Children, Illegal Aliens and Foreign Aid

There is a flood of unaccompanied minors crossing the border between the United States and Mexico, most of them not from Mexico but from Central America.  Let me offer the perspective of someone who lives in the Rio Grande Valley of Texas.   Our papers have lists of supplies needed for these kids (soap, shampoo, deodorant, underwear, toothbrushes and toothpaste…the lists go on and they are just that basic), and the charities that will collect and distribute these supplies.  We have volunteers trying to provide a little care and comfort for these kids.  There are stories of the plastic gloved women, combing through the hair of young girls just out of the shower, trying to style lengths of long black hair and practicing their limited Spanish at the same time. 

            The federal government is gathering up these children and putting them in border patrol facilities, but it is the heart of America, the much maligned cadre of religious institutions and volunteers who are trying to soften the hard edge of refuge for these youngsters.

            The Feds were formally warned of the steady rise in unaccompanied minors crossing the border two years ago.  The brat pack surrounding the Asterisk-in-Chief didn’t see this as a problem worth their attention.  After all, it was happening in red states the Dems don’t like anyway.  It is no accident that Jan Brewer had bus loads of young people delivered to main street Arizona and let loose with a bottle of water and a hearty, “Hi-ho silver.”  Brewer is a woman who doesn’t mind giving the President a dose of reality.  The Little Prince does not like women in general and he sure doesn’t like ones who refuse to wear the Obama blue burqa.   Never mind that using thousands of brown-skinned children to settle a political score sounds pretty damn racist to me, morality doesn’t play a part in this White House.  

            Regardless of Obama coming late to this party, regardless of Mexico’s enabling of this exodus, even regardless of the very real health problems (these children are possible carriers of diseases which we have not seen in this country)  we must not turn our backs on these, “…tired…weary…tempest tossed…” victims of adult misconduct. 

            These children should be cared for in this country.  As a mother and a grandmother, as a Christian and a humanitarian, I simply don’t see sending them back to the Central American cesspools they called home.  But neither would I send Vice President Biden down to Central America with $240 million in bribe money.  That money just lines the pockets of the undeserving.  We know that these countries have been sending their children north with lies about American amnesty, jobs for minors and laws against repatriation.  You don’t reward people for doing ill.  You reward them for doing the right thing. 

Here is my modest suggestion.  For every refugee child we deduct $100 thousand from their country of origin’s foreign aid.  That money will be given to the schools, police, fire and welfare agencies in the communities in which these children settle.  If some of these nations end up without aid from us until their, “humanitarian debt” is repaid, maybe they will work harder to keep their citizens at home.   We gave the following country this much outright aid last year:

El Salvador    $280,800,000

Guatemala    $391,800,000

Honduras      $624,000,000

Mexico           $958,200,000

Since they gave us their children, we will redirect their aid to help provide a decent life for those kids.  There must be no action without an equal and opposite reaction.

            Save the children and keep the faith.