Do we really want to be sending the message to more parents in these areas "Keep sending your children up here and they'll all be taken care of"? The parents who are letting their children travel all that way unaccompanied, to try to get into this country illegally, ought to be arrested and thrown in jail. Why on earth would anyone want to encourage more of that?

From the county's POV, it's providing humanitarian aid to refugees. From a critical/economics POV, it's incentive to encourage illegal immigration...never mind the dangers these migrants have gone through (rough terrain and crime syndicates, among others) to enter the USA.

In fact, DHS Sec. Jeh Johnson recently stated that "there is no free pass" for migrants trying to enter from the Mexican border and dispelled rumors bluntly: "If you’re a parent considering doing this, DACA is not available for your child. Comprehensive immigration reform, the earned path to citizenship, is not available for your child. It is a dangerous, dangerous journey."

I hate to say this, but overpopulation is a part of the refugee problem.

Why don't we send the children to the Vatican and ask them to take care of them in Vatican City?

I'm being facetious and mean on purpose. A religion or philosophy that encourages people to have children they cannot take care of is evil. Sorry, but that is my feeling. The Pope speaks of compassion. He needs to show compassion for the many parents for whom one or two chidlren would be a joy, who cannot care for more than one or two children if that many.

We also need to change NAFTA (or do away with it entirely) to protect national economies so that people can stay in their countries, survive in their countries.

About religions or philosophies that encourage people to have children they can't afford. I've been to many poor countries where that is the case.

It sounds like from the answer you got that unaccompanied minors can seek asylum, but my guess is that would slow down the process as they would have to at least try to contact their parents and a psychologist would have to be involved. I'd imagine that could take months especially if there is a backlog.

American Pro-life citizens could check off a box on their tax returns for $100 to care for immigrant children from over-populated countries.

Ask any random abortion protester how many children they have adopted in order to provide another avenue of choice to a pregnant woman.

The US has to deal with the influx of these children, they can't keep them crowded in warehouses on the border for long. Soon we will have an outbreak of disease of some sort. Yes, this move will not solve the problem of children crossing the border, but it will help the border agents who can then do something besides babysit children. Remember in the 70's when Castro put all those prisoners on boats and sent them over to Florida. The US moved those men to different places in the US, some went back to crime and ended up in US jails, but many did not. The thing was that they could not be left stranded on the beach in Florida forever. The same for the kids, can't leave them stranded on the border. The US has to do something, even if it is a temporary move.

Too bad our congress can't pass some laws to fix this mess, that is really what should happen. In the meantime, let's show some compassion for these kids, they are just pawns in the tragic event.

I also agree that the US needs to figure out what policy they are going to adopt rather than put it off until tomorrow attitude. I think having no policy in place is more likely to encourage people to send their kids to try to cross the boarder with the hopes that the US will suddenly agree to take on tens of thousands of minors who have no family or home. The cost is going to become higher the longer we wait to do something. Unfortunately with the clowns in Congress I blocking anything having to do with immigration, we are at a complete stalemate. It's not going to get any better until 2016 either.

it is a fucked up situation all around, but what do we do? Force them at gunpoint back across the border?

Last edited Sun Jun 29, 2014, 10:27 AM - Edit history (1)

It was a coup of libertarian dictators just like what happened in Chile, and Hillary Clinton supported it. It is highly hypocritical of Hillary to the blame the parents of these kids when she and her "liberal hawk" friends destabilized the country by recognizing the far right coup government.

This is about dealing with an extant problem in a civilized, humane way.

Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador are 'spiraling down', in terms of drugs, gangs and violence. Parents in those countries are desperate to remove their children from that environment, even to the point of sending them on a potentially dangerous trip to enter the U.S. illegally. That is not likely to change any time soon, regardless of what policies the U.S. adopts.

In the meantime, the U.S. must continue to deal with the problem of unaccompanied and undocumented minors arriving here. We can choose to deal with them by warehousing them-- literally-- in conditions that can be described as 'marginal', at best, or we can deal with them as any truly civilized, compassionate and humane nation ought to do.

That is the choice, and I applaud Dallas County for 'stepping up'.

That road was closed, and now we are getting the backlog. I hope there are still families waiting to take these children into their homes.

In today's article, both Dallas Mayor, Mike Rawlings, and Dallas County Commissioner, Clay Jenkins, said that we must show compassion for these children and help them, rather than turning them away like other cities have done. Dallas helped the victims of Hurricane Katrina and is again stepping up to the plate to help the victims of an event that they have no control over. I am proud of Dallas for doing the right thing. I hope this is an example for other cities to offer some much needed help. All our politicians want to is to their picture made on the border and make political hay out of this tragic event and have not offered one common sense solution.