx of illegal aliens, why did the numbers of arrests go down for the 3 years following its implementation?
- If the border is secure (and I'm not specifically talking about Sen. Reid's recent comments ... there were lots of claims from 2008 that it was), then why do we still have about 800k more illegal aliens being added to this country annually? Especially curious since arrests were going down (until FY11) and estimates on the total influx has been level or increasing.
- Personally, I think massive media attention on the surge in illegal children is drowning out additional issues, and the next time something else pops up, this too will fade into the past as the majority of people seem to have chronic ADD (hey, wasn't there some plane that crashed somewhere? I remember hearing about it the same time they talked about some government agency doing something or another to somebody. Hey, did you see that Germany won the world cup! SCORE!!! ... what were we talking about again?).

I concur with LTC (P) Randall Cudworth view on this... seems like another distraction from the long list of issues facing our country it's becoming the norm. Which in my opinion is quite disturbing. What ever did happen to that plane? ..... And that IRS thing.... ohh wasn't there some huge outcry about gun control a few months back.... any word on our advisors in Iraq?? Hmmmmm Look !!! Squirrel!!

Your perspective is something that every American should read. Immigration reform will not happen until those idiots in Washington are gone! But your right on the money when you said the government refuses to take care of their own. Sad sad sad.