"Processing of potential refugees in Central America could be handled by the United States government or by the United Nations."...
7/24/14, "To Ease Crisis, U.S. May Vet Young Refugees Inside Honduras," NY Times,
to allow hundreds of minors and
young adults from Honduras into the United States Hoping
to stem the recent surge of migrants at the Southwest border, the Obama
administration is considering whether without making the
dangerous trek through Mexico, according to a draft of the proposal.
If
approved, the plan would direct the government to screen thousands of
children and youths in Honduras to see if they can enter the United
States as refugees or on emergency humanitarian grounds. It would be the
first American refugee effort in a nation reachable by land to the
United States, the White House said, putting the violence in Honduras on
the level of humanitarian emergencies in Haiti and Vietnam, where such
programs have been conducted in the past amid war and major crises....
Administration officials said they believed the plan could be enacted
through executive action, without congressional approval, as long as it
did not increase the total number of refugees coming into the country.
By moving decisions on refugee claims to Honduras, the plan aims to slow
the rush of minors crossing into the United States illegally from El
Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala, which has overwhelmed the Southwest
border this year. More than 45,000 unaccompanied minors from those three
nations have arrived since Oct. 1, straining federal resources to the
point that some agencies will exhaust their budgets by next month, the
secretary of Homeland Security has said.
Many
of the children, particularly in Honduras, are believed to be fleeing
dangerous street gangs, which forcibly recruit members and extort home
and business owners. The United Nations estimates that 70,000 gang
members operate in the three nations.
Administration
officials confirmed that they are considering the idea, although they
stressed that no decision has been made to move forward. They said the
idea is one of many being discussed by officials at the White House and
the Departments of State, Homeland Security, Justice, and Health and
Human Services.
Among
the factors surrounding the decision are how many people in Honduras
would be eligible to apply for the program, and how many would likely be
approved.
The
proposal, prepared by several federal agencies, says the pilot program
under consideration would cost up to $47 million over two years,
assuming 5,000 applied and about 1,750 people were accepted.
It
is unclear how the administration determined those estimates, given
that since Oct. 1 more than 16,500 unaccompanied children traveled to
the United States from Honduras alone.
Children
would be interviewed by American immigration employees trained to deal
with minors, and a resettlement center would be set up in the Honduran
capital, Tegucigalpa, with assistance from international organizations like the International Organization for Migration.
The
plan would be similar to a recent bill introduced by Senators John
McCain and Jeff Flake of Arizona, who proposed increasing the number of
refugee visas to the three Central American countries by 5,000 each.
According
to the draft, the administration is considering opening the program to
people under 21. It also suggested offering entry on emergency
humanitarian grounds— know as humanitarian parole — to some of the
applicants who did not qualify for refugee status....
Mark
Krikorian, the executive director of the Center for Immigration
Studies, which supports tighter controls on immigration, said that the
proposal would increase, not stem, the flood of migrants from Central
America trying to get into the United States.
“It’s
clearly a bad idea,” Mr. Krikorian said. “Orders of magnitude more
people will apply for refugee status if they can just do it from their
home countries.”
He
added that the proposal would allow people to claim to be refugees from
their countries with “nothing more than a bus ride to the consulate.
We’re talking about, down the road, an enormous additional flow of
people from those countries.”
The
preliminary plan could create a thorny challenge for the administration
because the definition of a refugee is legally specific, and children
fleeing street gangs could have a hard time qualifying.
Under
American law, refugees are people fleeing their country of origin based
on fears of persecution by reason of race, religion, nationality,
political opinion or membership in a particular social group.
The
draft of the plan noted that 64.7 percent of the unaccompanied minors
who applied for asylum this year got it, which suggests that immigration
officials have found their claims of imminent danger credible.
With
that in mind, the draft proposal suggested that 35 to 50 percent of the
applicants in Honduras could be considered for relief, a figure the
White House said was inflated. The early draft, the White House said,
was the most generous and least likely of the options the administration
is considering.
How many people are accepted is critical, because
refugees qualify for public assistance upon arrival in the United
States.
Under
Senator McCain’s proposal, refugee applicants would be processed at
home, and child migrants arriving in the United States illegally could
be deported quickly.
Kevin
Appleby, director of Migration and Refugee Services at the United
States Conference of Catholic Bishops, said the plan would be welcome,
as long as it does not substitute for protections Central American
children currently receive under American law.
“This
program would certainly be a formal acknowledgment by the
administration that these children are refugees,” Mr. Appleby said.
“That’s huge, because they have yet to utter that word.”
When
a similar plan was adopted in Haiti, as a way to keep people from
taking to the high seas, he said, it was ultimately criticized because
Haitians already in the United States did not receive help. “It ended up being counterproductive to the goal,” Mr. Appleby said.
Stacie
Blake, the director of government relations for the U.S. Committee for
Refugees and Immigrants, an advocacy group, said the processing of
potential refugees in Central America could be handled by the United
States government or by the United Nations, which makes refugee
determinations in many other countries. She said some of the people
designated as refugees in Honduras could end up in countries other than
the United States.
“It’s a way to help folks avoid life-threatening escapes and journeys,” Ms. Blake said. “It’s a good idea. It’s a tested idea.”
On
Friday, Mr. Obama is scheduled to meet with the presidents of Honduras,
Guatemala and El Salvador at the White House in an effort to urge the
Central American leaders to do more to help stem the flow of children
fleeing their countries for the United States."
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Comment: Confirming the erasure of the US southern border and enslavement of the American people to billionaires and thugs. GOP Establishment is cheering, especially the entire Bush family and its pals at Fox News. The entire US political class has desperately wanted open borders for decades. "Open borders" is a euphemism for eliminating the United States. If you don't have borders, you're not a country. A massive, advanced civilization murdered without a shot being fired.
===================
Comment: Confirming the erasure of the US southern border and enslavement of the American people to billionaires and thugs. GOP Establishment is cheering, especially the entire Bush family and its pals at Fox News. The entire US political class has desperately wanted open borders for decades. "Open borders" is a euphemism for eliminating the United States. If you don't have borders, you're not a country. A massive, advanced civilization murdered without a shot being fired.
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