From handing out\u00a0hygiene kits<\/a>\u00a0to providing legal briefings, United Methodists are working to ease the crisis of unaccompanied minors and others from Central America coming into the United States in sharply escalated numbers.<\/p>\n But church leaders find the extent of the need sobering.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s deepened my prayer life significantly,\u201d said San Antonio Area Bishop James E. Dorff. \u201cYou know, in most crisis situations, you can determine that there is an end point. And I\u2019m not sure where that is with this.\u201d<\/p>\n Recent months have seen a flood of Central Americans \u2014 primarily from Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador \u2014 making their way across Mexico and into the United States, apparently motivated by violence in their home countries and the perception that U.S. immigration laws and policies will allow them to settle here.<\/p>\n Unaccompanied minors detained for a border crossing come under the custody of the Department of Health and Human Services\u2019\u00a0Office of Refugee Resettlement<\/a>. That office expects to end fiscal year 2014 with 60,000 such referrals, compared to fewer than 14,000 in fiscal year 2012.<\/p>\n While media attention has focused on unaccompanied minors, there\u2019s also been an influx of children traveling with a parent.<\/p>\n \u201cThere are really two situations, and two categories of need,\u201d Dorff said.<\/p>\n Typically, the parents and children are briefly detained, given an immigration court hearing date, and released. Most will soon move on to try to connect with a family member in the United States, but they arrive at the border tired, dirty and with little in the way of clothes or food. Many unaccompanied minors detained while trying to cross the border fall, at present, under the\u00a0William Wilberforce Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act of 2008<\/a>, which passed the U.S. House of Representatives and Senate unanimously and was signed into law by President George W. Bush.<\/p>\n The 2008 human trafficking law, named for a famed British abolitionist, requires that children from countries not bordering the United States, including those in Central America, be given added legal protections before facing potential deportation. The bipartisan law requires that the children be allowed to appear at an asylum hearing and consult with an advocate, and it recommends that they have access to counsel to represent them and \u201cprotect them from mistreatment, exploitation, and trafficking.\u201d The law also directs the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to place the minors \u201cin the least restrictive setting that is in the best interest of the child\u201d and to explore reuniting them with family members.<\/p>\n President Barack Obama has asked Congress to give the U.S. Department of Homeland Security more authority to send children back to Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador more quickly.Reuters<\/a>\u00a0reported July 10\u00a0that U.S. Speaker of the House John Boehner has expressed support for changes to the immigration law that would let the United States deport children from Central America as quickly as it does those from Mexico. Some \u00a0families were deported back to Honduras on July 14. But on the same day, White House press secretary Josh Earnest said that it was \u201clikely\u201d\u00a0that immigrant children facing mortal danger in their home countries would be allowed to stay in the United States<\/a>.<\/p>\n [\/quote_box_right]<\/p>\n That\u2019s an opportunity for United Methodists eager to help.<\/p>\n \u201cThe basic thing we\u2019re doing is offering hospitality, in a way that is needed by the traveling Central American women and children who are coming through,\u201d said the Rev. Paul Harris, pastor of the First United Methodist Church in Laredo.<\/p>\n Harris and members of his church are part of the\u00a0Laredo Humanitarian Relief Team<\/a>, and are working as well with Laredo\u2019s\u00a0Holding Institute<\/a>, a community center that is a United Methodist Women National Mission Institution.<\/p>\n One of three local welcome centers for the new arrivals, the Holding Institute is offering showers and donated clothes.<\/p>\n Two other UMW affiliates \u2014 the\u00a0Neighborhood House of Calexico in<\/a>\u00a0Calexico, Calif., and the\u00a0Houchen Community Center<\/a>\u00a0in El Paso, Texas \u2014 are also serving as front-line centers for helping the parents and children. United Methodists have been providing Houchen with health kits and socks, said the Rev. Lourdes Calderon, pastor of Cornerstone United Methodist Church in Albuquerque, N.M.<\/p>\n Tobin Park United Methodist in El Paso is gearing up to be the fourth such welcome site in that city and in nearby Las Cruces, N.M.<\/p>\n \u201cIf it wasn\u2019t for us, all these people would just be released on the street,\u201d said Rick Snow, a real estate broker and missions chair of Western Hills United Methodist in El Paso, who agreed to be site coordinator at Tobin Park.<\/p>\n Elsewhere, such as in the Rio Grande Valley cities of Brownsville and McAllen, Texas, Catholic churches and ministries have taken the lead as welcome centers. United Methodists and others are providing volunteers and donations of shoes and other clothing.<\/p>\n \u201cEverybody\u2019s pulling together, all up and down the border, doing everything they can, and that is really a tremendous blessing,\u201d Dorff said.<\/p>\n The\u00a0United Methodist Committee on Relief<\/a>\u00a0has been a major supplier to welcome centers, providing 18,000 health kits in McAllen, Laredo and Brownsville, as well as making an initial $10,000 grant to the Southwest Texas Annual (regional) Conference.<\/p>\n \u201cThe churches have really been rising up and providing hospitality,\u201d said Greg Forrester, UMCOR\u2019s coordinator of U.S. disaster response. \u201cWe\u2019re looking for ways to support them in that effort.\u201d<\/p>\n Meanwhile, United Methodist Women made a $7,500 grant to the Holding Institute for air-conditioner repairs and other emergency needs, reported Yvette Moore for UMW\u2019s Response magazine.<\/p>\n Helping unaccompanied minors is proving much more of a challenge. The influx has prompted the opening of emergency detainment centers, such as at Lackland Air Force Base, in San Antonio, Texas.<\/p>\n But access is restricted.<\/p>\n \u201cWe have some of our United Methodist people who are working with others to see about what kind of assistance we can provide, but it\u2019s really been pretty much a closed operation,\u201d Dorff said.<\/p>\n One United Methodist group that has been able to help at Lackland is\u00a0National Justice for Our Neighbors<\/a>, which provides legal assistance on immigration issues.<\/p>\n Julie Flanders of the group\u2019s Austin office worked previously for the\u00a0Refugee and Immigrant Center for Education and Legal Services<\/a>, which is doing in-take legal work with unaccompanied minors held at Lackland, and briefing them on the legal process.<\/p>\n Through her contacts with the refugee center, Flanders secured for National Justice for Our Neighbors an invitation to help with the effort at Lackland. Beginning in August, bilingual lawyers from that organization\u2019s other affiliates will be coming to San Antonio to assist.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen this crisis hit the news, everyone here said, `How can we help?\u2019\u201d said Rob Rutland-Brown, National Justice for Our Neighbors executive director. \u201cWe\u2019re in a unique position to do that now.\u201d<\/p>\n Flanders already has spent two days recently at Lackland, working with unaccompanied minors. Nearly all, she said, came by bus or riding on top of a train.<\/p>\n \u201cThe baseline, the minimum, is that they traveled a long way and didn\u2019t have a lot of food on the journey,\u201d she said. \u201cThe average kid has suffered a lot to get here.\u201d<\/p>\n Dorff and the Rev. Laura Merrill, superintendent for the McAllen District of the Southwest Texas and Rio Grande Conferences, were part of a small group of United Methodists who got to visit July 11 with unaccompanied minors at a processing center in McAllen.<\/p>\n \u201cThere were the kids whose eyes welled up the minute we started talking, and there were the kids whose blank expressions never left their faces,\u201d Merrill said. \u201cThen there were the young ones who brightened and smiled \u2014 beautiful children.\u201d<\/p>\n Los Angeles Area Bishop Minerva G. Carca\u00f1o was among\u00a0a group of religious leaders who on July 8 visited the Oxnard, Calif., detention facility<\/a>, where about 575 children between the ages of 13 and 17 are held.<\/p>\n \u201cWe were not allowed to speak with the children, but they did greet us with \u2018Buenos Dias,\u2019 and \u2018Good morning,\u2019 and with many smiles,\u201d the bishop said\u00a0in a teleconference<\/a>. \u201cThey were clean and dressed in casual clothes and tennis shoes and looked just like U.S. children. They appeared healthy and happy.\u201d<\/p>\n She said many in Oxnard community are ready to help the children in various ways including foster care, but government rules do not allow for that kind of aid.<\/p>\n United Methodist leaders are urging financial donations to UMCOR and other relief efforts. Churches wanting to provide material donations or send volunteer teams need to do their homework, to see what\u2019s really helpful.<\/p>\n But bilingual volunteers, especially, are needed at some welcome centers.<\/p>\n \u201cPeople can come,\u201d said Harris, the Laredo pastor. \u201cWe have a way of housing temporary teams, six to 20 people, here at First United Methodist. And there are plenty of hotels in town.\u201d<\/p>\n The United Methodist Board of Church and Society<\/a>\u00a0is urging United Methodists to contact their members of Congress and ask that they not, in response to the crisis, repeal provisions in the William Wilberforce Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act.<\/p>\n Overturning or weakening that law, which Congress approved unanimously, would increase the chances that minors are deported to life-threatening situations, the agency maintains.<\/p>\n The agency has concerns that\u00a0President Obama\u2019s request for $3.7 billion<\/a>\u00a0in federal spending to deal with the crisis is skewed toward border enforcement that\u2019s unlikely to work.<\/p>\n \u201cThe immigration system will become more orderly when we begin dealing humanely with immigrants and address the root causes of why people are fleeing their countries of origin,\u201d said Bill Mefford, Church and Society\u2019s director of civil and human rights.<\/p>\n Many churches and conferences are having prayer vigils regarding the border crisis. Carca\u00f1o, for example, joined Bishop J. Jon Bruno of the Episcopal Diocese of Los Angeles in calling for July 18-20 to be an\u00a0Interfaith Weekend of Compassion and Prayer for Unaccompanied Minors.<\/a><\/p>\n Merrill hopes United Methodists will pray but also educate themselves on the conditions the immigrants are fleeing as well as U.S. laws.<\/p>\n \u201cI think as United Methodists we try to understand things of some complexity, and to understand them deeply,\u201d she said. \u201cI hope we take the opportunity to try to learn and read and not just believe the sound bites.\u201d<\/p>\n While President Obama and Congress are under pressure to find ways to slow the influx, the increased numbers of Central Americans here already have church leaders planning for a long-haul assistance effort.<\/p>\n Perhaps the best evidence is Dorff\u2019s decision to create a new position, director of United Methodist immigration ministries in South Texas. He is applying to UMCOR for help with funding.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re creating it in order to provide some assistance and direction and coordination, because of the issues we\u2019ve been presented with,\u201d Dorff said.<\/p>\n Going into that job immediately will be the Rev. Javier Leyva, whom Dorff described as a \u201cblessed saint\u201d for agreeing to go back to the Rio Grande Valley.<\/p>\n \u201cI just moved him less than a month ago from the Valley to San Antonio,\u201d Dorff said. \u201cBut the more I looked and saw and realized, the more I just knew we needed to have our very best person down there to work fulltime in immigration ministries.\u201d<\/p>\nAn offer of hospitality<\/strong><\/h4>\n
\n[quote_box_right]<\/p>\nU.S. LAW & UNACCOMPANIED MINORS<\/h5>\n
Limited access<\/strong><\/h4>\n
A plea for understanding<\/strong><\/h4>\n
Moved again<\/strong><\/h4>\n
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