GOOD TRUMP: Trump Administration Targets Parents in New Immigration Crackdown

Border Patrol agent assisting undocumented minors 

after they crossed the Rio Grande from Mexico into the

United States in 2014. Credit John Moore/Getty Images

The Trump administration has begun a new tactic to crack down on illegal immigration, this time arresting undocumented parents suspected of having paid to have their children ushered into the country by smugglers.

When unaccompanied children are apprehended at the border — often after having been taken there by smugglers — immigration officials initiate cases for their deportation, a process that can take months or years. In the meantime, many of those children are placed with parents or relatives who crossed earlier to establish a foothold in the United States and earn money to send back home.

Until recently, those adults have not been priorities for arrest, even if they are in the country illegally.

But in February, President Trump’s Homeland Security secretary, John F. Kelly, signed a memo promising to penalize people who pay smugglers to bring their children to the United States, saying that the agency had “an obligation to ensure that those who conspire to violate our immigration laws do not do so with impunity.” This past week, Jennifer D. Elzea, the deputy press secretary for Immigration and Customs Enforcement, confirmed that arrests had begun.

In some cases, parents or other relatives who have taken in undocumented children may face criminal smuggling-related charges and the prospect of prison; in other cases, they will be placed in deportation proceedings along with the children. The administration said the arrests would deter families from putting children in the hands of smugglers for dangerous journeys through regions controlled by drug cartels.

The thousands of Central American and Mexican 

children that have come to the US border in the past few 

years are not getting here on their own

Though the American authorities have long sought to arrest human smugglers, sometimes known as coyotes, they had not paid much attention to the relatives paying the smuggling fees, until now. --->

Read the rest of the story HERE and follow a link to a related opinion below:

Immigration To Start Arresting Illegals Who Pay To Bring Kids To the US

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