My Two Cents: The Problems with Child Immigration

Lately there have been a lot of postings and articles about the current waves of children coming from South and Central America to the United States. There is a really good article on some of the problems and statistics written by Kathleen Newland here.

I will say that the articles that have irked me the most are the ones who say that it’s un-Christian to say that we should do anything but accept these children freely. It’s true, if we believe in Christ we are to do all we can to take care of the poor and less-fortunate. That’s not my issue. My issue is this - Are we really doing what we can to take care of these children by encouraging them to come to America on their own?

I don’t think so.

First we’re encouraging these children to be separated from their families. In some cases this may have happened prior to their decision to come to the United States but I personally think that children need to have a family to take care of them and that’s something that they’re not likely to get coming into the United States right now. According to some figures in 2010 there were 74,181,467 children under 18 in the United States. On an average day 397,000 of these children are in foster care. Over 58,000 of these are children who have had their parental rights permanently terminated and could be adopted but aren’t. Each year 10% of these children are aging out of the system. With almost 60,000 children coming in illegally each year that would need placement and homes as well the chance of these children finding families becomes pretty unlikely.

Without homes and families these children are going to struggle for the rest of their lives. Statistics for those who age out of foster homes without being adopted show an increased risk for homelessness, poor health, unemployment, illegal activity and the like. When you add in the fact that these refugee children will also be facing these challenges while dealing with language and culture barriers, the odds are against their success here.

To me placing these children in that kind of situation doesn’t speak of Christlike love. That doesn’t mean that we can just sit back either. If we really want to extend Christlike love to these children, I believe that there are some changes that we can make.

The first is accepting our own role in their problems. America is facing a drug crisis and until we stop consuming drugs from these foreign countries the drug cartels and violence are going to continue.

The next thing we can do is to work on strengthening their families. We need to find ways to help keep their families together. Part of the solution might mean working towards policies that promote legal family immigration. Even better than that would be working on ways to strengthen these families and help them find safety and education in their own countries so that they can help be a force for good there to help fight against the evils that are so threatening now.

I think in addition to those things we also then need to look at being willing to open our own homes to those who can’t find other solutions. I’ve known some amazing people who were foster/adoptive parents and really did a lot of good. It’s hard and challenging no doubt but in the end result I think we can do more and must do more to make sure that those who really can’t be with their biological families for one reason or another are taken care of and loved.