Border Crisis: Unaccompanied Minors May Not Be Always Unaccompanied Or Minors

The ongoing humanitarian and law enforcement crisis at the southwestern border is being portrayed as an issue of a huge wave of unaccompanied children from Central America.

But that might not be the entire picture.

According to U.S. Border Patrol statistics quietly released on Friday, there has been a nearly 500 percent increase in family units illegally coming across the border since last year.

Analyzing these figures, The Daily Caller declared that “In the Rio Grande area where most of the migrants are crossing the border, the number of so-called ‘unaccompanied children’ was actually outnumbered by the inflow by adults, parents, and children in ‘family units,’ according to the data. The much-faster growth in ‘family units’ has been hidden by White House and agency officials, who have tried to portray the influx as a wave of children fleeing abuse and violence.”

The number of unaccompanied young migrants under 18 (officially termed unaccompanied alien children [UAC] by the Border Patrol) has increased from about 28,000 last year to almost 58,000 through July 2014, however. Family units entering the U.S. illegally have spiked to 55, 420 during this same time frame.

In general, the Border Patrol has been placed in a position of assuming that young men and women claiming to be minors are truly under 18 years of age since there is no documentation to the contrary.

As The Inquisitr previously reported, the Obama White House was warned two years ago about the looming border crisis but dismissed it as a local issue.

Homeland Security officials have been relocating these migrants around the country, often with little if any notice to state and local officials, thereby overextending social services budgets and resources. According to one report, undocumented aliens “with gray hair” have even sought to enroll as high school students in one community.

Although the Obama administration has insisted that many of these migrants will be deported, that seems unlikely, according to Congress. “Nearly two-thirds of unaccompanied illegal immigrant children requesting asylum this year have had their initial applications approved, the House Judiciary Committee reported… in data that suggests those kids surging across the border who ask to stay will likely be able to gain admission to the U.S.”

Deportations have bogged down as immigration lawyers have geared up, the Center for Immigration Studies claims:

… anti-borders forces — on the left and the right — have counted on such passivity among the public to incrementally erode the American people’s ability to decide who gets to move here from abroad. They have devised endless opportunities to appeal deportation decisions, prevented the implementation of needed control measures, pushed relentlessly to pierce numerical caps, and created strong incentives against government functionaries saying ‘no’ to those who want to come. The motto over the doorway of the immigration office might as well be ‘It ain’t over til the alien wins.’ President Obama has turned up the heat over the past five years. Using “prosecutorial discretion” as a pretext, he has exempted the vast majority of illegal aliens from the consequences of their actions He has formally amnestied — without legislative authorization– more than a half-million illegal immigrants who claim to have come here before age 16. He is signaling that sometime this year he will unilaterally, and illegally, amnesty half or more of the roughly 12 million illegal aliens now living in the United States.”

Moreover, many illegal aliens released from detention centers on a promise to appear often don’t show up at their scheduled immigration hearing.

According to an IBD/TIPP poll, 60 percent of Americans want the unaccompanied minors in this latest illegal immigration influx sent home.

Although President Obama has so far been unwilling to provide National Guard resources to assist the overwhelmed Border Patrol, Texas Gov. Rick Perry is deploying 1,000 Guard troops to the Rio Grande Valley area. With patrol officers in part performing what amounts to daycare functions, sectors of the borderlands appear to be left undefended from traffickers, gangs, international terrorists, and other wrongdoers.

Do you think there is a solution in sight for the illegal immigration border crisis?