Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen is alarmed at the increasing trend\u00a0of illegal aliens fraudulently\u00a0claiming children as their own in order to enter the U.S. Unfortunately, the recent budget deal does nothing to stop or even to slow the problem.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m sad to say that from October 2017 to this February, we have seen a staggering 315 percent increase in illegal aliens fraudulently using children to pose as family units to gain entry into this country,\u201d Nielsen said<\/a><\/u>.<\/p>\n In some instances, the same child was employed multiple times to cross the border. But that made no impression on The New York Times<\/a><\/u>\u00a0<\/a>which pooh-poohed the secretary\u2019s concern, noting that such cases represented \u201ca tiny fraction of the total number of families apprehended at the southwestern border.\u201d<\/p>\n While not disputing DHS\u2019s numbers, the Times notes that context is important. So how many incidents of fraud and child endangerment would the paper\u00a0find acceptable? How confident can Americans be that every offender is being caught? With more minors being caravaned to the border, these are not idle questions.<\/p>\n Carl McClafferty<\/a><\/u>, associate chief for intelligence at the U.S. Border Patrol, tracked down one child recycling ring and found a woman who was being paid $1,500 per child to collect them from the U.S. and take them back to Guatemala to be used in future migration efforts.<\/p>\n “She claimed to do this 13 times,” McClafferty said. “We found out they were recycling these children.”<\/p>\n Since the start of the fiscal year, in the Border Patrol’s Yuma Sector alone, agents identified 260 false family units involving aliens who did not truthfully disclose their familial relationships, according to the Center for Immigration Studies<\/a><\/u> (CIS).<\/p>\n DHS has linked the increase in fraudulent families to the\u00a0Flores v. Reno\u00a0<\/em>Settlement<\/a><\/u>, which limits the time that minors can be detained. Children are often\u00a0released with their \u201cparents\u201d pending an immigration court hearing. With their logjammed dockets, immigration courts have the highest failure-to-appear rates<\/a><\/u> in the nation.<\/p>\n The new budget bill does not address any of this, and might even make matters worse. Critics point out<\/a><\/u> that no funds may be used to detain or deport any \u201csponsor\u201d or \u201cpotential sponsor\u201d of an \u201cunaccompanied alien child.\u201d The measure states that any \u201cmember of a household\u201d or \u201cpotential sponsor\u201d is now immune from deportation.<\/p>\n DHS avers that terms like “potential sponsor”\u00a0have precise meanings that strictly limit the number of people the budget bill keeps safe from deportation. We shall see.<\/p>\n Meantime, CIS\u2019s Andrew Arthur offers a commonsense idea: Fingerprint and photograph all minors apprehended by the Border Patrol.<\/p>\n \u201cThe U.S. government would be able to quickly identify any child who had been \u2018recycled,\u2019 and would also be better able to track any child who was discovered to have been trafficked in the United States,\u201d Arthur says<\/a><\/u>.<\/p>\n Better yet, the fingerprint-photograph protocol wouldn\u2019t require any action by Congress, which appears content to slumber as the border chaos continues.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen is alarmed at the increasing trend\u00a0of illegal aliens fraudulently\u00a0claiming children as their own in order to enter the U.S. Unfortunately, the recent budget deal does nothing to stop or even to slow the problem. \u201cI\u2019m sad to say that from October 2017 to this February, we have seen a staggering<\/p>\n