Agencies scrambling to care for unaccompanied minor immigrants

Msgr. Louis Kihneman, vicar general for the Diocese of Corpus Christi, blesses drivers before they leave for the Rio Gande Valley with five trailer loads of donations for the immigrant refugee children that have been inundating the Diocese of Browsville. Alfredo E. Cardenas, South Texas Catholic

As the federal government struggles to care for an unexpected influx of children caught trying to cross the border without a parent or guardian, dioceses and social service agencies where the minors are passing through are trying to provide assistance.

A surge in such children being detained at the border—more than 48,000 since October, double the number apprehended in all of the 2012 fiscal year—has caught governmental and private agencies short of the resources needed to care for the children.

On Friday, June 20, the Diocese of Brownsville issued a call for help. They were in need for food, water, clothing, bedding, etc. to care for the 150-200 children entering the Rio Grande Valley daily.

The neighboring Diocese of Corpus Christi went into immediate action. They issued a call to all their parishes to bring donations to the Mother Teresa Shelter in Corpus Christi.Their posting on Facebook generated more than 7,500 views and a number of comments expressing support.

“I pray that everyone who reads this message can make a donation of some kind,” wrote Martha Medina. “These children suffered during their journey and have been misled. They are here in the U.S.A. please let’s give them some help. For the love of Christ let’s help these children.”

Kathy Clark wrote, “There are many generous people in Corpus Christi, the Body of Christ, who want to help others but don't know how. This is an excellent opportunity for them to do so!”

Over the weekend, and on short notice, the Diocese of Corpus Christi collected and sent more than 10 tons and five truckloads of donations.

Valleycentral.com, a Brownsville, Texas-area news outlet, reported June 13 that two Catholic parishes in the Rio Grande Valley would be gathering food, clothing, baby supplies and toiletries to offer the young migrants. The Rio Grande Valley has seen the bulk of the influx of children who cross the border without their parents.

Several Tucson, Arizona news outlets quoted Bishop Gerald F. Kicanas discussing meetings he was in with community leaders and municipal and federal authorities about how to deal with the thousands of migrants being moved to Arizona to make room for the continuing influx in Texas.

Tucson and Phoenix were receiving busloads of women and children from Texas daily, he said. Families with few belongings and no food or money are dropped off at bus stations with instructions to show up for future deportation-related hearings.

South of Tucson, in the border city of Nogales, unaccompanied minors were literally being warehoused, sheltered in a Border Patrol warehouse with no indoor plumbing while more permanent housing is arranged. Bishop Kicanas said the Tucson community groups were discussing opening a shelter for the children.

Erica Dahl-Bredine, country representative for El Salvador for Catholic Relief Services, said the surge “is a direct result of the growing desperation we are seeing here in Central America.”

She noted that the U.N. Office of Drugs and Crime reported that Honduras and El Salvador were among the five most violent countries in the world. “In huge areas of the capital cities and many rural areas, the gangs are calling the shots,” Dahl-Bredine said. “There are far more gang members than police officers in El Salvador and Honduras.”

She told of the 15-year-old son of the person who cleans her office being taken off the bus by gang members on his way home from school and severely beaten.

“His crime was simply being from a neighborhood controlled by the rival gang,” she said. “If he ever rode the bus through there again, he was told, they would kill him.”

There has been some anecdotal reporting that people in Central America are sending their kids north in the hope of them getting legal status, because of an administration program giving some young adults protection from deportation. But Leslie E. Velez, senior protection officer for the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees, said that interviews show there is more to it than that.

Last year the UNHCR did lengthy interviews with more than 400 minor migrants, asking them about why they left home and what their experiences were on the way, she said. Almost 60 percent said they were fleeing chronic violence at home, “in many cases, fleeing for their lives,” Velez said.

“One 15-year-old girl explained it to us, to break it down,” she said. In El Salvador, the girl said, the gang members take young girls and rape them. If they do not agree to become the “girlfriends” of gang members, “they put you in a plastic bag,” Velez said the girl explained.

The Center for American Progress, said that about half the children—whose average age is 14—are girls, where in years past nearly all were boys. Many of the girls are pregnant, from being raped either at home or on the way to the U.S., said Michelle Brane, director, of the Migrant Rights and Justice Program of the Women’s Refugee Commission.

“They are well aware of how dangerous it is, and that they might die,” she said. One young migrant told her agency that she “had to take the chance. If she stayed home she was certain to die.”

Dahl-Bredine, who formerly worked for CRS in its Mexico programs office in Nogales, Arizona, said most Central Americans are well aware how dangerous the trip is.

(Alfredo E. Cardenas, South Texas Catholic, contributed to this article.)