Immigrant Children Cross the Border Seeking Refuge in the US

The New York Times posted an article on July 9 that started off in the most heartbreaking way possible. A seven year old boy’s older brother went missing in a small Honduras town, so naturally the little brother went on a quest trying to find his older brother, of course using the older brother’s forbidden bike in the process. A few days later they were both found dead, the older brother shot in the head, the younger brother tortured and beaten with rocks. They were among the seven children that had been murdered in that one neighborhood in the month of April. These children were victims of gang violence, and nothing was done about the murders.

Analysis of the thousands of immigrant children that have come to the US illegally in the recent months is showing that these children are coming here because of the dire situations in their home countries. The children from Honduras are coming the US to escape gang ridden conditions. For some children, if they refuse to join the gang, they are murdered. If they are forced into the gang and then try to leave, they are murdered. Some activists in the area say that sometimes cops will murder the children in an attempt to get rid of gangs altogether. These children leave their home countries to attempt the trip to the US, risking death, rather than the certain death that they face at home.

Although these are not the conditions that all of the children fleeing to the US are facing, there is a common denominator. All of the children are coming from areas where their lives are seriously in danger. Whether from lack of food and the risk of starvation, or horrible gang violence that American’s couldn’t possibly imagine, or civil wars that are putting people’s lives in danger, these kids are coming here seeking asylum, not to take jobs and mooch off the system. These children are coming to the US in hopes of being able to grow up without having to think about the life or death situations that gangs put them in. They want the rights that are so graciously bestowed upon Americans.