What would drive a parent to such depths of despair that he or she would not only allow, but encourage his or her child to travel alone hundreds miles across unknown terrain? What manner of fears would prompt such an action? They are called unaccompanied minors, these children who are crossing into the United States illegally. But I think that's a less than helpful term. Unaccompanied minors are children who travel on planes, watched over by flight attendants and delivered safely into the hands of a waiting adult. And while some of these children may be watched over by smugglers--coyotes--the only hands they are delivered into are those of border patrol officers. These journeys north aren't summer vacation trips to Grandma's. They are, at least in the eyes of parents from places like Honduras and Guatemala, trips designed to save young lives.
So I ask again, how can a parent be so desperate? Yet many, many are. The violence and poverty in so many villages and towns in Central America has proven so deadly that even a trip through the deserts of Mexico, worth all the risks of robbery, rape and even murder, is a safer bet.
Do we need to address the immigration issue? Of course. Can we have a porous border and survive as a nation? Probably not. But meeting these children with protests and angry cries is not the way to solve the problem!
I imagine that many of the youngsters traveling north have to grow up very quickly along the way. We can only hope that our governmental leaders would grow up as well. The bickering, the tit-for-tat approach we are witnessing in Washington is as childish as it gets!
When we were little and had a squabble, my mother would sit us down and make us apologize to each other and then we'd have to work out our differences. Maybe we should send Mom to Washington.
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