Leaked Images: One Year Later, Border not Secure, Children Left in Limbo

One year ago, Breitbart Texas Managing Director Brandon Darby shocked the world by revealing leaked images of immigrant children who were being warehoused in shoddy facilities after being smuggled into the United States from Central America. The more than forty leaked images changed the shape of the discussion of illegal immigration. It also revealed a cover-up by the Department of Homeland Security as to the severity of the surge of Central American immigrants into the United States. Media outlets from across the globe republished the photos and forced the Administration to admit what was happening in South Texas.

Despite the year-long dialog and a massive law enforcement surge along the Rio Grande Sector by state and federal officials, the border between the U.S. and Mexico is still wide open in many areas and illegal immigrants continue to be smuggled into this country. During a meeting with members of the media this week, Texas Governor Greg Abbott told Breitbart Texas that the effort by Texas to secure the border has slowed the surge of immigrants from 1,000 crossings per day to 10,000 per month. He said that is not good enough and pledged to use the recently allocated $800 million to continue to secure the border and stop the flow of human smuggling and drugs into Texas.

Earlier this week, Fox News Latino reported that tens of thousands of immigrant children remain in limbo today. Of the more than 60,000 cases of minors who entered the U.S. in FY 2014, more than 43,000 cases remain unresolved. Only forty percent of these children have had attorneys assigned to look after their cases. Fox News obtained this information from Syracuse University’s Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC).

The TRAC reveals that nearly 12,000 minors have crossed during FY 2015 and two-thirds of these children have no representation. The report credits the decrease in crossings in part to Mexico’s stepped-up efforts to intercept and deport unaccompanied minors who crossed their southern border and were heading to the U.S.

“Most of those kids who arrived last year are still in the United States and are still working their way through the immigration court system,” said Marc Rosenblum, the deputy director of the Migration Policy Institute (MPI) immigration policy program. “There’s still a real crisis in the United States… in our immigration court system, because the courts are completely overwhelmed and have a real problem processing these kids and determining who’s eligible for asylum or some other visa that would allow them to stay in the United States.”

The report claims that the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) had its budget for caring for these children increased to $912 million in FY 2014 and again to $948 million in FY 2015. This money is used for shelters, medical care and placement efforts. $14 million was also allocated for schools that saw a dramatic increase in enrollment due to the surge of children.

Breitbart Texas reported in November 2014, that the Houston Independent School District had enrolled more than 3,000 unaccompanied minors for that school year. The district has been researching the damaging financial and academic effects illegal immigration is having on the district.

The media attention on the matter has been short-lived. Once the excitement of the flood of children crossing the border daily died down and the discovery of dead immigrants’ bodies in Brooks County slowed, the media quickly lost interest.

Despite their lack of interest, Breitbart Texas has continued to report the threats that an open borders policy creates along the border. The Cartel Chronicles feature of this website reveals the warlike conditions that are just across the Rio Grande River from Brownsville and McAllen.

 

Corruption of public officials along the border is also a direct result of the open borders policy and has been reported extensively by Breitbart Texas writers.

The State of Texas will spend more than $800 million to counter the impact of the federal government’s failure to secure the border. The leaders of Texas are sending a clear message that if the federal government will not secure the border, Texas will. Money will be spent across the state to increase law enforcement resources, combat human smuggling, drug smuggling and human trafficking. It will also be used to crackdown on corruption along the border and the organized criminal activities of cartels and gangs in Texas.

Bob Price is a senior political news contributor for Breitbart Texas. Follow him on Twitter @BobPriceBBTX.