Immigration Reform: 70 Percent Of Undocumented Didn’t Make Their Gov’t Follow-Up This Year

Since last fall, there has been a large influx of Central Americans in Mexico and the United States. More specifically, over 50,000 unaccompanied minors from South America (namely El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras) have been detained while attempting to illegally cross over to the United States. Government officials are reporting that most of the children hail from Mexico and Central America, and are coming to the United States to flee poor economies, violence, or to be reunited with their families.

The Associated Press is now reporting, citing audio footage from an anonymous official with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, that tens of thousands of immigrants, who were instructed to meet with federal immigration agents, have failed to make their government appointments. In fact, a whopping 70 percent of families have failed to make their follow up appointments after they were released in the U.S.

According to the Pew Research Center, since last October, the U.S. Customs and Border Protection records taking into custody 47,017 unaccompanied children under the age of 18. The data is shocking considering that the first four months of 2014 have had more apprehensions than in the entire 2013 fiscal year, which had 24,493 apprehensions. Given the current rate, some estimates predict four times as many arrests this year than last year.

While politicians are debating many sides of the crisis, the Public Religion Research Institute conducted a survey to poll Americans and see what their views are on the child migration crisis. The findings were surprising and clear — regardless of political affiliation or religion, most Americans were sympathetic towards the children and felt the United States should review each case instead of deporting children immediately. Specifically, 80 percent of Democrats, 69 percent of independents and 57 percent of Republicans were in favor of the government reviewing each case and not deporting children immediately. Within the different religious groups, 56 percent of white evangelical Protestants, 57 percent of white mainline Protestants, 74 percent of minority Protestants, 75 percent of Catholics and 75 percent of those without religious affiliations were sympathetic towards the child immigrants.

“It makes a difference that we are talking about children facing violence and harm,” said Robert P. Jones, CEO of PRRI, according to the Huffington Post. “The value of keeping families together cuts across all party lines.”

The survey further found that while 25 percent of the Americans surveyed believed the children are illegal immigrants who should be deported, they also feel that the children should be handled as refugees and returned when it is safe for them to go back to their motherland. A whopping 70 percent of those surveyed felt that while a solution is found, the children should be allowed to stay in the country.