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Santana Favela

Professor Suzanne Huerta

English 1T

15 March 2018

Unaccompanied Minors vs Immigration Policies

The United States is known for being “The Land of the Free,” and this country claims

that if their people put in hard work and success, they will receive greatness and prosperity in

their future. Because this is emphasized more than enough in the United States more people want

to come here, who doesn’t want a better life and future for themselves or their families and

relatives? Yet, only a US citizen can attain the opportunity of a better lifestyle easier than any

non-US citizen. Valeria Luiselli, author of Tell Me How It Ends: An Essay In 40 Questions,

demonstrates this factor in her writing. She volunteered as an interpreter for the lawyers at a

non-profit organization that works on cases specifically for child migrants due to the majority of

these lawyers being monolingual. In her essay she speaks for unheard unaccompanied minors

from Central America, proving that they deserve asylum because of the many encounters they

faced with poverty and violence in their home country. Directly to readers who oppose

undocumented migrants coming into the United States, Luiselli calls attention to several valid

reasons America needs to end the United States’ misunderstanding of believing all migrants are

criminals. Many of her claims are not widely known and certainly not exposed to the public for

the sympathy of these children. Migrants are not “illegal aliens,” they are refugees of war and

should be granted resources necessary for their sanity. Although there are Americans who

believe immigrants from Central America are only here to take advantage of the free resources
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built from taxes that Americans pay, it should not be excusable to dehumanize families and

minors by referring to them as criminals when they are refugees who are seeking asylum in the

United States.

Children from Central America are willing to sacrifice their lives to come to the United

States to escape gang violence that occurs in their home countries, and as the international law

says it is every country’s duty to protect people from danger regardless of their citizenship status.

This includes protection to those who have been oppressed for their race, religion, nationality,

contribution to a particular social group, or political group. Asylum, one of the common forms of

immigration relief, portends to be granted to all migrants who are fleeing prosecution.

Unfortunately, many of these children are victims of maltreatment and not all them who suffer

atrocities obtain this form of relief. Luiselli emphasizes the United States’ dismissal of the

international law when she asserts, “It is very difficult to be granted asylum because it is not

enough that these children have suffered unspeakable harm, that they will continue to fall to the

systematic and targeted violence of criminal groups”(Luiselli 60). In other words, the more

children being rejected asylum the more prone they will be to street gangs. They will remain in

the home country they had no choice to live in. The slightest chance of hope was being granted

asylum and not all of them who face brutality gain relief. In the article, The Teens Trapped

Between A Gang and The Law, the author Jonathan Blitzer conceives the life of unaccompanied

minors is at stake with their world revolving between the violence of MS-13 and the fear of

deportation. MS-13 had originated in Los Angeles in the 1980s during the Salvadoran Civil War

forming this group of self-defenders of deportation. However, the U.S exiled the Salvadoran

immigrants who were gang members of MS-13 after the war ended, and within a few years, the
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MS-13 population expanded across Central America (Blitzer 5). The staff writer at The New

Yorker begins with telling true events of a teenage girl named Juliana who grew up in El

Salvador. She was just three years old when she witnessed her father’s death, later discovering at

an older age that MS-13 murdered her father for refusing to give them money. Even after this

gruesome murder, she was consistently moving to a house after house to avoid the gang

members. Even though this was the father’s conflict, MS-13 had not been done with the rest of

the family as they were accountable for Juliana’s father’s debts (Blitzer 1). It would be heartless

if we do not sympathize with this children. Consider being in the shoes of Juliana, a teenager

does not have to be dealing with this trauma. She should be worrying about what typical

teenagers worry about, her education. Since she is dealing with moving every few months and

avoiding gang member from MS-13, she doesn’t have time to worry about this most important

factor that determines her success in life, she is forced to worry about staying alive. Juliana’s

story is only one misfortune that occurred in El Salvador, scrutinize the many more versions of

her story that gives every reason a child needs to flee the country.

Initially Mexican President, Pena Nieto, created the Programa Frontera Sur for his

people’s safety, however, he is not keeping these minors safe because these policies make their

journey more threatening to their lives. In Luiselli’s book, she maintains that “The United States,

of course, not only endorses this shift but has been generously financing it: the State Department

has paid the Mexican government tens of millions of dollars to filter the migration of Central

Americans” (Luiselli 79). In sum, the Mexican government gets paid by the U.S government to

do the “dirty work.” Deporting Mexican immigrants from the United States for the United States

has portrayed Pena Nieto to be against his own people. Children flee to the United States on
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account of their own home country not being able to save them. If Nieto protects Mexican

citizens from gang violence rather than contributing to endangering migrants on their travels they

would not feel pressured to migrate, to begin with. Why would Nieto forbid migrants from

escaping the perilous home they are from? This answer is that the Mexican government is

willing to do whatever it takes to maintain their government funds rather than the lives of their

own people. According to Alejandra Castillo, a Research Associate at the Council on

Hemispheric Affairs argues the Frontera Sur Programa is an inconsistent immigration policy. In

her writing, she refutes the claim that the Programa Frontera Sur has been beneficial in

preventing migrants coming into the United States while protecting them. In her analysis, she

addresses, “Over the year Programa Frontera Sur was implemented, there was an overall increase

of 4.7 percent in crimes against migrants recorded in four Mexican southern border states:

Tabasco, Chiapas, and Oaxaca and Veracruz. The more specific the reports on crimes get, the

more drastic the numbers”(Castillo 4). In making this comment, Castillo urges us to

acknowledge migrants will find a way to escape danger regardless if escape routes have been

blocked. They will take the risk to find a way out of crisis even if they become more vulnerable

to gangs, rapists, and thieves. We must consider how many children who go through these routes

by themselves with a group of complete strangers miles away from family. The Programa

Frontera Sur made migrants more likely to encounter life-endangerment, yet the majority of

these minors do not get granted asylum when they are detained by Mexican authorities.

Migrants who are being smuggled across the border have accepted the endless

possibilities of crossing paths with threats and torment, they accepted that this process is what

they must face if it means they will eventually find themselves in freedom. Luiselli reveals that a
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migrant’s journey to the United States from Mexico is the most menacing travel, especially for a

child. Children do not begin their paths clueless either, to seek survival they must acknowledge

what may happen within their travels even if that means understanding that 80 percent of women

get raped or that roughly 120,000 migrants have been abducted since 2006 (Luiselli 25). With all

the facts and evidence that has been recorded on what truly happens to smuggled migrants

nothing is still done about it. Within those 120,000 migrants, there are also children that have

vanished, and many of the bodies that have been uncovered are unknown. Families are sending

their child off to escape from the poverty and violence to strive for a better life as well as risking

the loss of their child. In the article, Smuggling of Migrants from the Northern Triangle from the

United States, researchers agree that migrants want to improve their lives despite the fact they

are not able to attain document to legally migrate to the United States. It includes who these

smugglers are, widely known as “coyotes,” which transport migrants to the border. Unlike

America, Mexican citizens do not worry about the taxing from the government--they get taxed

by coyotes. As the philosophers of this article put it, “Migrant smuggling involves the interests

of territorial organized crime groups situated along border crossing areas. These groups can tax

the income of professional smugglers, charge them protection fees, or simply assume control of

the whole operation themselves”(49). The more money travelers are taxed for the more they will

be guaranteed passing securities and arriving at their destination. However, because migrants

travel with thousands of dollars in cash they are easy subjects to theft. These types of threats

maintain the coyote business because they are able to sell protection to the targets of sexual

predators and burglars. If they do not have enough tax money to be protected, regardless their
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age, they will be assault and coyotes will not look back. Whatever they carry, they could only

hope it is enough to end up in the “Land of the Free.”

The juvenile priority docket makes it difficult for minors to defend themselves against

deportation. In order to find a solution to end child exodus, the United States’ government which

contributes to not giving all unaccompanied minors asylum must end the juvenile priority docket

or extend its time for these children to find a lawyer. The docket was created by the Obama

administration in 2014, and in Luiselli’s words, it was “the government’s coldest, cruelest

possible answer to the arrival of deportation”(Luiselli 41). Not only did the juvenile docket

accelerate deporting children at a much faster rate, it reduced the timespan from 12 months to a

matter of 21 days to find a lawyer to convince the judges they deserve immigration relief. These

are teenagers or even younger children that have to defend themselves on their own, and because

they are not citizens they do not get the lawyer provided for them. Another concern mentioned in

an article from New York Times by Kirk Semple, In Court, Immigrant Children Are Moved to

the Head of the Line, affirms how immigrant advocates fear the priority dockets will not

compromise giving these children refugees the right to be in the United States (Semple 2).

Semple observes that “They worried that the Obama administration’s urgency to deport the new

arrivals would make it much more difficult for children to find affordable, competent legal help.

They feared that in the rush, some children might not receive notices of court hearings, leading to

judgments in absentia and guaranteed deportations.” The essence of Semple’s argument is that he

is exposing the miscommunication between immigrant children and those who determine

whether or not they deserve immigration relief. Due to the timespan of their court date being so

limited, some children are failed to be notified of an initial hearing so they do not show up.
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When this occurs and the children do not show up to their court hearing they automatically are

going to be deported for the miscommunication that is not even their fault. Many of the migrants

neither know their rights, and courts will continue to get away with this action. If children had

more time to find a lawyer many could increase their chance proving that they are refugees who

deserve asylum.

Media coverage easily suggests these children are not children but “illegal aliens,” and

will contaminate our country with their existence. The derogatory language used to describe

these children will not allow reformation to occur if it continues. It must be clarified that media

does not mention the realities these children are escaping from, “children chase afterlife, even if

that chase might end up killing them”(Luiselli 19). The language that is spoken upon

unaccompanied minors must be changed so that we could see them as humans rather than

“illegal aliens” because they are truly refugees of violence and poverty. While Americans are

concerned about immigrants taking away their resources, unaccompanied minors are more

concerned with looking for survival anywhere they can find it, and it happens to be in the

country next door. Luiselli sheds light on the dilemma when she observes, “... some sources

elaborate lucid and complex conjectures on the origin and possible causes of the sudden surge of

arrivals of unaccompanied minors, others denounce the inhumane conditions in detention

facilities near the border, and a few others endorse the spontaneous civilian protests against

them” (Luiselli 13-14).

She stresses that media has drawn too much focus on assumptions and blame on these

children for issues that they do not even know they could be blamed for. Because an American

taxpayer believes it is only valid to be frustrated that their money goes to resources that is
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non-applicable to them, media could educate taxpayers on the positive outcome of providing

immigration relief--giving these children a sense of hope. If the language that is used to

categorize the children become refugees instead of “illegal aliens” throughout media it will

eventually discontinue migrants being dominated over stereotypes.

No one wants to admit that they contribute to the endangerment of children’s lives.

America implies if any human being who does not have any sort of document that proves they

obtain U.S citizenship they will be viewed as criminals and deserve the bootleg out of this

country and back to wherever they came from. Luiselli validates that migrants want safety from

the terrible conditions in their home country. Pena Nieto is not willing to save them from gang

violence by virtue of being bribed by the U.S government to take action to raise security levels in

hopes of diminishing crossing the border unauthorized. The Program Frontera Sur is raising

violence instead of protecting Mexican citizens as Pena Nieto alleged. Regardless of crisis that

migrants will be subjected to, they will continue to take a chance if it means there is hope in

seeking freedom from violence and poverty, especially children who have their whole lives

ahead of them. Projects such as the priority juvenile docket have made it difficult for these

children to escape endangerment, the limited time a child is able to find a lawyer has increased

children to be deported at faster paces. Furthermore, this docket had produced the court omitting

children their court dates. Children aren’t aware of their rights, so they are deported rigorously

for missing their court date when it was not their fault mistake, it was the court’s carelessness.

This evidence goes to show that migrants, especially children migrants, are undeserving of a

criminal reputation. They are refugees who deserve asylum in the United States.
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Works Cited

Blitzer, Jonathan. “The Teens Trapped Between a Gang and the Law.” ​The New Yorker​, 1 Jan.

2018,

www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/01/01/the-teens-trapped-between-a-gang-and-the-law​.

Accessed February 2018.

Castillo, Alejandra. “​Programa Frontera Sur: The Mexican Government’s Faulty Immigration

Policy.” ​Council on Hemispheric Affairs​, 26 Oct. 2016,

www.coha.org/programa-frontera-sur-the-mexican-governments-faulty-immigration-policy/​.

Accessed February 2018.

Luiselli, Valeria. Tell Me How it Ends An Essay in Forty Questions. Coffee House Press, 2017.

Semple, Kirk. “In Court, Immigrant Children Are Moved to the Head of the Line.” ​The New

York Times​, 14 Aug. 2014,

www.nytimes.com/2014/08/15/nyregion/in-court-children-lead-line-of-migrants.html​. ​Accessed

February 2018.

“​Smuggling of Migrants from the Northern Triangle to the United States.”

www.unodc.org/documents/toc/Reports/TOCTASouthAmerica/English/TOCTA_CACaribb_mig

rantsmuggling_to_US.pdf​. Accessed February 2018.

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