RETURN TO SENDER/ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION

[HairOfTheDog]

I think Dems and activists should also be prepared for some migrant parents who don't want to be reunited with their kids as well. Some of the migrant parents likely know that they have very little chance of getting asylum in the U.S. these days and would rather have their kids placed with relatives or foster families in the U.S. than have them quickly deported back to the violence and/or poverty they fled.

This is the first I have heard something like this.

Some of the parents have said that they fled their countries because their children --- typically those of junior high and high school age -- were being targeted by gangs, sometimes at knife or gun point. The gangs threatened to rape/murder the kids and/or their families if the kids didn't relent and begin their criminal initiations.

For some of those parents, I imagine, the longer they can keep their kids away from those serious life real threats in their home countries, the better. They would sacrifice being separated on entry and/or deported without their kids if the kids are safer and have their basic needs met here in the U.S. (especially if the kids are placed with family members who live in the U.S.). ETA: interviews with some such migrant parents: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/22/us/im...ldren.html

Those types of gang-related threats have also motivated thousands of Central American parents to send their teen-aged children to the U.S. unaccompanied over the past several years.

I can see the Trump Administration and the right wing media highlighting cases of parents who choose to remain separated from their kids (rather than have them immediately deported) and claiming that such parents are abusive, negligent, or don't want to take care of their own kids. I think the Dems and migrant advocates/activists should be proactively prepared to effectively counter such claims.

The Trump Administration already does something similar when it comes to adults migrants who enter the U.S. alone; using propaganda and lies to broadly vilify and portray them as violent criminals, drug dealers, stealing jobs from Americans, or looking to milk the U.S. social system.

There are some migrants who look to enter the U.S. for nefarious reasons, of course. But, they are not representative of the migrant population as a whole.