Holder seeks legal team for children on border

The Obama administration announced a program late last week that would provide attorneys for the young illegal immigrant children crossing in waves over the U.S.-Mexico border, saying they want to make sure the unaccompanied minors are getting fair legal representation. The joint project between the Justice Department and AmeriCorps, the government’s national service organization, aims to recruit 100 lawyers and paralegals to shepherd the children through the immigration system, making sure they are treated properly and can make claims for legal status or protection if they are eligible. Known as unaccompanied alien children, they are generally from Central America, are escaping poverty, abuse or dangerous gangs back home, and make the harrowing trek through Mexico and across the U.S. border. The government expects more than 90,000 of the children to be apprehended on the U.S. side of the border this year and more than 140,000 to be caught next year. That doesn’t include the tens of thousands more who avoid capture. The spike in children crossing the border without their parents has shaken the immigration debate. Some analysts say it’s proof that the southwestern border isn’t secure — and blame the influx on mixed messages from the Obama administration. In a draft memo dated May 30, Border Patrol Deputy Chief Ronald D. Vitiello warned that the all-hands-on-deck effort to manage the flow of children is distracting the Homeland Security Department from other critical parts of its mission, including going after gunrunners, drug smugglers and adult illegal immigrants. He suggested the government needs to find ways to deter illegal crossings — chiefly by punishing those who cross. “If the U.S. government fails to deliver adequate consequences to deter aliens from attempting to illegally enter the U.S., the result will be an even greater increase in the rate of recidivism and first-time illicit entries,” he wrote in the memo, which was viewed by The Washington Times...more