Pubdate: Thu, 24 Jul 2014
Source: Washington Post (DC)
Copyright: 2014 The Washington Post Company
Contact: http://mapinc.org/url/mUgeOPdZ
Website: http://www.washingtonpost.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/491
Author: Cathy Lincoln
Page: A18

AMERICANS' ROLE IN THE BORDER CRISIS

Several letters on the unaccompanied Central American minors 
attempting to cross the U.S. border have condemned the actions of 
these people, but it is the law-breaking by our own children and 
adults that underlies this crisis.

What impels Central American parents and children to undertake this 
migration of desperation is not only a misperception about our 
immigration laws but also violence caused by the appetite in the 
United States for illegal drugs.

Americans are complicit in the conditions these children face at home 
because we are the primary market for cocaine, heroin, slave labor, 
weapons and all the other illegal products that gangs exist to 
transport. We have a responsibility to provide a haven for those who 
merit it, however many there are. Who are we to tell a Central 
American parent, however sympathetically, that his or her child must 
face rape, extortion and forcible recruitment by criminal 
organizations when U.S. citizens' unlawful behavior is the foundation 
on which those criminal organizations are built?

Cathy Lincoln, Washington
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom