The Children aren't "missing". They and their families are in hiding.

[grantcart]

Edited to change the title and add this summation:

The news media is conflating two separate events. One is the disposition of 57,000 undocumented minors that came to the US to join their families that had legal Temporary Protection Status. Those 320,000 families are now living in hiding and aren't going to immigration court so the undocumented minors are listed as "missing" because they missed a court date. What makes it confusing is that Trump is now separating "accompanied" minors from their mothers to create a horror scenario so that they are too afraid to come.

Back to the original OP


I) A new policy by Trump has been implemented to create a draconian situation so that mothers coming with their children are separated from their children creating a frightening situation to deter mothers from coming up with their children.

This is a new and intolerable change from the past.

II) Over the past several years, mostly under the Obama administration, nearly 50,000 children were brought to the border and handed to Border Patrol Agents (they weren't caught but literally handed to the Agents) who were processed as Unaccompanied Minors. In 90% of the cases these children were "paroled" to relatives in the US who promised to bring the children to an immigration hearing.

These children were largely from Honduras and El Salvador and had relatives in the United States since about 1990s who along with migrants from Haiti were granted Temporary Protected Status (TPS). They were allowed to get Social Security cards and work legally in the United States. DHS law enforcement officers could not take action against people with TPS. I know this because my son in law had one and we breezed through Border Patrol Check Points without incident under President Obama.

Under President Obama the relatives would show up when they were supposed to for processing because they had a path to at least a temporary legal status.

Trump has (see below) ripped up the TSP of 320,000 who, in most cases, had lived here for 15-20 years and for the last 8 years had been allowed to stay here legally. If they left the US (as one unfortunate friend of mine did to go to Canada) they could not return. If they broke a law they could not stay. My son-in-law would not, for example, cross a deserted street at midnight if the light flashed "do not walk" even if all of the rest of the group had crossed and were waiting at the other side.

Trump has destroyed the lives of 320,000 families who had an even stronger claim than the DACA students.

Obviously with this level of fear many of the family members who became foster sponsors for the undocumented children are too frightened to go to an immigration court where not only the child will be seized but the rest of the family.

The Senate has now become aware that about 1500 undocumented minors (not the recent accompanied children who have been ripped from their families) who in 90% of the cases were living with relatives have not showed up for their court appointed hearing. Out of the base 7000 remaining cases there probably a few dozen runaways or others that have unfortunate ends like trafficking (and I have in laws in Thailand who were subjected to that fait so I don't discount it) BUT that is not the real story here.

The real story is that hundred of thousands of people from Haiti, Honduras and El Salvador who did everything the government asked are now losing their legal status and are living a life that is full of fear. Every siren, every uniform now causes the same fear as the Jews in the early 30's in Germany who were being rounded up and had to report their status and show their papers.

It is this fear over a much larger group that is causing relatives to "hide" these UM. Unfortunately the two stories are being conflated and the real story is not being understood even by reliable news agencies.

Here are some of the facts:

This is about Stephen Miller's policies but its not about unaccompanied minors not showing up its about 320,000 families losing their legal status and now they are afraid to come to immigration hearings.

To begin with the wave of tens of thousands of undocumented minors started under Obama and not Trump.
Most of the undocumented minors arrived under Obama not Trump and the procedures developed from that.

President Obama issued Temporary Protection Status for 320,000 individuals from Haiti, El Salvador and Honduras who arrived in the US about 20 years ago fleeing hurricane, earthquake and other natural disasters. The TPS allowed them to live here legally. Until Trump made this an issue the issue of these people staying here had broad bipartisan support.

In 5 years 47,000 undocumented minors were brought into the US

https://www.brookings.edu/blog/up-front/2014/07/02/the-surge-in-unaccompanied-children-from-central-america-a-humanitarian-crisis-at-our-border/

The difference lies in the number of children making their way from Central America to cross the Rio Grande Valley into South Texas. According to the Border Patrol, apprehension of unaccompanied children increased from 16,067 in FY 2011 to 24,481 in FY 2012 and 38,833 in FY 2013. During the first eight months of FY 2014, 47,017 children were apprehended, most of them from Honduras.

What do you do with 47,000 children? Try and reunite them with their family. So in the policy known as "catch and release" these children were sent to live with their relatives in 90% of the time. When no relative is available they are sent to live with licensed foster care parents.

The reality is that insufficient space exists to house the large number of apprehended children and the Immigration Courts are seriously overwhelmed by the number of removal proceedings. Consequently children wait on average 578 days before a Hearing. During that time, the child is placed with a parent or family member who must vouch that the child will appear in Court. The Migration Policy Institute anticipates that approximately 85-90 percent of children are placed with a parent or close relative.

When they say that they are "Missing" what they are really saying is that the children don't appear in court. They have no way to determine if the children are really "missing" as we understand it or with their relatives who don't want to go to an immigration court that could harm not only the minor but all of the relatives.

https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/article/hhs-official-says-agency-lost-track-of-nearly-1500-unaccompanied-minors/

Between October 2016 and December 2017, he said, the agency was unable to locate almost 1,500 out of the 7,635 minors that it attempted to reach — or about 19 percent. Over two dozen had run away, according to Wagner, who said the agency did not have the capacity to track them down.

. . .

Sponsors are meant to ensure that minors show up at their immigration hearings. Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.) pressed Wagner on why more than half of unaccompanied minors in 2017 did not show up to their immigration hearings.

Its the same employees and the same placement policies between the Obama and Trump administration. The only thing that has changed is the fear in these immigrant communities which creates a disincentive for people to come into the system.

The real issue is not that the children are missing but that entire communities are being pushed under ground because of fear that even though they are here legally that the Trump administration is going to break the word of the US government and take people who are here legally one day and illegal the next.

You will note that the Brookings Institute stated that most of the undocumented children were from Honduras.

There are about 60,000 people from Honduras who came here illegally but gained temporary protective status under Executive Order from President Obama. Tens of thousands from Haiti and El Salvador (including my son-in-law) also were given this legal umbrella to live and work here legally. Most of them have been here about 20 years.

Trump has ripped the legal basis for these people to be here and that is the reason that the children are not showing up for their hearings. Their parents (or other close relatives that are taking care of them) have lost their legal status and are afraid to go to an immigration court for the child. In any case the child is not going to get a permanent legal status to live here so there is little reason to go to an immigration court until there is a new President.

While losing 1500 children would be a great tragedy, that's not what is happening. What is really happening is that 320,000 law abiding families have lost their legal status and are now living underground and avoiding contact with immigration authorities.

Here is Trump taking away TPS (Temporary Protection Status) from various non white populations which is the real strategy of Miller:

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-44013763

The Trump administration has announced the end of temporary protections for thousands of Honduran immigrants.

Up to 57,000 people could be forced to leave the US by 5 January 2020, when their temporary protected status (TPS) will be revoked.

Hondurans were granted this status after Hurricane Mitch hit the Central American country in 1998.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/08/us/salvadorans-tps-end.html

LOS ANGELES — Nearly 200,000 people from El Salvador who have been allowed to live in the United States for more than a decade must leave the country, government officials announced Monday. It is the Trump administration’s latest reversal of years of immigration policies and one of the most consequential to date.

Homeland security officials said that they were ending a humanitarian program, known as Temporary Protected Status, for Salvadorans who have been allowed to live and work legally in the United States since a pair of devastating earthquakes struck their country in 2001.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/20/us/haitians-temporary-status.html

The Trump administration is ending a humanitarian program that has allowed some 59,000 Haitians to live and work in the United States since an earthquake ravaged their country in 2010, Homeland Security officials said on Monday.

Haitians with what is known as Temporary Protected Status will be expected to leave the United States by July 2019 or face deportation.

The decision set off immediate dismay among Haitian communities in South Florida, New York and beyond, and was a signal to other foreigners with temporary protections that they, too, could soon be asked to leave.

This isn't about 1500 children that have "slipped through the cracks" its really about hundreds of thousands of families who came here decades ago and have established themselves as productive citizens and had legal protection. Trump has ripped that away and these families are living in fear and are too afraid to go to immigration court and risk losing their minor children being ripped from them.

The Trump administration has gone to war on 320,000 families from Honduras, El Salvador, and Haiti who were here legally and making a contribution to the country. Now entire communities have to take maximum evasive measures to avoid detection. It isn't a mystery what happened to the 1500 children who are almost entirely living with relatives, its a mystery why any of them show up to an Immigration Court at all.

[Hortensis]

1. It's about the serious syndrome you discuss AND missing children.

Both. Not one and forget the other. Pretending these children are all happily living with family doesn't make it so. We also know some very bad things have happened to a few who haven't gone missing during their placements.

Besides those 1500 children unaccounted for, how many listed as "runaways" ran away with a nice man who promised to take them to relatives or some other happy place?

We have a duty to rescue all who need rescuing, and that requires finding all we can.

[grantcart]

2. 1500 children are not missing, they no longer have a legal option to stay and don't go to court

ICE doesn't know where the 1500 but they also don't know where the 7000 are who appeared in court and now are pressed underground. They also don't have a clue where the 50,000 undocumented minors who were processed under President Obama are either. These communities have gone underground and live in fear.

You are correct that in 2014 about one dozen of these minors were found to have been trafficked. Given that 57,000 unaccompanied minors were brought through the system this is a much lower number than in the "native" population of many urban areas.

The 1500 aren't missing, they are hiding along with the other 320,000 families who have lost their legal status and now are living in the shadows.

I have extended relatives who were trafficked and who we had to rescue. I have relatives who have lost their TPS and moved from legal to illegal by the stroke of the pen.

Fundamentally this is not a story about runaways (which exist in every population) and in this case might fill a school bus but about the population equal to a major city that goes to sleep at night in deep fear about the knock on the door, that is why they are hiding.

Under the Obama administration the number of undocumented minors who showed up, with their families at their immigration hearing was in the high 90%. Out of the 50,000 undocumented minors who were processed under the Obama administration less than a few dozen didn't complete the process. There hasn't been any change with how those undocumented minors were placed with their families the only change is that the families have been criminalized and now are too fearful to show up in an immigration court to process the undocumented minor but the reality is that the foster families who were legal under President Obama now face deportation. Give the undocumented minors TPS and those 1500 will be lined up in front of the court house tomorrow morning at 8:00 am.

[byronius]

3. Thanks for doing this work.

Clarity is best. No need to embellish the narrative.

One never knows what Russian Military Intelligence is pushing. Best to be standing on solid factual ground.

All in all, however, as stated, as delineated -- fucking horrifying.

I'd like to separate all the people participating in this from their authority and their jobs. In perpetuity.

"I was only following orders."

Uh-huh. They should read up on the efficacy of that statement as a defense.

[pnwmom]

4. Thank you, grantcart, for pulling this all together. This is shameful. n/t

[sweetroxie]

5. It's horrifying, hateful and cruel.

It is evil and its perpetrators are evil. Stephen Miller is a hateful slime.

[grantcart]

15. thank you

[malaise]

6. Excellent post

Rec

[Habibi]

7. Thanks for this, grantcart. nt

[TomVilmer]

9. Please stop spreadsing this Pizzagate BS

[Roland99]

11. Alex Jones? Enough with the trolling

[bronxiteforever]

12. Kick and recommend.

[brer cat]

14. Thank you, grantcart.

This is a very informative OP. What the trump maladministration is doing to these families is horrific.

[OneGrassRoot]

16. Thank you so very much for this. K&R and bookmarked. n/t

[lunamagica]

17. Thank you. But it was actually president Clinton who issued TPS in 1998 after huricane Mitch

ETA: It was renewed every 18 months during his administration, then during Bushe's administration and finally inder President Obama.

[Hekate]

18. Kick kick kick and bookmark

I just want to vomit

[oberliner]

19. Incredibly informative thread

[kcr]

20. It simply isn't true that these are the only children affected. You are flat out wrong.

I will keep posting this every time even though you will ignore it every time because others will see it.

https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2018/05/heres-how-the-government-managed-to-lose-track-of-1500-migrant-children/

What does it mean when ORR loses track of a child?

The short answer to that is that we don’t know. Once a child is released to a parent or a sponsor—and very often a sponsor is somebody who is not in any way related to the child—ORR does very little to no follow-up. ORR’s position is that they no longer have any responsibility for that child. In most cases, they will do a follow-up phone call to check in. If there is no answer or if there is a problem that is uncovered by that phone call, I think they said [at the hearing] they may call child protective services. But other than that they don’t do anything. As a result, they have numerous cases where they have identified that that child is either no longer in that house or not reachable, but they have done nothing to follow up.

Children may have moved—they may have gone to live with another family member—and things may be OK. Or there have been cases where these children end up in the hands of traffickers. So it is possible that some of those [children] could be in very dangerous and vulnerable situations.

Now that we have this new population of children who have been separated from their parents, it’s even more disturbing. [White House Chief of Staff John] Kelly made a comment that it was no big deal because the kids go to “foster care or whatever.” But the “whatever” is really a problem. If you’re separating a child from their parent and then you’re just losing them, that is extremely problematic. If you’re a parent who has been separated from your child at the border, you may not be able to find them again.

And then there's this from the Washington Post https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2018/05/27/the-u-s-lost-track-of-1500-immigrant-children-last-year-heres-why-people-are-outraged-now/?utm_term=.0d5f125d27f4:

“Just last week we saw a 53-week-old infant in court without a parent,” St. John told Hayes. “What we’re seeing now is that, because the government is separating the children from the parents, the government is actually rendering these children as unaccompanied minors and bringing them to the shelters.”

[grantcart]

22. You don't understand basic English

A 53 week infant is not an unaccompanied minor

A child that is taken from their parents is not unaccompanied.

47,000 unaccompanied minors surrendered to Border Patrol and (according to the Brookings Institute 90%) were reunited with their families.

Once the PTS was taken away it was pointless to goto immigration court and the last 1450 simply stayed home with their family.

Of course within the 320,000 you will find some are not good parents, alcoholics and the like, but every study has showed that these exist in lower percentage than nativist populations.

In any case the fact that you are mixing infants that are ripped from their parents with children who arrived without parents simply means that the words flow by without recognition

[ismnotwasm]

21. Thank you for taking the time with this

A sane, informative post. I appreciate it.