One Stat on Illegal Immigration Puts the Mostly ‘Women and Children’ Narrative in Perspective
http://injo.com/2016/05/604651-one-chart-on-illegal-iimmigration-to-west-puts-narrative-its-mostly-women-and-children-in-perspective/By Kelsey Rupp (1 day ago) | Editor's Choice, Nation
A man stands at a makeshift camp for migrants and refugees at the Greek-Macedonian border near the village of Idomeni on April 27, 2016. Some 54,000 people, many of them fleeing the war in Syria, have been stranded on Greek territory since the closure of the migrant route through the Balkans in February. / AFP / JOE KLAMAR (Photo credit should read JOE KLAMAR/AFP/Getty Images)
Getty - Joe Klamar
The number of minors traveling alone as migrants and refugees is increasing on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean.
According to data from Eurostat, about 198,500 unaccompanied minors have entered Europe to seek asylum since 2008.
The first jump came in 2014, when the number of minors almost doubled from 2013. A year later, in 2015, the total quadrupled and reached a record 96,000 minors.
According to Pew, the 2015 total alone accounts for 48% of the total number of minors who have entered Europe since 2008.
Image Credit: Pew
Image Credit: Pew Research Center
Rather than Syria, about 4-in-10 of these unaccompanied minors are traveling from Afghanistan. Pew notes that they do not always apply for asylum in the first European country that they enter.
Instead, minors often apply once they reach countries in the Western interior of Europe:
Image Credit: BBC
Image Credit: BBC
Image Credit: BBC
Image Credit: BBC
But the demographics show yet another fact: About 75% of the minors apprehended at the U.S. border and 75% of minors seeking asylum in Europe are teenage boys.
The Pew Research Center reports:
“In both the U.S. and Europe, the great majority of unaccompanied minors are teenage boys.
“In 2015, about three-fourths of unaccompanied minors seeking asylum in Europe were males ages 14 to 17. In the U.S., about three-fourths of unaccompanied minors apprehended at U.S. borders were also teenage boys of the same age in fiscal 2015.”
Multiple media outlets report that migrants frequently pose as refugees from civil war-torn Syria, where 7.6 million Syrians are displaced within their own country and 4 million more have escaped as refugees.
In September, The Washington Post cited an Austrian security official who said the black markets for Syrian passports in Croatia, Serbia, Hungary, and Austria are thriving and border authorities along the way don’t typically scrutinize documents.
While Europe struggles with the ongoing issue of migration from the Middle East and North Africa, the United States is experiencing its own surge of unaccompanied minors.
A child is passed over a fence as migrants and refugees prepare to board a train heading to Serbia from the Macedonian-Greek border near Gevgelija on October 25, 2015. European Union and Balkan leaders hold emergency talks on Europe's refugee crisis amid threats from three frontline states to close their borders if northern EU countries stop accepting migrants. The mini summit, called by European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker, groups the heads of 10 EU nations, including German Chancellor Angela Merkel, plus the leaders of Albania, Serbia and Macedonia. AFP PHOTO / ROBERT ATANASOVSKI (Photo credit should read ROBERT ATANASOVSKI/AFP/Getty Images)
Migrants on the Macedonian-Greek border. Image Credit: Robert Atanasovski/Getty Images
Illegal immigration into the United States reached a troubling level in 2014. That year, almost 68,000 unaccompanied minors, most of whom were running from gang violence in Central America, came to the United States as part of a migration that totaled 140,000 people.
But apprehensions of families and unaccompanied children at the U.S.-Mexico border during fiscal year 2016 (which began October 1, 2015) have more than doubled from this time last year.
Pew notes that total number of apprehensions of minors (not the total number of individual minors), shot up 78%:
Image Credit: Pew
Image Credit: Pew Research Center
The Obama administration’s Department of Homeland Security announced this week that it’s planning another series of raids targeting adults and children who entered the country illegal after January 1, 2014.
The administration detained just over 100 people in similar raids earlier this year, a measure immigration reform activists criticized as too harsh and border control activists criticized as too weak.
For Europe’s part, the British House of Commons is debating whether to accept more child migrants. But nations on the European continent are struggling to implement any policies that deal with migrants, minors or otherwise.
