As Mexico and the Northern Triangle countries experience rampant violence and corruption, hundreds of thousands of their people seek to leave the region to come to the United States. Most disturbingly, these populations are immediately vulnerable to human traffickers and related criminal organizations that currently operate with too little risk of punishment. The Mexican government...
January is National Slavery and Human-Trafficking Prevention Month. It’s estimated that there are 25 million victims of human trafficking around the world and that human trafficking is a $150-billion-per-year industry globally. In the U.S., the National Human Trafficking Hotline has received almost 300,000 contacts, and around 52,000 cases of human trafficking have been reported since 2007 While human-trafficking — also known as modern-day slavery...
Never letting a crisis go to waste, the left responded to the horrific deaths of American citizens —including children — in Mexico by calling for gun control here. Writing in the New York Times earlier this month, Ioan Grillo said the best way to disarm Mexican criminal cartels is by disarming Americans. “Last year, 70 percent of...
Border security is at the forefront of the American political psyche. With the on-going crisis at the southern border and the endless efforts by the Trump administration to address it, it’s a recurring subject of heated debate. However, a fundamental question is often overlooked: What does a secure border even look like? This is a much harder...
They’re used to finding bodies in Brooks County, Texas. It’s nothing new: They have discovered the remains of over 650 dead migrants in this part of the Lone Star State since 2009. Brooks County Sheriff Benny Martinez estimates that for every body recovered, there are five others that are never found. That means he suspects...
It’s easy to forget the faces behind the numbers, especially when it comes to immigration. But the migration crisis at the southern border isn’t just a matter of scope, although the Border Patrol has truly been overwhelmed by an unprecedented amount of border crossings. A humanitarian problem is at the root of this migration crisis...
What would your “What I Did on My Summer Vacation” essay look like? More to the point, what would Congress’ look like? While the House and the Senate adjourned for all of August (and had little to show for June and July), the White House was hard at work addressing the crisis at the border....
Last week, the Department of Homeland Security announced that it had finalized new federal regulations governing the detention of migrant families who enter the country illegally. These regulations replace the Flores Settlement Agreement, a court agreement that has governed national policy for the detention of minor children for more than two decades, and preserve its substantive provisions protecting the...
The Trump administration announced last week it will terminate the Flores settlement agreement, a 1997 court decree that has prevented U.S. officials from detaining migrant families and unaccompanied minors for more than 20 days. Media coverage predictably—and inaccurately—warned of “indefinite detention” for families and children caught crossing the southwest border. But ending the settlement was the right...
The economic might of the United States has been a magnet for those around the world seeking a better life for a long time. Immigrants, in turn, have helped the United States cement itself as the global hub of entrepreneurship and innovation. However, coming to work in America is a privilege — not a right....
By now it is irrefutable that there is a crisis at the border. Unfortunately, those who are suffering the most are the most vulnerable, namely children. The stories of children being separated from their parents were heartbreaking—as are the accounts of the brutal journey migrant children must undertake to reach the border, of fake family...
The Trump administration’s new asylum rule will limit the ability of Central Americans to claim asylum at the southwest border. If implemented, it might ease overcrowding at border detention facilities in the near term. But the rule, announced Monday, is at best a stopgap measure, not a permanent solution. The border crisis will never end until we overhaul...