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 - --- MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom