Dreamer’s Refugee Camps

I have been hearing of an idea proposed by the President to set up camps in Honduras, and Guatemala to deal with the recent surge of minor children crossing our borders illegally.

The way I have heard it reported, is that in a humanitarian gesture, the president wishes to establish camps in Latin American countries to process these children before they undertake the perilous journey across Mexico to America. At first I was shocked that such an idea was even considered, with the numbers already reported that are here. Then I considered that there may have been some minor confusion and political posturing that was twisting the idea away from an idea that would make a great deal of commonsense. Or, I could have just heard wrong. Seems to happen a lot with this president. You know, things like subsidizing only participant in state health care exchanges, and not to participant in the federal exchange.  A Lot of misunderstanding there. Good thing we have the written law to refer back too.

That idea would be that you establish these “refugee camps” with the cooperation of the native countries. You bring in the United Nations to assist in the proper transportation, social, health, and sanitary concerns. Then you ship all of the minors and adult undocumented emigrants (refugees) from the U.S. back to the respective camps of their home country. From there they could be processed more efficiently, in a sanitary, safe, monitored, and controlled environment. This would also go a long way to alleviate the concern shown from the native counties political leaders, on monitoring the proper treatment of their citizens.

This would make the repatriation effort more efficient. You would be able to better able identify the children’s relatives and these children could be cared for in an environment and climate they are accustomed too.  Also, the actual cost to feed and care for these refugees would be less than scattering them to different locations in an unfamiliar culture and environment, and into an environment that has stresses the local citizens and infrastructure to a point that that may not be adequate to handle the sudden inflow of these new visitors. This may contribute to a growing animosity of the visitors that could hinder their assimilation into a new culture.

This would also enable other countries in the world to step forward and take in refugees that could not be repatriated (there may be a few legitimate cases), if that country so desires. Also, it would provide a neutral safe haven until status of the individual minor or adult is determined. And if their families wish to be reunited with their children, they will know where to find them, and not have to make the difficult journey to the U.S. to retrieve them. After all, I would be worried sick if my child undertook a treacherous trip thousands of miles from home. Of course, I don’t believe I would ever allow my child to do this. Although, children run away from home every day. However, we live in a world where it is considered impolite to judge the motivations and actions of others (unless you are a compassionate well educated and accredited government official). Otherwise, you are just a bigot or maybe worse a racist. Therefore, I will keep my opinion on parental responsibility to myself.

This idea make sense on various level. First, would be health care. Once you leave the U.S. jurisdiction, medicines become cheaper, due to lack of intrusive governmental over site and frivolous lawsuits. Second, food and clothing will become cheaper to feed these children for the same reasons. Third, you can hire local labor, which is definitely cheaper, and that will improve the lives of the indigenous citizens of the area surrounding the refugee camp. In Washington parlance, I believe they call this a win-win.

I would Imagine, that the overall cost for this massive effort would fall below the $3.7 or is it now $4.2 Billion that the president is seeking. Especially, if you get the cooperation of the local governments and the UN to help. Maybe even a few foundations and relief organizations would kick in to help solve this humanitarian crisis.

If this is what was really meant by the refugee camp trial balloon, than I will give the president my full support on this issue. If it was as reported. Then, does providing a shortcut and flight to the U.S. solve or aggravate the current problems facing immigration?