OPINION:
One of the most pressing problems facing President-elect Donald Trump’s new administration is the unprecedented number of “unaccompanied alien children,” or UACs, whom the Biden administration has enticed into our country. These minors shouldn’t be in the U.S. at all, yet the administration has allowed about 550,000 aliens under the age of 18 to enter.
Rather than returning these minors to the child welfare agencies of their home governments — which is how American kids whose families have abandoned them are routinely treated — the Biden administration has funded nongovernmental organizations that have scattered these children all over the country. This effectively taxes communities, schools, medical facilities and law enforcement agencies with the problems, costs and crime (primarily from teenage gang members) caused by this influx.
Worse, the UACs are handed over to their criminally negligent, illegally present parents or unvetted “sponsors,” including God knows how many sex traffickers masquerading as family members or acquaintances.
Tom Homan, the incoming border czar, correctly says that the new administration needs to prioritize finding these children. So, what can the new administration do?
First, it should halt the flow of child border crossings enticed by a failed law that provides immigration benefits specifically for unaccompanied children. Given how bad the situation has become, the new administration should consider declaring a national emergency of missing children and child trafficking to prevent more children from suffering the same fate.
Second, suppose an abandoned “unaccompanied” child has a parent or legal guardian in the U.S. In that case, that child should not be considered unaccompanied, per the legal definition (6 USC § 279(g)(2)), and the child should be removed. If the parent is in the U.S. illegally, the parent should also be removed.
Liberals have refused to do this. Many progressives have even wrongly suggested that enforcing the law is unjust and unfair.
But consider what happens to you as an American parent if you abandon your child to go to another country or hand him over to criminals. Your child is placed in the custody of state child welfare agencies, and you will be criminally charged with child neglect, abuse or endangerment. Indeed, your parental rights may be terminated due to your dangerous, reckless behavior.
Yet the Biden administration reunites these “unaccompanied” children — who have either been abandoned or intentionally and knowingly handed over to smugglers who work for some of the most dangerous drug cartels in the world — with the same parents who engaged in such reprehensible behavior and are in the country illegally. There are a few more graphic examples of how illegal aliens are treated better than U.S. citizens.
The Biden administration has ignored several parts of federal law (8 U.S.C. § 1232), particularly the provision stating that the federal government must “ensure that unaccompanied alien children in the United States are safely repatriated to their country of nationality.”
For Mexico and Canada, the statute directs the secretary of state to “negotiate agreements” to return such minors to “appropriate employees or officials” including “child welfare officials.”
But instead of repatriation, the Biden administration has resettled hundreds of thousands of unaccompanied children into our communities.
Most of them come from Central America and Mexico. They should have been immediately turned over to their government’s equivalent of our state child protection service agencies. Suppose we know where a UAC’s parents are in the U.S. illegally. In that case, they should have been expeditiously removed or criminally charged the same way American parents would be arrested and prosecuted for such scurrilous actions.
The statute states that there must be no credible evidence that a child is at risk of being trafficked upon return to the child’s country. But if these UACs are being turned over to their government’s child welfare agency and not returned to the parents who abandoned them or the smugglers whom they hired, that statutory requirement is met.
Finally, Congress needs to change the law. The Biden administration has prioritized keeping UACs in the U.S. to pursue the special immigration benefits found in 8 U.S.C. § 1232(d). It is these immigration benefits that have enticed and predictably resulted in dramatically increased numbers of children coming to the U.S. since the passage of the statute in 2008.
The statute is titled “Enhancing efforts to combat the trafficking of children,” but it has had the opposite effect. Tragically, more children have been trafficked. After 16 years and countless lives irrevocably harmed, it is time to acknowledge this statute has failed and made things worse. Congress must repeal it.
These past four years, liberals have been silent about the 500,000 unaccompanied children who have crossed the border and silent about the 300,000 who have gone missing. Starting on Inauguration Day, we can be certain that progessives will shed crocodile tears as Mr. Trump works to find these children and send them home.
Liberals have built an illegal immigration system on the backs of children. It needs to be dismantled. All of this is not only in the best interests of these children, but in the best interests of the United States and an effective, wise and safe immigration policy.
• Hans von Spakovsky is a senior legal fellow at The Heritage Foundation. Lora Ries is director of Heritage’s Border Security and Immigration Center.