re: WaPo: Obama Admin placed children with human traffickers

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Muh chirren doh......

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Last spring, as Central American children flooded into Texas in a way he had never seen in his three-decade career, Border Patrol agent Robert Harris decided to experiment.

His intelligence analysts estimated that 78 percent of the guides smuggling other migrants were Mexicans younger than 18 — teenagers often hired or conscripted by drug cartels that knew they would not be prosecuted if caught — and he wanted to attack this loophole.

Now, as a result of that decision, young Mexicans are being held for months without charge in shelters across the United States, sometimes without their parents’ knowledge. Since the program began in May, 536 juveniles have been held — 248 of whom have been deported to Mexico after an average stay of 75 days, according to Border Patrol statistics. Mexican authorities say some of these repeat border-crossers have spent as much as six months in U.S. custody while they await an appearance before an immigration judge.

During their detention, they are questioned by U.S. authorities and then transferred to a network of facilities run by the Office of Refugee Resettlement, part of the Department of Health and Human Services, across 15 states. While confined, they undergo psychological evaluations and take English courses. Some are allowed tourist-type activities, such as going to the beach or museums, according to Mexican consular officials in Texas. At least one youth earned a high school general equivalency diploma.

In the past, Mexican minors picked up by the Border Patrol normally would be deported by bus, sometimes on the same day they arrived. Some of these kids have been captured more than 60 times, and Harris’s officers have identified about 800 young smugglers operating in Texas. Human rights workers in Mexico and the United States say these kids are often forced to work for the cartels or risk retaliation against themselves or their families.

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