A pernicious, little-known Obama administration policy – one that that incentivizes adult illegal immigrants to use children as human shields to escape arrest and deportation at the border – largely has escaped the media’s notice.
This same policy is driving the historic surge of children at the border, as everyone from coyotes to illegal immigrant adults already in America seeks to use children to guarantee their safe passage into the country, or to protect them from deportation if they are illegally living here.
The flood of illegal immigrant children, piling up like human debris on the US border, won’t stop until conservatives learn about the obscure Obama administration policy that’s deliberately driving it and reverse it.
Issued in August of 2013, the policy is called the “Family Interest Directive,” and it essentially forbids Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents from deporting, arresting or even detaining any illegal immigrant who is the caretaker of a child. That includes parents, legal guardians and even unrelated adults who merely claim they care for the child in question. The theory behind the directive is that it would be morally wrong to separate children from their “caretakers.”
In practice, what that means on the border – and in the interior -- is that if you have a child with you, any child, you won’t be sent home. So suddenly, illegal immigrant children are a hot commodity. Unrelated adults and coyotes use them for border crossings, then abandon them at the border. Parents who in the past would have left their children behind, crossed the border and then sent money home are now bringing them along for protection from deportation. And parents and family members already in the country who showed little interest in housing and caring for these children before are now sending for them, in the process forcing these children to take terrible risks as they travel alone along the way. If they make it to the border, they end up in the hands of the US government for safe-keeping until they can be reunited with parents and relatives.
Two other measures, Obama’s 2012 executively ordered “Dream Act” amnesty and a 2008 law that forbids the federal government from immediately deporting illegal immigrant children from countries other than Mexico, have gotten the lion’s share of the media attention by those attempting to explain what is driving this crisis. But it wasn’t until the issuing of the Family Interest Directive in August 2013 that the floodgates opened.
The Department of Homeland Security says the unprecedented deluge of 52,000 unaccompanied minors began in October. That’s just two months after the directive was issued.
In a leaked federal government report obtained by Breitbart, illegal immigrants overwhelmingly say they came because of policies forbidding those accompanied by children from being turned away.
“Of the 230 total migrants interviewed, 219 cited the primary reason for migrating to the United States was the perception of U.S. immigration laws granting free passes or permisos to UAC and adult female OTMs traveling with minors.”
The policy those illegal immigrants are referring to is the Family Interest Directive. So far, though, the media have failed to note the connection to the directive, which is easily the most destructive one of Obama’s federal immigration law executive “re-writes” – both for the country, and for illegal immigrant children themselves.
“Word has gotten out that if a mother comes with her children, she’ll be given a ‘permiso’ and released,” says Rosemary Jenks, Director of Government Relations at NumbersUSA, of what she’s hearing at the border. “The word has gotten back to Central America and [has led to] the renting of children to get adults into the country.”
******************* "The best way to get a bad law repealed is to enforce it strictly." Abraham Lincoln
"The sanctity of human life before birth, the respect for our culture's religious underpinnings and the hallowedness of the M/F marital bond are all being stripped of their value and reduced to natural commodities with the sole purpose of serving our personal gratification."
Why aren't media trucks at the border documenting any of this humanitarian crisis? The media blackout has been astonishing. Giving the President what he wants, a blackout and no curiosity about who is coming and why?
******************* "The best way to get a bad law repealed is to enforce it strictly." Abraham Lincoln
"The sanctity of human life before birth, the respect for our culture's religious underpinnings and the hallowedness of the M/F marital bond are all being stripped of their value and reduced to natural commodities with the sole purpose of serving our personal gratification."