Children from Central America Surge Across Our Border: Congress Must Now Decide Whether to Change the Immigration Law that George W. Bush Signed in 2008

If you think fertilized eggs are people but refugee kids aren’t, you’re going to have to stop pretending your concerns are religious– Syd’s SoapBox News reports have been filled with conflicting theories explaining why tens of thousands of unaccompanied children from Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala, have been streaming into the U.S.  Some observers say that their parents are sending them here, so that they can take advantage of the social services and free education available in the U.S. Others argue that they are not coming here willingly, but that they have been forced to flee gang violence in their home countries that ranges from murder to rape. Still others charge that President Obama’s lax immigration policy has drawn these migrants to the U.S. Unfortunately many of the reports circulating in the media and the blogosphere are not backed up by evidence.  Even worse, the American Immigration Council  (AIC) says, “some are intentionally aimed at derailing the eventual overhaul of our broken immigration system.”  I have been fact-checking those reports for more than two weeks.  Below, a summary of you need to know as we debate this tangled story. The AIC recently released a report, based on documented interviews with more than 350 children from El Salvador which states that  “crime, gang threats, or violence appear to be the strongest determinants for childrens’ decisions to emigrate. Typically, the gangs try to recruit children. If they ...
Source: Health Beat - Category: American Health Authors: Tags: Central America children George W. Bush law murder rape refugees Senator Patrick Leahy 2008 law deported El Salvador Guatemala Honduras Source Type: blogs