In July 10, 2014 Senator Cornyn of Texas asked for permission to address the huge crisis on the US southern border with Mexico.
What follows is some of what the senator had to say on this issue, particularly as it pertains to children:
“Then there is the continued discussion the President has here in Washington that says he wants to go even further. So I think one of the things the President would learn is that people actually pay attention to what he is saying. The impression is that he is not going to faithfully execute the law.
So the children continue to come, and they will continue to come until we fix the problem. The President has to be an important part of that solution.
As I have said before, these young children traveled through some of the most dangerous territory on the planet, because the smuggling corridors are controlled by cartels such as the Zetas and these cartels are in the business of crime–smuggling people, drugs, weapons, you name it–smuggling women for sex slavery and human trafficking. They don’t really care about the human element. They care about the money. Migrants who travel across Mexico from Central America are subjected to rape and kidnapping–where they are held for ransom so their relatives will pay off the cartels to let them go and continue their journey. We don’t know how many of the children that start this long journey from Central America–some 1,200 miles from Guatemala City to McAllen, TX, alone–how many of them die in the process and never make it. So the 52,000-plus so far who have been detained at our southwestern border since October are the ones who made the trip successfully. We don’t know how many children and their parents have died in the process.
I do know–having traveled to Brooks County, Texas–that I have seen some of the grave sites of unknown migrants who have actually died trying to get through–to get past the Border Patrol checkpoint at Falfurrias, for example. So I am sure, tragically, that many migrants don’t make it and die in the process.
There is a powerful incentive for people to travel to the United States. Obviously, we understand people who want opportunity, people who are trying to flee violence. But the President has effectively encouraged children and their parents to make this treacherous, life-threatening journey by suggesting that he won’t enforce the law. The President himself admits that even under his deferred action order–his Executive order that he issued in 2012–these children wouldn’t be covered, but they come because they have the impression that they will be allowed to stay once they make it here”, said Cornyn.
Source: Congressional Record http://thomas.loc.gov/