Refugee children

U.S. Border officials estimate that by the end of this year they may have apprehended as many as 90,000 minors illegally trying to cross the border. Unlike previous illegal border crossings, these would-be immigrants are not mainly Mexicans. Most, an estimated three-fourths, are from Guatemala, Honduras or El Salvador.

Many of them are hoping by some lucky chance to be united with relatives already living, legally or illegally, in the United States. In the meantime, the overwhelmed immigration service and Federal Emergency Management Agency are trying to care for the youngsters as best they can, housing them on cots in vacant warehouses, as many as 1,400 in one warehouse.

Unlike previous illegal adult immigrants, these minors are not seeking economic opportunity and a better life. They are, most of them, simply trying to stay alive, fleeing, according to U.S. officials and aid workers on the scene, widespread murderous gang violence.

The fault of these mass migrations lies with their own countries— corrupt and ineffectual political and economic systems, lack of educational opportunity, oppressive class and ethnic divides. But the fault also lies with the United States’ inability to produce immigration reforms that are clear, enforceable and fair and, yes, have a path to citizenship.

It’s not for lack of trying; the last three administrations have tried, only to be balked by a divided and intransigent Congress.

In a Supreme Court ruling this week that was almost gratuitously cruel, the court found that the law required that immigrant children, who had played by the rules, had to go back and start all over again at zero if they turned 21 and their parents’ visas were still pending.

Regardless of how one feels about immigrants, there is something morally wrong about sending a 9-year-old back to a country where the choice is between not joining a gang and getting killed for it or joining a gang and likely being gunned down later.