Biden Has a Major Problem with Migrant Kids
And it’s only getting worse as shelters fill up and Texas has to step in to save toddlers
By Andrew R. Arthur on August 28, 2023
The president has any number of problems at the Southwest border, but the biggest one involves “unaccompanied alien children” (UACs), that is, migrant kids entering illegally alone, without adult supervision. Joe Biden circa 2014 knew the executive branch was ill-suited to handle alien minors and his then-boss, Barack Obama, begged Congress to close the loopholes drawing them here. The current Joe Biden, however, has ignored the issue even as UAC apprehensions have hit new records and shelters fill, but if you really want to know how bad it is, the president’s biggest border nemesis, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R), has had to step in to help save migrant toddlers at the Rio Grande.
Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act of 2008. At an August 1986 press conference, then-President Ronald Reagan explained: “The nine most terrifying words in the English language are: I'm from the Government, and I'm here to help.” Nothing highlights the Gipper’s wisdom better than Biden’s UAC border failings.
Up until 15 years ago, there wasn’t much of a UAC problem to discuss because few alien children crossed the Southwest border illegally, and even fewer without an adult. Despite that fact, however, immigrant advocates railed against the detention of children by the former Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS), the predecessor to ICE and CBP in immigration enforcement in the interior and at the border (respectively).
When INS was abolished and DHS created in the Homeland Security Act of 2002, those advocates had the chance to act, and their House Democratic allies successfully offered an amendment to the act that transferred responsibility for the care and placement of UACs to the Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) at the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).
https://cis.org/Arthur/Biden-Has-Major-Problem-Migrant-Kids
