Just a year ago, tens of thousands of Latin American children unaccompanied by parents or relatives swarmed across the southern U.S. border illegally, touching off a humanitarian crisis that forced the Obama administration and Congress to wrestle with daunting budget and immigration enforcement challenges.
Today, the crisis atmosphere has abated, and the flood of illegal immigrants attempting to breach the border is down to a relative trickle. U.S. Customs and Border Protection announced this week that the number of unaccompanied children (UC) and families apprehended at the U.S.-Mexican border has declined by half from last year. Moreover, for the first time more than half of those apprehended were not from Mexico but primarily from Central America.
Related: Obama Cries Uncle on Shielding 5 Million Immigrants from Deportation
“Last year, UC and family unit apprehensions increased steeply in late spring and early summer, with May and June seeing far and away the largest number of migrants arriving at the border,” wrote Matt Graham for the Bipartisan Policy Center. “This May’s numbers provide the clearest evidence yet that children and Central Americans are being apprehended at a slower rate than last year—in fact, the gap has only accelerated as the year has worn on.”
“Though June could still surprise us, it appears increasingly unlikely that this year’s apprehensions of children and families from Central America will even approach last year’s levels,” Graham added.”
The Department of Homeland Security is crediting tougher enforcement as the main reason for the decline, although some experts say it has more to do with the changing demographics and economic conditions in Mexico and other parts of Latin America.
Whatever the reason, the decline has taken a lot of heat off the Republicans to do anything more on the immigration reform front. GOP leaders are getting the tighter border security they have been clamoring for, and President Obama’s efforts to protect 5 million illegal immigrants in this country from deportation are hopelessly tied up in legal challenges.
But plenty of problems still remain.
While the flow of children and young adults fleeing gangs and other life-threatening dangers in Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador has clearly subsided, many thousands of these children have been caught up in U.S. detention facilities or temporary housing while they await their fates.
Without lawyers, children are much more likely to be sent back to their home countries. Even if they have competent legal aid, these unaccompanied young people have few options for seeking legal status under federal law, including requesting asylum for fear of returning home to face gang violence.
According to the Economic Policy Institute in Washington, most unaccompanied children crossing the border are designated for deportation once they come before a judge. However, the wait for a hearing in immigration court often lasts many months or even years. As of April, there was a record high of 445,607 new cases awaiting disposition in the immigration court system, according to Syracuse University’s Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC). That was far more than twice the number of pending cases in 2008.
Related: Study Finds Illegal Immigrants Pay $11.8B in Taxes
On Wednesday, a Republican-controlled Senate appropriations panel blocked Obama’s request for $50 million to pay for legal help for unaccompanied immigrant children coming to the United States after fleeing violence in Central America, according to the Associated Press. Sen. Richard Shelby (R-AL), the chairman of the subcommittee, took the lead in blocking the funding.
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