smuggling<\/a> trips is coming from the parents. That implies that the surge in smuggled youth is a response to a surge in parents or other relatives in the United States arriving at the conclusion that now is the time to send for the youth to head north. If that is the case, the message about \u201cpermisos\u201d does not originate with the smugglers, but rather with the illegal alien parents living here. Is the parents\u2019 view in error?<\/p>\nThe Obama administration policies clearly have contributed to the impression that illegal aliens will get to stay here. Those include a policy of interior enforcement that spares from deportation illegal aliens who do not run afoul of the law, efforts to enact an amnesty to grant them legal status, and the DACA unilateral action of the administration to give legal status and work permits to the so called \u201cdreamer\u201d illegal aliens. This confluence of actions by the administration could hardly leave any other impression on the illegal alien population than that now is the time to exploit the lax immigration enforcement policy of the administration.<\/p>\n
Even now that the administration is trying to dig itself out of the hole it created by its policies, it remains to be seen whether the assertions that the newcomers are likely to be deported will change the impression that now is the time to head north. The fact that the White House backed off its initial statement of willingness to remove some of the protections against rapid deportation of unaccompanied minors in the 2008 trafficking victims act has sent the message that the administration is not serious about stemming the new tide of illegal aliens. The statements by President Obama that he is preparing to expand protection against deportation for non-criminal illegal aliens run directly counter to his get tough statements on the current illegal alien surge. And, if Obama can offer the DACA legal status to earlier arrived minors, the illegal alien population may rightly wonder why he can\u2019t he do so as well for the newcomers.