Contradictions in Immigration Policy: Family and Unaccompanied Child Central American Migration Measures

• In Event: 469 - Section on International Migration Roundtables (one-hour)
  In Refereed Roundtable: Table 02. Refugees and Displaced Persons

Abstract

Although deportation of adults continued at a record pace through 2013, Bush and administration anti-trafficking legislation modified the reception of undocumented Central American child migrants by deferring removal pending immigration court proceeding. A humanitarian crisis occurred as unaccompanied Central American children, and then families, peaked in summer, 2014, overwhelming an already strained immigration processing system. General media and political outcry sought to place blame on both the Bush Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act (TVPRA) and the Obama Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) immediately generated a system of family detention run by private contractors like Corrections Corporation of America that should be questioned, overseen and re-evaluated in light of alternatives to detention.. It is said that the U.S. immigration system is broken, but the wreckage could be characterized as multivalent and contradictory with contested humanitarian and punitive strategies of reception and expulsion. Denying freedom of movement by detaining children and families is questionable when cost effective alternatives to family centers exist. Partisanship produces results for profit and public display while more humane alternatives are overlooked.

Author

• Judith Ann Warner, Texas A&M International University