Humane intent, chaotic result
Published July 10, 2014
by Doug Clark, Greensboro News-Record, July 9, 2014.
Suppose the sheriff breaks up a human trafficking ring. A gang has kidnapped girls in Central America, smuggling them into the United States and forced them into prostitution.
It's happening in our state, right here, right now.
The traffickers need to be prosecuted to the full extent of the law.
What about the girls ... 14, 15, 16 years old?
Should they be prosecuted?
They're victims, not criminals.
They're also undocumented immigrants.
Deport them immediately? Even if you know where they came from, isn't that sending them straight back into the environment that led them into their present circumstances? Won't they end up in the hands of traffickers all over again?
In fact, federal law speaks to what should be done. It is the William Wilberforce Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2008, passed by bipartisan majorities in Congress and signed by then-President George W. Bush.
(If you don't know who William Wilberforce was, look him up here. I just wish he'd been an American. We could have used him.)
The New York Times explained the present impact of this law in a story published Monday:
"Originally pushed by a bipartisan coalition of lawmakers as well as by evangelical groups to combat sex trafficking, the bill gave substantial new protections to children entering the country alone who were not from Mexico or Canada by prohibiting them from being quickly sent back to their country of origin.
"Instead, it required that they be given an opportunity to appear at an immigration hearing and consult with an advocate, and it recommended that they have access to counsel. It also required that they be turned over to the care of the Department of Health and Human Services, and the agency was directed to place the minor 'in the least restrictive setting that is in the best interest of the child' and to explore reuniting those children with family members."
This law means undocumented child sex slaves won't be treated as illegal immigrants and tossed across the border and back into the hands of exploiters. Instead, they'll be treated humanely and given a hearing and at least a chance to earn some better fate.
Maybe in the current political climate, which has become so much more cruel even since 2008, this approach can be denounced as "amnesty." Nevertheless, it is the law of the land.
And it perhaps encouraged the influx of children from Central America.
“It is classic unintended consequences,” Marc R. Rosenblum, deputy director of the U.S. Immigration Policy Program at the Migration Policy Institute, told the NYT. “This was certainly not what was envisioned.”
But it is what it is. And it is President Barack Obama's problem to deal with.
He is asking Congress for $3.7 billion to speed up the legal process while caring for the tens of thousands of children in federal custody.
Naturally, Republicans blame Obama for the current crisis. Democrats may blame Bush.
But the operative law was enacted for good reasons. Congress and President Bush wanted to emulate William Wilberforce and take a humane approach to human misery. They wanted to give children in distress a chance rather than a bum's rush out of the country.
They just didn't know there would be so many children.
Should we treat them less as human beings because there are more of them?
I'd think all Americans want to do the decent thing because decency isn't the property of only one political party.
