Border crisis--what do we do with the children?

[prisonchaplain]

George Will suggests we take the current crop of Central American children and say Welcome to America.  We're going to educate you, and get you jobs.  He argues that the #s here are historically manageable, equaling about 20 per county in the U.S.  His big-picture solution?  NAFTA-like agreements for Central America.

 

I get the anger folk feel at our honeycomb border.  On the other hand, these kids really are needy.  They are poor,hungry, need clothing, and a peaceful place to grow up.  Our incompetence and their countries chaotic conditions are not their fault.

 

Thoughts?

 

http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2014/07/27/welcome-to-america-george-wills-take-on-migrant-children-leaves-fox-news-host-stammering/

[Guest]

George Will suggests we take the current crop of Central American children and say Welcome to America.  We're going to educate you, and get you jobs.  He argues that the #s here are historically manageable, equaling about 20 per county in the U.S.  His big-picture solution?  NAFTA-like agreements for Central America.

 

I get the anger folk feel at our honeycomb border.  On the other hand, these kids really are needy.  They are poor,hungry, need clothing, and a peaceful place to grow up.  Our incompetence and their countries chaotic conditions are not their fault.

 

Thoughts?

 

http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2014/07/27/welcome-to-america-george-wills-take-on-migrant-children-leaves-fox-news-host-stammering/

 

 

Sure... but only if they take all the poor and needy and dying children from the Philippines too.

 

And then there's the rule of law.  If the rule of law doesn't prevail anymore, then there's no point in having a border.  The rule of law can't be bent for hungry children.  There are a gazillion ways to help hungry children within the rule of law.

[kapikui]

My solution wouldn't be popular among the more liberal crowd.

 

We set up refugee camps a ways in from the border.

 

We take in any who want to come to the camps, feed them, clothe them etc.  We take the willing able bodied, and arm them and train them. 

 

We arm others further into Mexico, and give everyone a nice rousing speech about taking back their country from the drug lords infesting it and their puppet government, and send them in to take it back and set themselves up a new government.

 

We keep military along the border just in case it backfires.

 

Either we get a pro U.S. free Mexico, or things go south and we have to conquer it.... again.

 

The problem is the we don't have the will, and a large faction thinks we can essentially talk tyrants, despots and warlords to death and seems to believe them when they promise they won't do it again. "But they pinkie swore!" 

 

Our military could easily wipe out the drug lords causing the problem there, but unless the Mexican people do it themselves, and are well armed and prepared, the drug lords will simply go into hiding for a year or two until the U.S. troops pull out, then do it all over again.   If we give the Mexican people the tools to take and hold their own country they will most likely keep it. If  we give it to them, well... that which we obtain too easily we esteem too lightly.

[prisonchaplain]

Sure... but only if they take all the poor and needy and dying children from the Philippines too.

 

And then there's the rule of law.  If the rule of law doesn't prevail anymore, then there's no point in having a border.  The rule of law can't be bent for hungry children.  There are a gazillion ways to help hungry children within the rule of law.

 

That has been the issue--and it's the one we conservatives raise.  It's the pause in my agreeing completely with Will.  At the same time I think of the apt political cartoon that had the protesters stopping the bus, with a big sign saying:  OBEY THE LAW! 

 

The kids had one in the bus that said:  OBEY THE RULE!  (I.E. THE GOLDEN RULE).

 

Should the kids have gotten here?  No.  Should the parents/guardians have sent them here, circumventing our laws?  No.  Should our borders be so easy to penetrate?  Certainly not.

 

But the kids are here now.  Many of them are from areas that are war-torn (sometimes narco-war).  If they were Cuban our rule of law would be "wet food, dry foot."  We caught your outside our borders (wet foot), home you go.  You made it into our land, here's the green card.

 

Different situation, different politics.  I know.  Another risk--give the kids help, and more will come.  A problem, to be sure.

 

Personally, I don't mind taking in Filipino children who are impoverished and abandoned.  They share a heritage that the Central American kids do--and that the super majority of Americans still do--they are Christians.  Also, they are young.  We need young, healthy Christians, as our native population is aging and shrinking.

 

It's a bad problem with no sure answers.  However, if the child before me is hungry and naked, I'll feed and clothe him.

[Guest]

That has been the issue--and it's the one we conservatives raise.  It's the pause in my agreeing completely with Will.  At the same time I think of the apt political cartoon that had the protesters stopping the bus, with a big sign saying:  OBEY THE LAW! 

 

The kids had one in the bus that said:  OBEY THE RULE!  (I.E. THE GOLDEN RULE).

 

Should the kids have gotten here?  No.  Should the parents/guardians have sent them here, circumventing our laws?  No.  Should our borders be so easy to penetrate?  Certainly not.

 

But the kids are here now.  Many of them are from areas that are war-torn (sometimes narco-war).  If they were Cuban our rule of law would be "wet food, dry foot."  We caught your outside our borders (wet foot), home you go.  You made it into our land, here's the green card.

 

Different situation, different politics.  I know.  Another risk--give the kids help, and more will come.  A problem, to be sure.

 

Personally, I don't mind taking in Filipino children who are impoverished and abandoned.  They share a heritage that the Central American kids do--and that the super majority of Americans still do--they are Christians.  Also, they are young.  We need young, healthy Christians, as our native population is aging and shrinking.

 

It's a bad problem with no sure answers.  However, if the child before me is hungry and naked, I'll feed and clothe him.

 

Why would you have to wait until the child is before you?  Your resources are not unlimited.  You have, what, $10,000 that you can spend from your congregation before you end up with your own hungry children?  What if you spent the $10,000 on hungry children before they crossed the border (or the ones that didn't need to cross the border)... then a hungry child crossed the border illegally and showed up in your doorstep so that you have 2 choices - feed the hungry kid or starve your own kids?  What to do then?

 

Herein lies the problem.

 

The children are here, yes.  The children broke the law, yes.  And so did 12 million undocumented aliens, yes.  They broke the law because of a failure of government to uphold the law.  So, it's not just these undocumented that are at fault.  It's the govt. too.  Sure, you can consecrate your resources to specifically help these specific starving children.  Or you can spend those resources fighting for change in their own homeland so they won't have to risk their lives jumping borders.  Or you can spend your resources helping another set of starving children.  Limited resources, your choice on how you're going to spend them.  But don't tell somebody how awful they are because they decided to help in a different manner.

[Quin]

My solution wouldn't be popular among the more liberal crowd.

We set up refugee camps a ways in from the border.

We take in any who want to come to the camps, feed them, clothe them etc. We take the willing able bodied, and arm them and train them.

We arm others further into Mexico, and give everyone a nice rousing speech about taking back their country from the drug lords infesting it and their puppet government, and send them in to take it back and set themselves up a new government..

Ummmmm ....

We already tried that.

Exhibit A ) The Taliban. Exactly as you said, is what we did. We created them. Armed them. Trained them. Hasn't worked out so hot.

Exhibit B ) Most of the Latin American countries we have people fleeing from with desperate poverty being the least of their problems (genocide and worse being rather higher up on the list. Worse, because with genocide, at least you know if you're a target group). It was called "Regime Change".

[Quin]

Our military could easily wipe out the drug lords causing the problem there, but unless the Mexican people do it themselves, and are well armed and prepared, the drug lords will simply go into hiding for a year or two until the U.S. troops pull out, then do it all over again. If we give the Mexican people the tools to take and hold their own country they will most likely keep it. If we give it to them, well... that which we obtain too easily we esteem too lightly.

Um. No. It couldn't. I fought in that war. And then I was private contracting hiking in meds to NGOs. Unless you mean to simply nuke everything south of our border, because that's what it would take. There are hundreds of cartels, private armies, rebel groups, and gangs that span the length and breadth of all of Latin America. And that's not counting hundreds of "official" armies, police, political organizations, etc. Even "worse" the terrain ranges from desert to jungle to mountains. Each of which is a logistical nightmare for invading forces, much less all three together. HOWEVER, Even assuming the premise that we could somehow get rid of every bad guy currently in power (which is impossible), it wouldn't be a year. It would be a week before things were up and running again. And, just again with the premise, do know that a HUGE number of armed people you're fighting/talking about our military "taking out" are children. In fact, I learned how to use/fieldstrip an AK47 from an elementary kid. I'm not okay with killing 1 eight year old. Much less thousands of them. But 8yos work and fight with the cartels. Heck. Our own VA can't even handle the number of soldiers with PTSD from our current wars. But we're supposed to go in and kill kids and old people and pregnant women? And come out unscathed?

Committing genocide so that our immigration issues are sorted is something I doubt Heavenly Father would approve of.

Most of the people in Latin America are good people.

Even most of the people involved with cartels, rebel groups, smugglers, police, etc. are good people.

They're simply desperate.

[MarginOfError]

My brother proposed an interesting solution to the problem.  As he sees it, there are two root causes of the border problem.  One is a stale economy, the other is the overwhelming power of the cartels.  

 

His proposal was one to take out the cartels.  The first step was setting up a governmental program to which heroin addicts could go to get their fill of the drug.  For $25, the addict can get enough heroin for a week and clean needles.  let them do that for as long as they like until they decide to clean up and detox.  

 

Cheap heroin means addicts commit less crime to get the money for the drug, less back street dealing, controlled quality, and reduced public health risks because of the clean needles.  And there's no way that the drug cartels can out-compete the US government for market share.  Essentially, let's drive them out of business.

 

Economic problems are a completely different can of worms.  But if we could clear out the cartels, I would vote for annexing Mexico as a territory.

[kapikui]

Um. No. It couldn't. I fought in that war. And then I was private contracting hiking in meds to NGOs. Unless you mean to simply nuke everything south of our border, because that's what it would take. There are hundreds of cartels, private armies, rebel groups, and gangs that span the length and breadth of all of Latin America. And that's not counting hundreds of "official" armies, police, political organizations, etc. Even "worse" the terrain ranges from desert to jungle to mountains. Each of which is a logistical nightmare for invading forces, much less all three together. HOWEVER, Even assuming the premise that we could somehow get rid of every bad guy currently in power (which is impossible), it wouldn't be a year. It would be a week before things were up and running again. And, just again with the premise, do know that a HUGE number of armed people you're fighting/talking about our military "taking out" are children. In fact, I learned how to use/fieldstrip an AK47 from an elementary kid. I'm not okay with killing 1 eight year old. Much less thousands of them. But 8yos work and fight with the cartels. Heck. Our own VA can't even handle the number of soldiers with PTSD from our current wars. But we're supposed to go in and kill kids and old people and pregnant women? And come out unscathed?

Committing genocide so that our immigration issues are sorted is something I doubt Heavenly Father would approve of.

Most of the people in Latin America are good people.

Even most of the people involved with cartels, rebel groups, smugglers, police, etc. are good people.

They're simply desperate.

 

You'll notice that I rejected that option.  OUR military CAN'T win that war.  I think we could defeat them, but they'll be back.  The Mexican people have to defeat them.  The ones that are coming here are unarmed and defenseless.  By arming them, at least some of the people who need to die will, and not JUST the innocents.

[Windseeker]

From what I understand children only make up 20% of the people coming across. Many are with their families. 

 

As far as the orphans we should open up adoption and I'm sure there enough families that despite the attempts by the left to completely destroy them would enthusiastically open up their homes and welcome them. The children would be given opportunity, taught values and be assimilated into our culture. 

 

But that probably won't happen as the state won't pass by any opportunity to swell the ranks of glassy eyed dependent useful idiots. 

 

yeah ...I know I cynic too much 

[Traveler]

anatess makes a very important point - if we are concerned with children - why are we not helping the children of greatest need.  Not just those that somehow got here?  It is my opinion that the children are just pons in a much more serious and if you will – evil game that is being played out.  To understand I think we need to look at what has been happening over the course of many years and realize a frightening trend.   I believe it is best to look at what has been happening politically in Mexico starting many years ago.

 

I will begin with the era that the USA gave tax incentives to the large oil corporations to help develop the oil reserves of Mexico (the world’s largest oil reserves) under the guise or excuse that it would help the Mexican economy.  These companies (and others) went into Mexico investing a lot of money and developed the Mexican oil – making incredible profits.  As is almost always the case with incredible profits greed becomes a factor.  The corrupt Mexican government wanted more of the profits and in short the oil companies did not want to give up any more than they had to.  Eventually the Mexican government commandeered all the oil and oil infrastructure intending to control all the possible profits.  Without this understanding of the Mexican government taking control of the oil – I do not think we can understand the real problem – but there is more.

 

A growing business in Mexico had been the transport of illegal drugs into the USA.  We call those involved in this business the drug cartels.  Some time ago there was a consolidation of the drug cartels and they began to look for other ways for their businesses to make profits.    It became necessary to infiltrate both the Mexican and USA governments to make their enterprises “safer”.  While in this process the rich oil reserves became a target for the drug cartels.  They began by taking (stilling) oil but they needed a customer for stolen oil – they found that the oil companies in the USA not only would take the oil but would make the profits legitimate.   This soon became a big problem in Mexico and many citizens wondered why the US government was unwilling to intervene.   Something that is still wondered even today as I have discovered and encountered as I do business with Mexico.    But let us continue.

 

During the Bush administration a gun project was started called “Wide Receiver”.  This was a program intended to trace guns trickling across our border with Mexico falling directly into the hands of the drug cartels.  But the Bush administration had second thought and canceled the project.   But as a surprise move the Obama administration restarted the project and shortly a mass of illegal weapons ended up in the hands of the drug cartels.  We have all heard the stories of this failure and how the death of a border guard is only the “tip of the iceberg”.   

 

With the increase in gun security (to rival the Mexican military) the drug cartels have moved quickly to gain more control of the Mexican gas reserves – they have also become buyers in international black market arms with the increasing revenues.   As of today – the Obama administration is bragging that they have reduced US dependence of Middle East oil.  This is all true but the flip side of this coin is that the largest importer of oil is Mexico and the oil controlled by the drug cartels coming to the USA is growing rapidly (it is important to note that it is impossible to determine how much oil the drug cartels actually control).   The last Mexican elections (which took place when Obama was reelected) it was generally understood that the new president was associated with the drug cartels.  I think it is also important to note that the violence threatening Mexico and Central America is all directly associated with the Drug Cartels. 

 

It is my personal belief that the drug cartels have taken control of the southern US border with Mexico.  I am convinced that nothing crosses that border without their approval – including the children coming to the USA.  Though the drug cartels are making a profit from the children coming – I do not believe that the children are their goal.  With this distraction I believe that are able to take the next step in their conquest – that is establish not just a presents in the USA but a center of operations.   I have no idea what their next intent is centered on but I do not for a moment think it will be for any of our benefits.  My biggest concern is that our justice department is not investigating what is taking place – of if they are they have not made more than token arrests and still claim that there was no corruption or any reason to investigate “Fast and Furious”. 

 

We may think the children at the border are an important issue – but I think it is all just a political smoke screen.

[kapikui]

Traveler, I had not thought of that.  If even half of what you suppose is correct, we're in trouble. My idea of arming them would backfire in the extreme since most of the fighter capable individuals coming here would be in the pockets of the cartels, either willingly or with blackmail.

 

I wish I could see something other than war coming of this, but I can't.

[prisonchaplain]

Help poor children IN poor countries?  Absolutely.  Churches can/do/should continue to do so.  Governments sometimes help out a bit.  That's nice, but churches are more effective.

 

Tighten up border security.  OK.  Though, I'm not sure how much money we should spend on this aspect.  What is our main objective?  Keep out terrorists?  Maintain 100% control?  90?

 

Improve the economies of poorer nations--especially in our area of influence?  Well, indirectly perhaps.  Trade agreements and our own healthy economy do help those other nations.  I'm not sure how much direct attention/assistance we can/should offer.

 

Modernize and streamline the legal immigration process.  BINGO.  If we had a handle on our legal immigration, with wait times not to exceed 2 years, then maybe we'd be able to focus on the illegal entry problem with greater effectiveness.

[Just_A_Guy]

His proposal was one to take out the cartels.  The first step was setting up a governmental program to which heroin addicts could go to get their fill of the drug.  For $25, the addict can get enough heroin for a week and clean needles.  let them do that for as long as they like until they decide to clean up and detox.  

 

Cheap heroin means addicts commit less crime to get the money for the drug, less back street dealing, controlled quality, and reduced public health risks because of the clean needles.  And there's no way that the drug cartels can out-compete the US government for market share.  Essentially, let's drive them out of business.

 

Plus, if you make these folks ineligible for government bennies (above and beyond their weekly shoot-up), the problem of a surfeit of heroin addicts largely solves itself in about 4 to 6 weeks.

 

(Sorry.  Black humor for a black Monday.)

[Traveler]

Help poor children IN poor countries?  Absolutely.  Churches can/do/should continue to do so.  Governments sometimes help out a bit.  That's nice, but churches are more effective.

 

Tighten up border security.  OK.  Though, I'm not sure how much money we should spend on this aspect.  What is our main objective?  Keep out terrorists?  Maintain 100% control?  90?

 

Improve the economies of poorer nations--especially in our area of influence?  Well, indirectly perhaps.  Trade agreements and our own healthy economy do help those other nations.  I'm not sure how much direct attention/assistance we can/should offer.

 

Modernize and streamline the legal immigration process.  BINGO.  If we had a handle on our legal immigration, with wait times not to exceed 2 years, then maybe we'd be able to focus on the illegal entry problem with greater effectiveness.

 

I am not sure what you mean by modernize and streamline the legal immigration process.  A recent survey in Mexico indicated that 80% of the citizens of Mexico plan to immigrate to the USA sometime during their life time.  Part of the problem is that wages are less than 1/3 of similar wages for the same professions here in the USA.  Most doctors in Mexico serving the citizens of Mexico make less per hour than a baby sitter here in the USA.  Then couple that with the fact that anyone working an actual profession starts out paying 30% of their income in taxes even though in the USA the same wage would be considered below the poverty line and entitled to various supplemental government poverty subsidies.

 

Countries south of Mexico (Central America) are much worse off and India with a population to rival China is worse than Central America.  The aggregate poverty of these countries added to our country could reduce our gross national product to a level that would be below the poverty level for the entire population of the USA currently living in this country.  And it is getting worse – not better from all the current efforts. 

 

The primary responsibility of our government is to protect its citizens.  We can and should help – but we do not have the resources to solve everyone else’s problem for them.  I am not sure, with the current increases in debt that we are capable of solving our own problems.  But the one thing I believe we must do is demand that anyone coming to this country, including children, is to honor respect and obey our laws.  

[prisonchaplain]

Traveler, what I mean is that immigration can, and most often is a net positive for the U.S.  This is our history.  A key is that we bring in the people we want to bring in.  Currently, there are immigrant-candidates who've just entered the wait line, who will still be waiting 10 years from now.  These are people we want to come.  They have relatives here, they will work, and they want to come here legally.  Yet, because they are 3rd-tier, and because our system is backlogged, antiquated, and under-staffed, they will wait 14 years or so.

 

Contrast this with our honeycomb border.  My argument is that if we can get a handle on our legal immigration--by modernizing the tools, upgrading the staffing, etc., then we'll gain the credibility to address our illegal immigration.

 

Nowhere was I suggesting that the U.S. take in all/most of the citizens of poor countries.  However, some of them would do us good.  Currently, we seem to hold off the ones that would be blessings for us, and, through clumsy enforcement, allow in many who will not bring good things.

[kapikui]

While the idea of helping poor children IN poor countries is a nice idea in theory, usually the poor people in the poor countries are poor because the dictator wants them to be.  This helps his control, or in the case of some african countries when I was growing up, the warlord wanted to commit genocide on that particular tribe.  His chosen method was starvation.  Millions of dollars were spent to help the starving african children.  The problem was that the dictator used the money to prop up his OWN control.  He used the food to feed his own soldiers, or let it rot.  All of the money sent over there (ethopia I think) was either wasted or only served to further hurt the people we were trying to help. 

 

Unless you're willing to send in the aid with military backup, often the aid only aids the people deliberately causing the problem. It isn't pleasant, and kinda kills the warm fuzzy you get from "helping" by donating your pocket change, but it is often how things go. 

[Mahone]

Traveler, what I mean is that immigration can, and most often is a net positive for the U.S.  This is our history.  A key is that we bring in the people we want to bring in.  Currently, there are immigrant-candidates who've just entered the wait line, who will still be waiting 10 years from now.  These are people we want to come.  They have relatives here, they will work, and they want to come here legally.  Yet, because they are 3rd-tier, and because our system is backlogged, antiquated, and under-staffed, they will wait 14 years or so.

 

Contrast this with our honeycomb border.  My argument is that if we can get a handle on our legal immigration--by modernizing the tools, upgrading the staffing, etc., then we'll gain the credibility to address our illegal immigration.

 

Nowhere was I suggesting that the U.S. take in all/most of the citizens of poor countries.  However, some of them would do us good.  Currently, we seem to hold off the ones that would be blessings for us, and, through clumsy enforcement, allow in many who will not bring good things.

 

I just want to concur with this.

 

My wife is an US citizen. She currently lives in the UK with me and has done since late 2012. We applied for my US greencard in May 2013, which is when we both felt we were ready to move back to the states. At that time, we were both naive enough about US immigration to believe what was stated on the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services website that it would only take around 8 months from start to finish to process our application, and therefore we'd be moving by January 2014. 

 

Fast forward to today, 439 days, dozens of lengthy application forms that take days to fill in, dealing with three different US government agencies and thousands of $$ in fees later, we'll both still in the UK waiting for the processing of our applications to complete. I don't anticipate that our application will finish completion until September 2014, bringing the total waiting period to over 500 days.

 

Believe it or not, I'm one of the higher priority applicants, being an immediate relative/spouse of a US citizen - there is no limit to the amount of these visas that can be given out each year. Other types of immigrants have to wait much, much longer, as PC stated. Also, my spouse and I are lucky that we've been together throughout this process, and have no children yet. Most of my fellow applicants are in their home countries, with their US citizen spouse still in the states along with their children throughout this process - over 500 days is a very long time to be separated from each other. All of this because a US citizen and a non US citizen had the "audacity" to get married to each other. How dare they?

 

Even for us, it's not been at all easy. For 95% of the process, we've had no idea of what the timescales for completion are - even at Christmas 2013, I thought we'd have moved by May 2014. This lack of knowledge creates havoc and destroys relationships with jobs, family, friends etc. because I had absolutely no idea when I was actually going to be leaving them all - not even which year it was going to be. My wife hasn't seen many of her friends and family for well over a year, and misses her home immensely. Both of us have been suffering from stress and depression bought on as a result of the issues we've had due to these delays.

 

And then on top of that, we've had to watch Barack Obama grant pathways to citizenship to undocumented illegal immigrates currently living in the US (know as deferred action applications) which was given priority over spousal applications, adding a delay of about six months for us and all other spousal applications. In other words, those that had moved to the US illegally were being given higher processing priority over those that were following the legal process from the outset. And yet they want people to follow the legal routes for migration to the states?

 

PC is correct. Sort out legal migration, and then sort out the problem of illegal migration. The former will go some way to sorting out the latter anyway.

[Guest]

 

PC is correct. Sort out legal migration, and then sort out the problem of illegal migration. The former will go some way to sorting out the latter anyway.

 

But before that even, we need to have an Executive Branch that is clear on what they want.  Right now, we have an Executive Branch that flip flops over the issue.  The First Lady gave a speech in some country in South America telling them - Do what you can to jump the border and improve your lives.

 

Okay, okay, she didn't say it exactly in those words... but, it's fairly clear how her speech was perceived...