Yes, Mr. President, the Border Kids Are Refugees
Even with the law in place, we’re seeing flagrant abuses of border kids’ rights. At some stations, children in diapers have been held in jail cells. “It was horrible,” says Democratic Representative Zoe Lofgren of California, who recently visited a facility in Brownsville, Texas. “There were hundreds of kids, little kids. I saw a 3-year-old—at least they said he was 3. I don’t think the kid was that old.” He was being cared for by a rotating group of preteen girl detainees, Lofgren says. “There are 8- and 9-year-old kids sleeping on cement floors with aluminum foil blankets.”
After she and some of her colleagues complained to the Department of Health and Human Services, Secretary Sylvia Matthews Burwell promised to have all children under 5 removed from jail. That is good news, though it is not the sort of thing that should require congressional action.
Meanwhile, the administration must acknowledge that many of the children—who largely hail from gang-ridden Honduras, the country with the world’s highest murder rate, and neighboring El Salvador and Guatemala—have valid claims to asylum. “The UN said that in their judgment, we should call this a refugee matter, and I think they’re right,” says Lofgren. Indeed, she argues, calling the underlying problem gang warfare minimizes it: “These are armed warlords competing for governance of the countries.”