Isn't this just another thing AMERICANS wouldn't do?? Some "family values"!!?

Question

Most Popular Change Type Size Targeting child smuggling at entry ports may backfire
Kids face greater danger, critics warn
Daniel González
The Arizona Republic
Mar. 26, 2007 12:00 AM

A church acquaintance approached Brenda Aguirre with a proposition early last year. Would Aguirre, a U.S. citizen, be willing to bring two Mexican children into the United States illegally?

All she had to do was pick them up in Agua Prieta, Sonora, pretend they were her children and drive them back across the border and up to Phoenix. For her trouble, Aguirre, 25, would receive $500, plus the satisfaction of knowing the children would be reunited with their undocumented parents without a potentially deadly trek through the desert.

But things didn't go as planned. An entry port official in Douglas became suspicious when Aguirre presented Arizona birth certificates for her own kids, not the two Mexican children. Now, Aguirre is going to prison for 15 months. The children were sent back to Mexico. advertisement




The case shows the extremes to which parents living illegally in the U.S. will go to bring their children into the country, often putting their kids into the hands of strangers. It also shows the severe consequences for people lured into smuggling children. The heavy punishments are part of a new zero-tolerance government policy to combat a rise in child smuggling along the Arizona border.

The policy is keeping children out of harm's way, government officials say. But critics say the policy is having the opposite effect, driving desperate parents to take greater risks.

Until a few years ago, cases like Aguirre's were rarely, if ever, prosecuted. People trying to smuggle children through ports of entry were simply released and the children returned to Mexico.

Prosecutors in Arizona got tough after noticing that child smuggling was increasing and getting more dangerous, said Serra Tsethlikai, a federal prosecutor who oversees child-smuggling cases in the U.S. Attorney's Office in Tucson.

"We've made it a priority," Tsethlikai said.

Since 2003, when the new policy was instituted, federal attorneys in Arizona have prosecuted more than 140 child-smuggling cases and sought mandatory prison sentences. They also have pushed to strip smugglers with green cards of their legal status and deport them. Prosecutors hope the crackdown will send a message.

"Most of the women who do this are very sympathetic, but the crime is very serious," Tsethlikai said.


Illegal passage


Here's how the plan works: A relative of the children or a member of a smuggling organization will pay a U.S. citizen or a legal permanent resident anywhere from $100 to $800 to bring a child into the country, usually by falsely claiming to be the child's parent at a port of entry.

The person bringing the child across typically is a Hispanic woman.

"Usually you want to look the part," Tsethlikai said.

To bring the children across, the woman will use the birth certificates or other documents of her own children, or bogus documents, then attempt to walk or drive through a port of entry.

But the smugglers don't always try to bring the children across the border in plain sight, using such documentation. Children also have been found hidden inside piñatas and concealed behind car panels.

Once across, the children often are handed over to strangers at parks, stores, gas stations and shopping malls.

The children span all ages.

"We've seen babies as little as 1 or 2 years old," Tsethlikai said. "Often, (the children) have been drugged so they are sleepy. We can't wake them up. Later, the (smugglers) will admit they gave them Benadryl," an over-the-counter antihistamine and sedative.

At first, most of the women hired to bring children across came from border towns. But lately, officials have seen more women from Phoenix driving to Mexico to bring children across. That suggests organized smuggling rings have become involved, although prosecutors have not been able to link any of the women caught bringing children into the country illegally with larger networks, Tsethlikai said.


Increased risk


Aguirre knew she was breaking the law when she agreed to bring the two Mexican children, ages 3 and 5, into the U.S. illegally, her Tucson lawyer, Rubin Salter Jr., said. But she didn't know how severe the punishment could be.

"She did not know it was mandatory prison time," Salter said.

He said Aguirre's main motivation was not money.

"She wanted to help them. She could not imagine these children walking through the desert for several hours," he said.

Tighter border security has fueled an increase in child smuggling, experts say.

In the past, people who crossed the border illegally worked for a few months in the U.S., then returned home. Now, to avoid the risks of crossing illegally, many undocumented immigrants are settling in the U.S. and bringing their families here, said Eveyln Cruz, director of the immigration law clinic at Arizona State University.

"Some of these kids are trying to reunite with a parent or a relative in the U.S.," Cruz said. "Others are kids (who), because of extreme poverty or gangs in their country, are trying to get to the U.S. so they can help provide for their families back home."

Most parents don't want to send their children through the desert, so they try hiring someone to bring them through a port of entry, Cruz said.

Last year, at least 167 people died crossing the border illegally in Arizona, according to the Border Patrol.

Under the government's new crackdown, however, smugglers caught bringing children through official ports of entry are treated more harshly than smugglers who bring children through the desert, said Eric Marsteller, a Tucson lawyer who has defended several women accused of child smuggling.

That could push parents to take greater risks, he said.

"The risk is, with greater focus on the ports of entry, there could be the effect of more children crossing through the desert," Marsteller said.

These ILLEGALS are risking the lives of their kids, by entrusting them to STRANGERS, and by the deadly risks they put them through to have them SMUGGLED into this country! Yeah, some "family values" allright!!

Answer 1

I guess "better family values" includes human trafficking their own children. 60% of Mexican illegals had jobs before entering the US, so I don´t believe the hype that they were starving to death before making the decision to go to the US.

I live in central Mexico and everyone I know who entered the US illegally had GOOD PAYING JOBS in MEXICO. There was no need for them to go in the first place. None of them were unemployed. You can get a job making enough money to support yourself if you have a high school education or better in Mexico, and no it´s not hard. They charge for high school but it´s not always that expensive depending on where you go and government-run universities are FREE. There´s NO EXCUSE. The problem in Mexico is that many people don´t put a high value on education. If your parents only had a primary school education and you dropped out of middle school, they´re going to see you as better off than they are and equipped to go out into the modern world, not realizing that their logic is flawed.

Before I got a job here in Mexico my husband (who has only a high school education) and I were living off his salary alone, which was only the equivalent of 500 dollars a month and we were just fine.

Answer 2

Lots of poop on this question in terms of mass. Kinda like the illegal immigrant concerns we ar discussing here.
In short, when people line up to break the law, pay money to do so and then to a degree loose their lives in an effort to "only reach the promise land" it indicates to at least me, that we are nothing short of an all out war with people willing to die to be here.
While sympathetic to their needs, I wonder when the USA is suppose to stop letting (mostly Mexicanos) illegals into the USA without doing anything?
If we are going to take that approach, it would smarter and logical to simply take over Mexico in an agressive confrontation, just like the illegal immigrant issue has become towards the USA.
It's a war that is going on ...and the USA is losing that war big time.
As an American citizen that want's to trust it's government to do the right thing, at this point I don't think it is protecting me and my fellow citizens or the country.
I feel sorry for the Mexicanos. Perhaps they should stop having children to the degree they do. When does their problem become ours? When THEY stop being responsible for their own actions. That's what the word illegal implies and in fact describes.

Answer 3

by calling you a "racist" professional-amnesty supporters wish to make you sense ashamed of your beliefs. that's an exceedingly previous and effective trick. in truth, that's that they who might want to be ashamed. We would certainly be a united states of america of immigrants, yet that concept of a "united states of america" is incomprehensible with out the rule of thumb of regulation. that's appalling that American company leaders, bankers, and too many politicians are prepared to look any opposite direction as 1000's of thousands damage our immigration regulations, thieve identities,and proceed to fee human beings billions of funds in social facilities. Exploiting a exertions stress is worthwhile. NO united states of america interior the international helps foreigners to enter their united states of america at will. This desires to be stopped in the present day. you aren't any more a Racist for believing as you do.

Answer 4

It sounds like that lady was probably the best bet that that family had to bring their children safely. Wouldnt you agree that someone from your church is better than some coyote that you've never even met? Plus the fact that the children would have to walk through the desert with the coyote. I feel a little bad for the lady, since she is going to be in prison for trying to help them. Imagine, if you can while sitting on your sofa in your warm home, about how bad it must've been in their home town, for them to risk coming here in the first place, not to mention risking the lives of their children. I'dreally love it if you would take a trip to central Mexico, with only enough money to pay for your motel. Then get a job at a local place. Then tell all of us how easy it is to live in Mexico and that you would never come to the US illegally.

Answer 5

Family values: i mean "come on" teaching your kids it's okay to break another man country Immigration law, playing by the rules don't apply to you if you looking for a better life.

Answer 6

I'm just dying to get my info from a guy that calls himself "shoot illegals"!
Give me a break!

Answer 7

You really expect me to read all that?