The rise in unaccompanied minors caught at the border is being driven by the Obama administration’s “all-clear” to people currently debating sending their children to the U.S. FAIR also released a report yesterday detailing the costs of illegal immigration to Washington state residents.
Increase in Unaccompanied Minor Children Caught At U.S. Border
“The number of unaccompanied migrant children in U.S. detention centers grew nearly 50%, from 6,854 in fiscal 2011 to more than 10,000 in the nine-month period ended June 30, according to federal statistics cited in the report, titled “Forced From Home: The Lost Boys and Girls of Central America.” With three months left in the latest reporting period, the fiscal 2012 figures are expected to rise further,” the LA Times writes.
“‘The Obama administration has made it very clear — if you get your kids to the U.S. and keep them here for a while, they can stay,’ said Ira Mehlman, a spokesman for the group. ‘That’s the unmistakable message he’s sent around the world. Not surprisingly, you have parents who say, ‘Let’s do that.'” Other countries are responsible for ensuring the safety of their own citizens, Mehlman added. Asylum should be reserved for a select few cases, or ‘the potential is you could have billions of people qualifying for political asylum in the U.S.'”
Washington Taxpayers Foot $2.7 Billion Annual Bill for Illegal Immigration
“A new study by the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) estimates that illegal immigration costs taxpayers in Washington State about $2.7 billion annually. The average Washington household headed by a U.S. citizen bears an annual burden of about $970 to cover the costs associated with illegal aliens in the state,” notes a release by FAIR about its latest cost report.
WSJ Commentator Sees the Affirmative Action – Immigration Collision
“Affirmative action is in the news again. The Supreme Court is mulling a case involving racial preferences at the University of Texas, and this weekend’s Saturday essay in the Wall Street Journal looked at ‘The Unraveling of Affirmative Action,'” says Daniel Akst in the Wall Street Journal.
“One dimension of this debate that is sometimes overlooked involves the ways immigration and affirmative action interact. The late historian and political scientist Hugh Davis Graham tackled this subject head on in an enlightening and prescient little book entitled ‘Collision Course: The Strange Convergence of Affirmative Action and Immigration Policy in America’ (Oxford, 2003), which is briefly reviewed here.”