Where to Put the Children?

Niraj Chokshi of the Washington Post ran a story about the position of a variety of State Governors on housing some of the immigrant children flooding into the country.  I'd like to respond to the comments attributed to these Governors, but first a little background is in order.

By now you are probably aware that there is a humanitarian crisis at the border as tens of thousands of Central American children and mothers are entering the United States.  It is estimated that 59,000 children from Central America will cross the border during fiscal year 2014.  The fact that these are children from Central America (Primarily Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador) does matter, the Homeland Security Act of 2002 and the Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act in 2008 (Both signed by President Bush) makes it so that Mexican children can immediately be turned around and deported but children from elsewhere have to go through immigration proceeding and are not immediately deported.

The political aspect of this sudden surge in child migrants is bitterly caustic.  Democrats are saying this is happening because of the dangers of living in these Central American countries while Republicans are blaming Obama's "amnesty" through Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA).  Trying to sort out the root cause of this problem is beyond the scope of this article, though I hope to write about that soon.  I should point out, though, that perhaps the most compelling argument about the cause of this crisis comes from Honduran President Juan Hernandez who blames this problem on America's War on Drugs.  Regardless of the cause, however, there is an urgent need to come to some sort of resolution about how to handle the crisis.

Most of these immigrants have been crossing the border in Texas and have overwhelmed the facilities that are intended to handle these migrants.  There have been legitimate concerns about the conditions these children are being housed in and this has led many of them to be led out of Texas to other parts of the country.  This has given anti-immigration activists an opportunity to rally and protests and generally cause problems around the country.  The first story I heard along these lines came out of Murrieta California.  As someone who lives just minutes from that sleepy town you can imagine how this piqued my curiosity.   Two questions immediately came to mind: 1) How can a nation of immigrants act with such disgusting vulgarity towards children, and 2) Where are we going to put these children and who is going to take care of them?

This leads me back to Chokshi's article in the Washington Post.  The article offers little in the way of hope for a compassionate response to this crisis and a great deal of fear that these children will be used as pawns in the political bickering rampant across this country.  Let's look through the comments.

Democratic Governors Peter Shumlin of Vermont and Deval Patrick of Massachusetts both said that they are looking into options for housing some of these children.  Only time will tell if they made an earnest search and were willing to help in this time of great need.

The case in Maryland could be one of the more interesting ones.  Democratic Governor Martin O'Malley (a potential 2016 candidate) warned the Obama administration that sending the children home could have terrible consequences and could be dangerous for the children.  Then resisted a proposed Westminster location for housing some of the migrant children claiming that "it might not be the most inviting environment for the kids."  The experience in Murrieta suggests that he may indeed be right, but it certainly reeks of NIMBYism.  I would suggest that O'Malley is feeling a great deal of pressure to find a more hospitable location ASAP.  If he doesn't accept any of these children he will be seen as feckless and irresponsible.

All the blame can't be cast on O'Malley alone (though I think he sort of brought this on himself).  Democratic Governors in Delaware and Connecticut weren't much help either.  Kack Markell of Delaware claimed the state had no suitable facility while leaving the door open to private organizations to help.  Dan Malloy of Connecticut denied a federal request for a particular site claiming it was too old and decrepit.  Malloy suggested this highlights the need for Congress to act on Comprehensive Immigration Reform and to pass the President's Emergency Supplemental Funding Request.  This sentiment was echoed by John Hickenlooper, Democratic Governor of Colorado, who said there were limited resources for dealing with this problem.

I will admit to being disheartened by the fact that all six Democratic Governors quoted in this article appear to be, at best, completely useless in helping this dire humanitarian crisis.  While I am dismayed by this lack of concerted response, I am outraged by some of the responses from the Republican Governors.  Let's start with the least caustic and work our way down.

Republican Governors Brian Sandoval of Nevada and Scott Walker of Wisconsin make a similar argument, both to each other and to some of their Democratic counterparts.  Essentially, they claim that this is a federal issue and that it shouldn't be up to the states to cover the costs of this problem.  I actually believe this to be a true statement, the terrible irony is that the money that the federal government is looking for to pay for this problem is being blocked by members of their own party.  So we are left with Republican (and Democrat) governors who say that the federal government needs to pay, while republican members of congress balk at appropriating the necessary funding.  This, of course, hurts the Republican state of Texas where Republican Governor Rick Perry ought to be livid.  Instead he took some time to go have a photo shoot with Sean Hannity at the border with a giant gun.  I don't think I'll ever understand these people.  I should note, this isn't a critique of Sandoval or Walker, they are correct in pointing out the federal governments obligations, it is merely a demonstration of a lack of coherency and communication within the Republican party.

Okay, here is where it starts to get bad.  I think I need to stop paraphrasing and move on to direct quotes.  Republican Iowa Governor Terry Branstad is quoted as saying "The first thing we need to do is secure the border" and "I also don't want to send the signal that [you] send your kids to America illegally.  That's not the right message."  First, the children who are coming into this country illegally are not sneaking in across an insecure or porous border.  They are walking across and putting their hands up waving to border agents trying to be flagged down.  They have been told that they will be safe when they get to America and they will be taken care of and allowed to stay.  It is entirely disingenuous to claim that this is happening because of an insecure border.  Besides, how can that be Branstad's "first" priority.  Shouldn't our first priority be to ensure that the children and safe and fed?  Moving on to the messaging bit, we should be clear that we are talking about where we are going to host these children within the United States not where are we going to host them in the world.  It is totally ridiculous to argue that having the children housed in Iowa as opposed to New York or South Dakota or even still in Texas is going to send ANY message to the central american families.  The only way that idea would work is if EVERY state refused to take the migrant children, but that would violate the law passed with broad bipartisan support and signed into law by President Bush.  We have not only a moral obligation but a legal obligation as well.

I feel compelled to point this out as well.  At the protest in Murrieta many of the protesters argued for immediate deportation.  This appears to be the argument that Branstad is making, that the best way to deal with this situation is to violate the law and immediately send the children back.  I just can't help but laugh at the irony that this is exactly the same thing that Republicans are suing the president over right now.  They wanted to delay (and repeal) the Affordable Care Act and after Obama did that, they sued him for failing to follow the letter of the law and essentially for crafting his own laws.  Now they are doing this again, "Please Mr. President ignore the dutifully passed laws of our nation and deport these children immediately so that we don't have to deal with them… Then if you do we'll sue you for overreaching on presidential authority."

Last but certainly not least is Republican Governor of Oklahoma Mary Fallin.  She is quoted as saying "Many of our public schools are already at capacity and need additional funding…Our healthcare system is strained as it is.  Now, instead of allowing us to address those needs for Oklahomans, President Obama is forcing us to add an unspecified number of illegal immigrants to our public education and public health systems."  I already covered the cost aspect of this problem above so I'll ignore that here.  What is amazing about this comment is that there is no plan for what to do about the migrant children.  Does she want to deport them?  Does she want any state but Oklahoma to have to take them?  There is clearly no plan here, it is pure and simple "not my children not my problem."  Even this total disregard for the problem is not the worst part of this statement, it is the idea that Obama has been too focused on the immigration crisis to deal with the problems of "real" Americans.  This coming from the lady who refuses to accept Federal money to insure over 200,000 Oklahoman adults through medicaid expansion.  The gall to claim that a strained healthcare system is the cause to not provide care for children when she is personally responsible for refusing federal funding to insure her most vulnerable constituents is incomprehensible.  This logic is beyond reason and beyond further comment.