Parents, Do You Know Where You're Children Are
I've lived through some natural disasters and now what looks like another on a list of immigration disasters. Hurricanes and immigration disasters have caused serious dislocations in Miami that have had folks living in tents for extended periods of time.
The Mariel Boat Lift resulted in long term tent encampments. The relocation of these Cuban refugees was difficult.
"Under the new resettlement agreement, volunteer agencies are responsible for housing, feeding, clothing, training and finding jobs for the refugees for three months.
The Tent City residents, most of them young males, were found homeless, jobless and hungry in the streets of Miami this summer. Officials said many had been abandoned by the sponsors who got them out of the military-base camps that were the first home of the more-than 120,000 Cubans who came to the United States on the refugee sealift.
Miami first opened the Orange Bowl as a temporary refuge, but set up the tents under Interstate 95 as the pro football season neared."
Now the Miami Herald is reporting: The Department of Health and Human Services will visit Fort Bliss, a sprawling Army base near El Paso in the coming weeks to look at a parcel of land where the administration is considering building a tent city to hold between 1,000 and 5,000 children, according to U.S. officials and other sources familiar with the plans.
The problem of refugees is world wide. It is happening in North Africa, Asia, the Middle East, the Caribbean, South and Central America. The problem is huge, complicated, and expensive and at some level calls for more diplomacy and assistance to keep folks at home, rather than sending them on a dangerous trip to request asylum. Longer term resettlement plans need to be developed while longer term immigration reform needs to be developed.
The current situation has been self inflicted and confuses many of the immigration issues we face.
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