According to data prepared by the Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR), from October 2017 to April 2018 more than 700 children were taken from adults claiming to be their parents.

This includes more than 100 children under the age of 4.

The ORR is a division of the Department of Health and Human Services that takes custody of children removed from migrant parents.

Brownsville is a Texas town on the Mexico-United State border. This is the town in which New Zealand priest Fr. Tony O'Connor works. He has recently contributed some opinion pieces to CathNewsNZ Asia and Pacific.

Brownsville has become the centre of media attention in recent weeks.

Beginning late April, the magistrates' courts there suddenly turned into "zero tolerance" factories for criminalising migrants.

It used to be rare to charge migrants seeking asylum with crimes. If they did so, they were put into detention with their children while they pursued their claims.

Or they were released with supervision — along with their children.

The best interests of the children were considered paramount, and those interests included keeping families together.

But now, not only are parents finding themselves charged in federal courts with the crime of "illegal entry," the government is breaking up families, sending children to detention centres or to foster homes.

The children can often end up hundreds of kilometres away from their mothers and fathers.

One of the few places immigrants can gather peacefully and without danger is churches.

Many of those churches are Catholic.

Still, in some ways, the US bishops are stuck in the middle.

Many of their white parishioners voted for Trump and his anti-immigrant platform, while Pope Francis has stood for the opposite when it comes to immigration issues.

While they stand together, bishops retain their individuality.

They differ on strategies, approaches and how much of a priority they put on the issue of immigration.

Source

• theintercept.com
• Image: theintercept.com

Father Tony O'Connor relates the story of one the Dreamers he knows. She is Mexican but came to Brownsville with her mother Rosita, and older sister when she was a small child:

Like the Central American kids who pass through the Valley Carmen is full of life and promise.

As a volunteer in the parish, she has participated in Summer Youth Programmes as a leader, has been a catechist's assistant and as well has worked with her mother in the parish food kitchen and food bank.

When she turned 18 she applied for DACA and answered convincingly the many and difficult questions presented to her.

With her E.A.D (Employment Authorization Document) she began working long hours at a restaurant while she was finishing high school.

She now works at a bank and will be starting College soon. She wants to get some sort of law diploma so as to work for the government But she won't be able to do that because she isn't a US citizen. What a girl!

Source

Read the whole blog

Image: Catholic Herald/Getty Images

Bishop Mark Seitz of El Paso, Texas, told the House Judiciary Committee on June 25 that violence in their homelands is the root cause of so many children immigrating illegally.

Bishop Seitz said authorities must let religious groups and individuals minister to these children once they have arrived at the border patrol stations and shelters.

He said various requests to do so have been denied.

The bishop also called for efforts by Congress to address the root causes of such migrations.

He said simply deporting the minors "is akin to sending these children back into a burning building they just fled".

The United States Department of Homeland Security has reported that 52,000 illegal child migrants that have been apprehended at the border this fiscal year, up from 15,700 last year.

Three quarters of them are from Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala.

Bishop Seitz said gangs in these three countries are increasingly targeting children, attempting to recruit them into their networks and threatening violence against the children and their families if they refuse.

He said migration should be "orderly, safe, controlled and consistent with the common good".

Bishop Seitz lamented the state of overcrowded detention facilities for the children, and emphasised the importance of due process and legal representation for migrant children.

In early June, leaked photos were published showing dozens of children crammed into bare rooms.

President Barack Obama spoke of an "urgent humanitarian situation".

There are around 5000 immigration cases pending for every qualified judge, so dealing with individual children's cases in the judicial system could take years.

Republican lawmakers and others believe the surge in child migration has come about because of the Obama administration's lax enforcement of immigration laws.

But Bishop Seitz said the relatively stagnant numbers of migrants from other Central American countries shows violence, not policy, is the primary factor in the surge.

Rumours have spread like wildfire in some Central American nations that US laws have been relaxed.

The Obama administration blames unscrupulous people-smugglers trying to drum up business for starting the rumours.

The White House has promised more help to Central American countries and to appoint more immigration judges.

Sources

• Catholic News Service
• The Economist
• Catholic News Agency
• Image: The Telegraph