Scientific American Opinion Piece Misses Key Point on Alien Minors
Immigration does not exist in a bubble
By Andrew R. Arthur on December 4, 2020
Scientific American
On Tuesday, Scientific American published a "Policy & Ethics" opinion piece captioned "Our Immigration Policy Has Done Terrible Damage to Kids: Here are four steps the Biden-Harris administration should take immediately to prevent further harm". That piece is a mix of scientific studies, subjective opinion, talking points, and facts. The biggest issue, however, is that it treats illegal immigration by alien minors (and their parents) as a force of nature — an inevitability — rather than a volitional choice made by those children — or more likely, their adult family members.
Consider the following: "Children arriving at our southern border have made harrowing journeys, faced violence and suffered severe physical distress." That is absolutely true, and dovetails with the April 2019 findings of the Homeland Security Advisory Committee's bipartisan CBP Families and Children Care Panel in its Emergency Interim Report.
It found:
Migrant children are traumatized during their journey to and into the U.S. The journey from Central America through Mexico to remote regions of the U.S. border is a dangerous one for the children involved, as well as for their parent. There are credible reports that female parents of minor children have been raped, that many migrants are robbed, and that they and their child are held hostage and extorted for money.
https://cis.org/Arthur/Scientific-American-Opinion-Piece-Misses-Key-Point-Alien-Minors
