Mass-migration from violent Central American countries into the United States is surging after a dip in late 2014, following President Barack Obama’s agreement to shut down detention-centers for illegal immigrants, says a new report in the New York Times.
“I’m sure some information has filtered down to those countries that maybe they have some opportunities with respect to our inability to detain families and kids,” Raul Ortiz, the Border Patrol’s acting chief in the Rio Grande Valley sector, told the New York Times’ Julia Preston. “Family members that are already here are saying, now is potentially a pretty good time to come to the U.S.,” he said.
One Democratic legislator also suggested to the New York Times that the new migration was increasing because of Obama’s decision to close detention centers and to release all new migrants into the United States. “’If people start seeing they can come to the United States this way,’ said Representative Henry Cuellar, a Democrat whose district includes a stretch of the Texas border, ‘the word will get back that you don’t have to wait two years in a refugee camp,’” the newspaper reported.
The result is that a growing numbers of migrants are crossing the U.S. border, following a temporary reduction in late 2014. According to the Times:
Until recently, illegal crossings in this Border Patrol sector, the nation’s busiest, had dropped sharply… But the flow in South Texas of migrants from Central America spiked in July and just kept rising. Across the border, apprehensions of migrants in families — mostly women and their children — soared in October to 6,029, an increase of 179 percent over October 2014.
The migration pattern matches the escalating Muslim migration in Germany, where Chancellor Angela Merkel announced in August that the country would accept all migrants from Syria. Since then, more than one million unskilled migrants, mostly young men, have flooded into Europe in search of welfare and permission to bring in their wives, children, and extended families. The growing inflow now includes many Afghans, Pakistanis, and Africans, few of whom have the education or skills to reach economic and social parity with ethnic Germans.
In response to the social revolution, Europe’s voters have moved sharply against Merkel and other establishment leaders — especially once the evening news reports showed that the migrants were bringing their own violent and chaotic Islamic culture with them into Europe’s peaceful streets.
Under Obama’s policies, adopted in 2010, more than 200,000 Central American migrants — including “unaccompanied alien children,” youths, and women with children traveling in “family units” — have been allowed to cross the border and to file court claims for residency cards. The migrants come from poor and very violent societies in Honduras, Guatemala, and Nicaragua.
Their legal claims take many year to process, during which time the migrants can work, use U.S. welfare, and attend local schools, birth U.S. citizen “anchor babies,” and live among the many other illegal immigrants.
Only a small percentage of the migrants are sent home. “For example, in FY 2014, although 13,204 minors were ordered removed, only 1,863 were actually deported…. To a large degree, this discrepancy is likely due to the fact that most UAC removal orders are issued in absentia, after an individual fails to appear for his or her immigration court hearing. Specifically, 69 percent of all UAC removal orders since 2005 have been issued in absentia, including 81 percent of those issued between October 2013 and August 2015,’ Breitbart reported in October.
In 2014, the under-the-radar rush became an out-of-control flood of more than 100,000 people, prompting a massive public reaction. In late 2014, Obama temporarily slowed the inrush by detaining many Central American women with young children until a judge decided to admit or repatriate the migrants, and by pressuring Mexico and Central American countries to block the northward migration.
However, when the public’s attention shifted away, he stopped pressuring the Central American countries and has agreed to close the detection centers and allow migrants to settle in the United State while they make claims for residency permits.
Also, since 2009, Obama has effectively stopped enforcement of immigration laws once migrants move away from border regions.
The inrush is frightening many second-generation and third-generation American Latinos, who worry that the migrants will compete for jobs, drive down wages,and push up crime. They also worry that the migration will swamp their efforts to fully integrate themselves and their children into the United State’s mainstream society.
Nearly all the migrants are uneducated and unskilled, and rely heavily on welfare funded by middle-class Americans. They also compete for jobs and drive down wages for blue-collar Americans.