Five Children Murdered After They Were Deported Back To Honduras
Source: ThinkProgress
Between five and ten migrant children have been killed since February after the United States deported them back to Honduras, a morgue director told the Los Angeles Times. Lawmakers have yet to come up with best practices to deal with the waves of unaccompanied children apprehended by Border Patrol agents, but some politicians refute claims that children are fleeing violence and are opting instead to fund legislation that would fast-track their deportations.
San Pedro Sula morgue director Hector Hernandez told the Los Angeles Times that his morgue has taken in 42 dead children since February. According to an interview with relatives by the LA Times, one teenager was shot dead hours after getting deported. Last year, San Pedro Sula saw 187 killings for every 100,000 residents, a statistic that has given the city the gruesome distinction as the murder capital of the world. That distinction has also been backed up by an U.S. Customs and Border Protection agency infographic, which found that many Honduran children are on the run from extremely violent regions where they probably perceive the risk of traveling alone to the U.S. preferable to remaining at home. Hugo Ramon Maldonado of the Committee for the Protection of Human Rights in Honduras believes that about 80 percent of Hondurans making the exodus are fleeing crime or violence.
Since October 2013, Border Patrol agents have apprehended about 63,000 unaccompanied children and another 63,000 family units (adults and children) at the southern U.S. border. While a steady stream of deported immigrants are flown back to Honduras about three times per week, the United States sent its first planeload of about 40 Honduran mothers and children from this particular wave in mid-July. Those individuals were dropped off in Honduras capital San Pedro Sula.
Politicians like Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) and Rep. Henry Cuellar (D-TX) have been keen on expediting the legal process by demanding that immigration judges make a court decision within seven days. But that move could undermine childrens rights by denying due process to children who already dont understand the courtroom procedures. As Vox found out, one teenage girl told a border agent that she was afraid of being forced into prostitution only after her paperwork had been filed.
Read more: http://thinkprogress.org/immigration/2014/08/19/3472301/five-children-killed-after-deportation-honduras/
geomon666
(7,512 posts)The last one was beginning to dry out.
Uncle Joe
(58,366 posts)Thanks for the thread, n2doc.
albino65
(484 posts)AlbertCat
(17,505 posts)WTF is the matter with Honduras?????
christx30
(6,241 posts)Not everything is 100% the fault of the United States. We have our problems, sure. So does every country. Maybe if the Honduran government gave a crap about their citizens, these kids might still be alive. Too many of those countries are heavily corrupt.
lolly
(3,248 posts)Our policies in Latin America, from drug wars to promoting dictators and supporting their violent activities, have contributed to the breakdown of society there.
Divernan
(15,480 posts)It's all about major US corporations paying starvation wages for generations, and putting in their paid stooges (trained/paid by the CIA) to terrorize the locals and overthrow democratically elected leaders in central America to keep it that way.
Honduras: Military Coup Engineered By Two US Companies
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article23211.htm
Earlier in the year Chiquita Brands International Inc. (formerly United Fruit) and Dole Food Co had severely criticized Zelaya for advocating an increase of 60% in Hondurass minimum wage, claiming that the policy would cut into corporate profits. They were joined by a coalition of textile manufacturers and exporters, companies that rely on cheap labor to work in their sweatshops.
Memories are short in the US, but not in Central America. I kept hearing people who claimed that it was a matter of record that Chiquita (United Fruit) and the CIA had toppled Guatemalas democratically-elected president Jacobo Arbenz in 1954 and that International Telephone & Telegraph (ITT), Henry Kissinger, and the CIA had brought down Chiles Salvador Allende in 1973. These people were certain that Haitis president Jean-Bertrand Aristide had been ousted by the CIA in 2004 because he proposed a minimum wage increase, like Zelayas.
I was told by a Panamanian bank vice president, Every multinational knows that if Honduras raises its hourly rate, the rest of Latin America and the Caribbean will have to follow. Haiti and Honduras have always set the bottom line for minimum wages. The big companies are determined to stop what they call a leftist revolt in this hemisphere. In throwing out Zelaya they are sending frightening messages to all the other presidents who are trying to raise the living standards of their people.
And we see Bill AND Hillary Clinton's support for the corporate funded militalry coup of Honduras' legally elected president, Manuel Zelaya:
It turns out that two of the Honduran coup government's top advisers have close ties to the US secretary of state. One is Lanny Davis, an influential lobbyist who was a personal lawyer for President Bill Clinton and also campaigned for Hillary. G Gordon Liddy, the man who organised the infamous Watergate break-in in 1972, once said of his friend Davis: "He can defend the indefensible." Davis is doing that quite well lately, testifying for the coup government at a congressional hearing last week, and spinning the media on their behalf.
The other hired gun for the coup government that has deep Clinton ties is Bennett Ratcliff. "Every proposal that Micheletti's group presented was written or approved by [Ratcliff]," a witness told the New York Times on Sunday. Who is Ratcliff? He was a senior executive for Bob Squier, known as the father of the modern political campaign. At his funeral in 2000, which was attended by some of the most powerful Democrats in the country, Squier was eulogised by Bill Clinton. Speaking on behalf of himself and vice-president Al Gore, also at the funeral, Clinton said: "But for [Squier], we might not have been here today." And not only them. In 1992, Squier's firm represented about a third of the Senate's Democrats. http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/cifamerica/2009/jul/16/honduras-coup-obama-clinton
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-weisbrot23-2009jul23,0,7566740.story (July 23, 2009)
Chiquita admits to paying Colombia terrorists: Banana company agrees to $25 million fine for paying AUC for protection MSNBC March 15, 2007 http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17615143/ (July 24, 2009)
Divernan
(15,480 posts)And aren't you eternally grateful they were not summarily sent back to whatever situation they were fleeing?
How is it remotely possible you grew up in the US and never heard this poem by Emma Lazarus, which is on a plaque inside the Statue of Liberty base? Its famous last lines have become a part of American history.
New Colussus
Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.
"Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!" cries she
With silent lips.
"Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore,
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"
AlbertCat
(17,505 posts)I don't know. I'm not Scottish. I'm an American, and altho' my name has its own tartan, I do not identify with Scotland at all.
And of course I've heard the poem by Emma Lazarus. Why would you think I haven't?
I merely asked what was wrong with Honduras killing children. I said or implied nothing was great about what the US was doing or has done, here or in Honduras. (The history lesson above, which I already knew about, was kinda the point of my question)
I know it's sorta de rigueur to put words in people's mouths and make up complex motivations and complete life histories here on DU from 5 word posts by people you don't know, but really, try to avoid doing that in the future.
stone space
(6,498 posts)newfie11
(8,159 posts)So afraid these little kids are bad for this country!
lolly
(3,248 posts)Back to picketing Planned Parenthood offices and brandishing their "Pro-Life" signs.
newfie11
(8,159 posts)ColesCountyDem
(6,943 posts)Other than that glaring error, good article!
bigtonka
(28 posts)So sad. When will we learn?
lunasun
(21,646 posts)Plus the US had no influence on what is going on in their country right?
tom_kelly
(960 posts)Jack Rabbit
(45,984 posts)Which FoxNews twit will be the first to say it's Obama's fault?
lunasun
(21,646 posts)tclambert
(11,087 posts)Hey, we can play that game, too.
blackspade
(10,056 posts)Especially if they are from Texas.
They are a whole different breed of stupid there.
Divernan
(15,480 posts)Judi Lynn
(160,545 posts)Most decent U.S. citizens would have preferred to chip in a penny or two to keep these ALREADY BORN children alive.
When will the criminally ignorant among us stop being the ones who set the pace here, anyway? It's time for the social perverts to step aside, and let the human beings do their jobs.
valerief
(53,235 posts)Dragonfli
(10,622 posts)It appears to me these children are a classic case of refugees rather than illegal aliens. I thought there was a law in place to protect such children/people?
ReRe
(10,597 posts)... it's in the USA.
WillyT
(72,631 posts)Ash_F
(5,861 posts)And open the gates, like they have done to other countries historically?
Octafish
(55,745 posts)Clinton's Central American foreign policy blunder ought to darken her presidential prospects.
by Emily Schwartz Greco
Published on Friday, July 25, 2014 by OtherWords
EXCERPT...
Maybe youve forgotten what happened in that small country in the first year of the Obama administration more on that in a moment. But surely youve noticed the ugly wave of xenophobia greeting a growing number of Central American child refugees arriving on our southern border.
Some of President Barack Obamas supporters are trying to blame this immigration crisis on the Bush administration because of an anti-trafficking law George W. signed in 2008 specifically written to protect Central American children, which preceded the uptick in their arrivals. But which country is the top source of kids crossing the border? Honduras, home to the worlds highest murder rate, Latin Americas worst economic inequality, and a repressive, U.S.-backed government.
When Honduran military forces allied with rightist lawmakers ousted democratically elected President Manuel Zelaya in 2009, then-Secretary of State Clinton sided with the armed forces and fought global pressure to reinstate him.
Washington wields great influence over Honduras, thanks to the numerous military bases built with U.S. funds where training and joint military and anti-drug operations take place. Since the coup, nearly $350 million in U.S. assistance, including more than $50 million in military aid, has poured into the country.
Thats a lot of investment in a nation where the police, the military, and private security forces are killing people with alarming frequency and impunity, according to Human Rights Watch.
CONTINUED...
http://www.commondreams.org/views/2014/07/25/hillary-clintons-real-scandal-honduras-not-benghazi
So, there's that.
Spitfire of ATJ
(32,723 posts)They claim these are MS-13 gang members.
...so I guess it's okay that they're getting killed.