As readers are well aware Davenport Mayor Bill Gluba and others of mindless liberal ilk on the issue of immigration are maneuvering to facilitate the relocation of 200 illegal aliens to Davenport who have presented themselves on the border and are invoking and manipulating provisions of U.S. law, elbowing out children of other countries including Mexico at least as desperate to emigrate to the United States, and legally trying to do so.
The article excerpted below is absolutely crucial to understanding why the current surge on the border from Central America are not refugees under U.S. law nor are they victims of human trafficking as contemplated in the law. Many are paying to be smuggled to the border and into the United States. In that respect they are illegal smugglers themselves.
Jon Feere is the Legal Policy Analyst at the Center for Immigration Studies. He explains the law and its very limited applicability to those that comprise the surge. We strongly urge you to read the article in its entirety.
2008 Trafficking Law Largely Inapplicable to Current Border Crisis
The recent influx of Central American illegal immigrants has resulted in a significant debate about how the United States should deal with the newly arrived families and children. Despite the attention it has received, by its own terms, the “William Wilberforce Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act of 2008” — a law aimed, in part, at “unaccompanied alien children” who are victims of trafficking — may have little applicability to the current situation on the border:
- It appears that a significant majority of children coming across are not “unaccompanied alien children” according to the definition found in federal law. Federal law defines an “unaccompanied alien child” as an illegal alien under the age of 18 who is without “a parent or legal guardian in the United States”. Data from government agencies suggest that the overwhelming majority of minors arriving on the U.S. border have family in the United States.
- There is little evidence to suggest that the recent arrivals are victims of trafficking, which involves coercion. Instead, families and their children are willing participants in smuggling operations, having paid smugglers to bring them into the United States. As ICE explains, “Human trafficking and human smuggling are distinct criminal activities, and the terms are not interchangeable.”
- Even where the 2008 trafficking act is applicable, provisions within the law allow its application to be limited in “exceptional circumstances”, which — as one prominent Democratic senator recently suggested — might include the current border crisis. . . .
It is unclear how many minors arriving at the U.S. border come with family members. But what happens to those who arrive on their own is more significant to the analysis. According to a leaked ICE memo, over 77 percent of non-Mexican children arriving at the border without a family member were released to family members inside the United States in FY 2013.4 According to advocates and media reports, around 90 percent of non-Mexican and non-Canadian children coming across the border are placed with family or guardians in the United States.5 Similar percentages have been noted by some policymakers and agency administrators. HHS Secretary Sylvia Burwell recently testified that approximately 55 percent of released alien children are released to parents and another 30 percent are released to other family members, bringing the total to 85 percent of such children being released to family.6 Mark Greenberg, acting assistant secretary within HHS, recently testified that, thus far in FY 2014, approximately 95 percent of children released went to a parent, relative, or non-relative sponsor.7
While better data would be helpful, what the available data suggest is that the overwhelming majority of minors arriving at the U.S. border are either with families or will be released to family members or guardians already in the United States. As explained below, children who have family or legal guardians in the United States are not “unaccompanied alien children” under federal law.
