Ty Johnson | Valley Morning Star
The Rio Grande Valley finds itself in the center of political debates in Washington today as thousands of Central American immigrants continue to arrive in South Texas, many of them children.
The influx of undocumented immigrants fleeing conflict in Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador has stymied U.S. Customs and Border Protection, which has most of its detention facilities beyond capacity as agents struggle to process immigrants as frequently as they come in.
The situation has gotten so dire that it inspired a heated challenge from U.S. Rep. Jeff Duncan, R-S.C., for the Department of Homeland Security to solve the crisis to put agents back in the field instead of “changing diapers and warming formula for these children.”
“I’m concerned that there are real threats that could actually exploit this situation and enter my country, the sovereign nation of the United States of America, across our southern border because we’re looking somewhere else and dealing with something else,” he said during a subcommittee meeting Friday concerning DHS oversight.
Vice President Joe Biden attempted Friday to stop the mass immigration at its source by visiting Guatemala to inform residents there that those apprehended by U.S. Border Patrol will be processed and deported.
Claims about a “permiso” from Border Patrol agents — reportedly stoked by profit-hungry human smugglers — are blamed for the increase in apprehensions at the border. What immigrants are actually being handed are notices about immigration hearings, essentially indictments, ordering the holder to attend proceedings that in most cases are scheduled more than a year away.
Backlogs throughout immigration courts are said to be the cause for the delay, which undocumented immigrants see as a right to stay in the country temporarily.
DHS announced Friday it would begin hiring additional immigration judges to help expedite proceedings and that it would begin deporting families again, a practice that the United States had largely suspended in recent years.
But those policy changes are not likely to ease the humanitarian crisis emerging in and around detention facilities across the country, where unaccompanied children — sent to the United States by desperate families — are being kept in conditions that feel more like that of an animal shelter than holding facility.
Children strewn out across the floors of rooms with only blankets and the clothes on their back was the most prevalent scene at the Fort Brown Border Patrol station in Brownsville on Wednesday, which was at double capacity.
The Fort Brown station has emerged as CBP’s unaccompanied children “hub,” as children from across South Texas are sent to the center after screenings by U.S. Coast Guard medical personnel.
CBP has 72 hours to turn over unaccompanied children to the Department of Health and Human Services, which then shuttles the children to relatives or friends elsewhere in the country.
A DHS official hinted last week that Fort Brown may be struggling to consistently meet the 72-hour mandate, leaving children in cramped conditions and bottlenecking the detention center populations.
One official said there were more than 500 people being held at the facility.
Federal Emergency Management Agency workers and volunteers are in town to help with the hundreds of children who crowd the center, many quiet with vacant eyes.
The situation in the Rio Grande Valley brought DHS Secretary Jeh Johnson to McAllen Friday, where he toured the detention area there as part of a South Texas trip that also included a stop at Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio.
Johnson said the stories he heard from agents in McAllen were vivid reminders that the issue was “as much a humanitarian one as it is a matter of border security.”
While U.S. Rep. Filemon B. Vela Jr., D-Brownsville, noted the role an overburdened immigration court system played in the crisis, he also suggested that the United States must do more to assist nations on the front-end of the problem.
“Truly addressing this problem requires that more U.S. foreign policy and economic aid be directed to Mexico and Central America,” he said, noting that the focus of foreign policy aid has been the Middle East “for far too long.”
Vela said the United States sends about 50 times as much foreign aid to Iraq and Afghanistan as it has to its neighboring countries to the south.
“Increasingly, we are seeing the effects of this neglect,” he said. “First, we saw violence and lawlessness engulf Mexican border states, such as Tamaulipas.
“Now we are witnessing an unprecedented flow of unaccompanied children risking their lives to enter the United States.”
Vela and U.S. Rep. Henry Cuellar, D-Laredo, announced meetings with ambassadors of Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras as they seek to ease the immigration flow from the source.
“The United States needs to do a better job in working with Mexico to strengthen their southern border and to work with the Central American countries of Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador,” Cuellar said, explaining that he asked for help from those countries during discussions with their representatives to ensure the international response to the crises is a joint effort.
Johnson released a statement that indicated his agency was pushing for a similar type of effort.
“We are exploring every lawful option to stem the tide and, with the combined efforts of multiple components of our government, the support of Congress, and our partnerships with our allies in Mexico and Central America,” he said. “I believe we will”
Whatever the solution is, those who have opened up assistance centers to help those arriving know that they are treating only the symptoms of political unrest and a perilously slow immigration court system.
“The assistance centers are an immediate and temporary response to the need,” said Sister Norma Pimentel of the Catholic Charities of the Rio Grande Valley. “A long-term solution is needed.”
