US border patrol violated agency rules in deporting thousands of children

US Customs and Border Protection deported unaccompanied children from Mexico and Canada without documenting how they knew minors would be safe

US border patrol agents violated agency rules in deporting thousands of unaccompanied immigrant children from 2009 to 2014, according to a federal audit released this week.

The US Government Accountability Office audit said that US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) repatriated 93% of unaccompanied children under age 14 from Mexico and Canada without documenting how they decided that the children would be safe when they return to their home countries.

Jennifer Podkul, a senior program officer for the Migrant Rights and Justice program at the Women’s Refugee Commission, is one of several people to have questioned how effective the CBP process is in earlier reports.

“The part that is illegal is not that they have not been giving them documentation, the part that’s illegal is that they have not been adequately screening them according to the law,” Podkul said.

The GAO report was released on Tuesday, the same day that Immigrations and Customs Enforcement said it had released about 200 Central Americans in just over a week as it sped up the interview process used to determine whether those people would be in danger if repatriated. Advocates like Human Rights First say asylum seekers should generally not be held in detention centers.

Detention centers have been overwhelmed by the recent spike in unaccompanied child migrants, who primarily come from Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador, and cross the Mexico border to get into the US.

Last year, Barack Obama said the border crossing of more than 47,000 unaccompanied children that year was an “urgent humanitarian situation”.

There was a vast reduction in the amount of unaccompanied children who made it to the border in the first five months of this year, compared to the same period last year, according to a study released by Pew Research Center in April. This, as Mexico deports a record number of Central American immigrant children.

The screening process used to determine whether Mexican children could be endangered by being repatriated has been a long-held concern for immigration rights groups. While children under 14 from most countries go before a judge to have their safety determined, Mexican and Canadian children are exempt from this rule and are instead asked a set of questions by a border patrol officer or agent.

“CBP just does not have the training, the understanding of humanitarian protection, to make the assessment of these children from Mexico before sending them back to their home countries,” said Greg Chen, director of advocacy at the American Immigration Lawyers Association.

Chen said that the AILA’s primary concern is that the existing law assumes that an unaccompanied child can give a sufficient response to the questions while at a border patrol station, where they have likely been for a short time, and could be hungry, dehydrated and cold. “Can that child actually tell an agent, realistically, that he or she is afraid – and answer those questions well?” Chen said.

Under the Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act, border agents try to determine whether the child is a victim of trafficking, could become a victim of trafficking, has a fear of persecution and is competent to make decisions about their situation.

But, as the GAO report shows, there is little documentation to show that this process is being completed.

While children 14 and under are presumed to typically be unable to make such a determination, there is no documentation for how these decisions were made for 93% of Mexican and Canadian children detained from the fiscal years 2009 to 2014. In that period, the Department of Homeland Security apprehended more than 200,000 unaccompanied children.

Michael Tan, an attorney with the ACLU’s Immigrants’ Rights Project, said that the GAO report was troubling, but not surprising.

“It’s common sense that in order for CBP to meet its obligation under law, it has to be reporting what its agents are doing,” Tan said. “And of course, the fact that they aren’t, makes it very difficult, if not impossible, to hold them accountable to what Congress requires them to do.”

The murkiness of the documentation standards is exemplified in part of the GAO report which said that a CBP memorandum from 2009 instructs agents to document how they determined whether someone could make an independent decision on form I-213. This form includes biographical information about the immigrant and their encounter with federal officials. But, the GAO’s analysis of 180 cases from 2014 led it to estimate that none of the 15,531 forms for unaccompanied Mexican children from fiscal year 2014 included documentation of how they determined a child’s ability to make an independent decision.

Rebecca Gambler, the GAO’s director of homeland security and justice, said in an email that: “It is not a legal or statutory requirement; rather it is something required by CBP policy.”

CBP did not respond to an emailed request for comment. But in the report, the Department of Homeland Security said it concurs with 12 recommendations the GAO handed down in the report, including looking into how it can add to its process a way to document an unaccompanied child’s independent decision-making ability.

“We feel like this is a huge step forward,” said Podkul, who said this is the first time the government has agreed to speak with NGOs about the documentation issue.

En: theguardian

El sueldo mínimo vital solo cubre la mitad de la canasta familiar en el Perú

En años de bonanza económica el sueldo mínimo vital en el Perú jamás se elevó, pues los “tecnócratas” de aquel momento lo consideraban un atentado al mismo crecimiento. Hoy con una economía decreciente los argumentos de los empresarios es el mismo, que es un pésimo momento para elevar el salario de los trabajadores.
Como hemos sido testigos, en las últimas semanas las inconsecuencias y discrepancias para elevar el sueldo mínimo vital hicieron a un costado el tema de fondo, dejando la decisión de elevar la RMV en manos del presidente Ollanta Humala.
Son las mismas cifras del Instituto Nacional de Estadística e Informática (INEI) que revelan que el sueldo mínimo vital solo alcanza para cubrir media canasta básica familiar de un hogar compuesto por cuatro personas. La canasta básica de consumo por persona al mes asciende a S/. 303.
En base a este sustento así como en las constantes postergaciones para debatir el tema, la falta de planificación y los pocos criterios técnicos que existen para su evaluación, que la Central General de Trabajadores CGTP pide al presidente Humala que el sueldo mínimo suba a S/. 1.500.
Carmela Sifuentes, presidenta de la CGTP, comentó que  la propuesta de los trabajadores en las últimas reuniones del Consejo Nacional del Trabajo (CNT) fue duplicar la remuneración mínima vital que se encuentra en S/. 750.
Pero como es evidente, los empresarios se opusieron rotundamente y por ello en la última reunión del CNT el tema no prosperó.
“Nos ven como un sobrecosto laboral, para ellos nuestra opinión no vale y por eso exigimos una reivindicación del presidente Humala este 28 de julio”, aseveró Sifuentes.
No obstante, debe recordarse que en 2011, con el nacionalismo en el poder, se subió la RMV en dos tramos de S/. 75 cada uno. Para esa decisión el acuerdo fue logrado considerando la productividad y la inflación de aquel momento.
Es justamente este argumento lo que lleva a las centrales sindicales a rebajar su pretensión y se fijó un incremento de S/. 105 (14 veces menos que lo necesario para cubrir la canasta familiar).

Sin criterios técnicos

Según se pudo conocer ni eso aceptaron los empresarios sin que tampoco acerquen propuesta alguna, observándose una corriente de que la RMV quede congelada.
Trascendió que los gremios que más se oponen a elevar la RMV son la Cámara de Comercio de Lima (CCL) y la Asociación de Exportadores (ADEX).
Para el economista Armando Mendoza, un hecho que llama la atención es que en el Perú la discusión del alza de la remuneración mínima vital no pasa por criterios técnicos sino más bien políticos e ideológicos.
“El pago a los trabajadores se ve como una carga y no un derecho. Estamos muy lejos de establecer un sistema coherente que garantice un estándar o un nivel mínimo de ingreso para los trabajadores. En términos de sueldo mínimo estamos muy atrasados respecto a nuestros vecinos”, apuntó.
Informaciones oficiales ubican al Perú en el puesto 8 de 10 economías en Sudamérica en el ranking de RMV, siendo el primer lugar ocupado por Argentina que nos duplica en el salario mínimo.
“Hace una década que se discute cómo establecer un sistema equilibrado en el CNT que permita automáticamente y periódicamente ajustar el salario mínimo, pero hasta ahora no se resuelve no por motivos técnicos sino político-ideológicos”, lamentó Mendoza.

Claves

El congresista Justiniano Apaza exigió al presidente Ollanta Humala aumentar la RMV, pues debe considerarse el incremento en el precio de los alimentos y demás productos que conforman la canasta básica familiar.
Apuntó que el mandatario podría dar el anuncio del incremento en su mensaje a la nación por Fiestas Patrias. “Es el momento que el Presidente deje de lado las mezquindades políticas”.