A. Govea
According to the latest government records as of March 20th over 11, 000 mostly minor children have made it to our shores seeking Asylum. These children have been sent to several different locations around the state due to a law that prevents Border Patrol from detaining those seeking asylum for more than three days. In North Texas Dallas has received about 1,500 chidren to date and may be receiving over 1,000 more in the coming weeks. The question many have is why and why now?
By A. Govea
That answer can be a long one and some cases complicated, but I think it best if you ask the children themselves.
LULAC President Domingo Garcia Speaking About Migrant Children in Dallas 3/2021
Here are a couple of quotes I got from a UN Refugee survey – a 17-year-old young man said his grandmother is the one who told me to leave. She told him, “If you don’t’ join, the gang will shoot you. If you do, the rival gang or the cops will shoot you. But if you leave, no one will shoot you”. A 15-year girl said, “I am here because a gang member liked me, and other gang members told my uncle that he should get me out of there because the guy was planning to do me harm. It is widely known that they take young girls, rape them and throw them in plastic bags. Even though I did not want to leave my family, I was forced to leave before they grabbed me” …. (Paraphrased response to shorten) A young man from Honduras that I personally interviewed for this story said that his father had gone to the U.S. to provide for the family. They were forced to join him when an ex-boyfriend of his mother demanded that she reestablish their relationship with him or harm would come to her and the two children. That coupled with general safety issues and general living conditions left them with no other choice but to flee to the United States.
When I hear that from children, the question then becomes, why aren’t’ they coming? Not- why? Still, some question why the gangs have so much power. Simple answer. Drugs, and money equal power in the poorer nations. And by the way the U.S. is their best import customer. U.S. authorities estimate that 90% of the cocaine crosses the US/Mexico land border most of it entering through Texas. Think about the full ramifications of that. If you do, it is easy to make the connection between your neighbor that does a little coke on the weekends to the drug cartels that would rape and murder children.
Pero, not to worry Governor Abbot and most of his local and national elected Republican buddies have given it a label. They call it the Biden Border Crises which makes their base happy and so now their job is done. National LULAC President held a press conference on Wednesday where he called Abbot’s grandstanding nothing more than using the children as ‘Political Pinatas’ and props for his own interests. Some of the rhetoric Abbot and his gang are spewing is that many of the children may be infected with COVID. And so of course that is a concern for all in our country. Pero the Red Cross is ready to administer vaccines, but Abbot is not allowing for federal aid do this. Why?
There is a lot more to this story, like possible solutions now that President Biden has tasked V.P. Harris with finding solutions, and we will address that next week.