Responsibility for Unaccompanied Alien Children - Essay Example

Responsibility for Unaccompanied Alien Children In the last fiscal year, over 40,000; unaccompanied illegal immigrant children; in most cases from Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala have been apprehended in America’s southern border points. These children are legally classified as unaccompanied alien children (UAC); on apprehension, they are typically put in the custody of the office of refugee resettlement. For most of them, the journey into the USA is a difficult and dangerous one as they escape poverty persecution and violence from their home countries. For some, their parents or guardians may have already made their way into the US and they are only trying to follow them so they can have a support system. The manner with which they should be received and treated as well as whether they should be immediately deported or given refugee status in respect to their age has sparked considerable controversy in the US. When President Obama asked for Congress to approve of $3.7 Billion budget to fund the crisis which he claims very serious, most of them were skeptical (Michael and Jeremy). They are reluctant to fund the same administration that promised to seal the Mexican border which remains porous to date. The way Obama sees it, while a humanitarian crisis, which also touches on human rights and right of children escalates in the background, congress is busy playing politics. It is evident that the president is cognizance that there is a real crisis and the American government must take action since it is taking place in their country. This issue brings to the fore numerous moral and political issues, the most predominant ones being anchored on the apparent suffering of children who are often stuck in detention centers with many of them being deported (Hill 41). The fact that the system allows children to be sent back even if they may have no family to go back to or if they are escaping violence and hunger is in contravention of everything the American republic stands for. Ultimately, the United States government must take responsibility for these children both from a moral and social political point of view. In addition, the fact that children without the aid or adults can illegally entre the United States bespeaks the lack of vigilance in boarder patrol and in a way this indirectly aids their incursion. The UN must also take some of the responsibility since they are the custodians of the human rights including children rights and the children have clearly been denied theirs both at home and in the US where they face detention and sometimes deportation to hostile conditions. The UN Should Open Refugee Camps in the United States The UN usually opens up refugee camps in areas where there has been humanitarian crisis such as war, natural calamities and even in some cases for victims of social and economic upheavals. The main objective of refugee camps is to ensure that the occupants get humanitarian assistance as well as provide them with shelter clothing and their basic human rights. As president Obama has said, the issue of unaccompanied Children in the US has escalated to such a level that it can be described as a humanitarian crisis. By virtue of his statement alone, the UN is obligated to take some actions to see to the needs of the victims in order to ensure their basic human rights are protected. It is a breach of international law to forcibly repatriate refugees to their home country since they often come in search of protection. However, when it comes to UACs, they are typically taken to court and if the judge is not convinced that they really needed to be in the US, they can order their deportation. Since this is veiled under legal proceeding, there is now way for one to explicitly claim the US is abusing the rights of the children to get refugees status. The implicit connotation is there nonetheless, how will the American judge understand what the child is running from if they do not conduct intensive research into his story? For this reason, the UN has the onus to set up refugees camps in the affected areas since by virtue of the fact that the child is alone they should qualify to be treated as refugees and considered for asylum. Many of these children are escaping violence and poverty, they travel through dangerous routes sometimes in boats, or hiking and barely survive long enough to be captured. These children will often have suffered psychological torture both because of their past experience, the journey and ultimately the capture and subsequent arrest. Children have a right to be protected from violence and harsh conditions and the UN can only ensure these are implemented if they have a camp of their own. Many Americans will argue that the onus for such action lies with the US government and the UN should not involve themselves. However, by virtue of the fact that these children are even able to get past the boarder, there is enough justification for UN involvement since the government is not doing a particularly good job of containing the situation. Global Leadership and Immigration Challenges While immigration has been a perennial challenge in most western countries, in the contemporary setting it is escalating at a very high rate; this is mostly a result of increasing in violence, economic crisis and natural calamity such as draught. McCarty posits that the flow of illegal immigrants and economic refugees is an unavoidable aspect of the global social economic and political dynamics that governments have to contend with (McCarty 5). The treatment of challenges related to refugees by governments can tell a lot about particular and collective governments. For example, the Arab spring, which took place in the early years of this decade, has proven to be a major causative agent for the increase in refugees from North Africa to European nations more so Italy and Spain (Nascimbene and Alessia 342). The political instability has forced many to run away to the west in search of better life and for most of them the only way is through illegal means by sea or land. Take the case of about 20,000 Tunisian refugees escaping who arrived at Italy between 2010 and 2011; the Italian governments provided most of them with papers, which they used to go to a third, state in this case France. Many were however rejected in France and repatriated to Italy, taking affront at this, the Italian authorities for a while appeared to be relaxed with security at the refugee camp allowing them to escape and sneak back into France illegal. It was only later that the two nations agreed to enhance corporation and reduce the flow of immigrants from across the Mediterranean (Donadio). The fact that the US government has proven reluctant to give UACs refugee or asylum status can also be considered evidence of the lack of seriousness when it comes to dealing with refugees by the global governance. Understandably, refugees are expensive to maintain in addition to the fact that they often pose a security risk, nevertheless governments need to take more proactive action, which includes reducing the influx of illegal immigrants by mutually patrolling borders. Given the prominence given to human rights in the 21st century, it is surprising that there is no clear-cut procedure on how to approach the issue of those refugees that actually manage to gain ingress into a country. Cases where they are shuttled forth one department or even country to another or even summarily deported should be minimized and eventually eliminated altogether. Global governments need to share information and responsibility so that whenever there is a refugee situation, they can work together to solve the underlying problems while maintaining their national integrity as well as the rights of the individual victims involved. Works Cited Donadio, Rachel. “France to Help Italy Block Tunisian Migrants” The New York Times, April 9, 2011. Web. 28 Juy 2014 Hill, Linda Kelly. "Right to Be Heard: Voicing the Due Process Right to Counsel for Unaccompanied Alien Children, The." BC Third World LJ 31 (2011): 41. McCarty, Philip. Integrated Perspectives in Global Studies. San Diego, CA: Cognella Academic Publishing Michael, Shear and Jeremy, Peters. “Obama Asks for $3.7 Billion to Aid Border”. New York Times, July 8, 2014. Web. 28 Juy 2014 Nascimbene, Bruno, and Alessia Di Pascale. "The ‘Arab spring’and the extraordinary influx of people who arrived in Italy from North Africa." European Journal of Migration and Law 13.4 (2011): 341-360 Read More