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Resolution in Support of Children in Need

 
  • Whereas, the United States is a country that has welcomed refugees and asylum seekers and others fleeing from their homes throughout its history;
  • Whereas, Lansing and surrounding communities also have welcomed refugees, asylum seekers and others fleeing violence;
  • Whereas, today children from Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala are showing up at the US border;
  • Whereas, Honduras has the highest murder rate in the world, El Salvador has the 4th highest and Guatemala has the 5th highest murder rate; [i]
  • Whereas, children in these countries are subject to recruitment by criminal drug-trafficking gangs to either sell drugs, kill people, serve as sex industry slaves or be killed for refusing to do so; [ii]
  • Whereas, there has been hate-filled and violent behavior directed against these children;
  • Whereas, there have been erroneous claims that by accepting these children and slating them for court hearings, the federal government is violating the law and Constitution, when in fact, it is following the law, specifically, the Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act signed into law by President George W. Bush in 2008 providing for the protection of children; [iii]
  • Whereas, there have been claims that the appearance of these children is a “crisis” and breakdown in security, in fact, the numbers of people apprehended at the border have been the lowest in more than 40 years; [iv]
  • Whereas, In fact these children are turning themselves into border patrol;
  • Whereas, “at no point in history has the border been as secure as it is today!”; [v]
  • Whereas, no child fleeing violence should ever be turned away from potential shelter or refuge;
  • Whereas, The city of Lansing, Michigan, has taken the lead in welcoming these children who are asylum seekers; along with many other supporters such as the Mayors of Syracuse, New York; Milwaukee, Wisconsin; Davenport, Iowa and the Governors of New Jersey, Massachusetts and Maryland and those who are yet to join;

 

 

Be it resolved that these children should be welcomed to freedom from harm; that Lansing is open to investigating options housing and caring for them and supports and encourages people and organizations who wish to do so, to offer to house these children as foster parents or in others ways to offer protection to these children while they are here.

 

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[i] UN Office on Drugs and Crime “Global Study on Homicide, 2013”, https://www.unodc.org/gsh/en/index.html.

 

[ii] “Children in Danger:  A Guide to the Humanitarian Challenge at the Border”, American Immigration Council Special Report, July 2014, http://www.immigrationpolicy.org/special-reports/children-danger-guide-humanitarian-challenge-border.

 

[iii] William Wilberforce Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act of 2008, http://www.state.gov/j/tip/laws/113178.htm.

 

[iv] US Customs & Border Patrol, Nationwide Illegal Alien Apprehensions Fiscal Years 1925 - 2013 http://www.cbp.gov/sites/default/files/documents/U.S.%20Border%20Patrol%20Fiscal%20Year%20Apprehension%20Statistics%201925-2013.pdf.

 

[v] David Aguilar, Deputy Commissioner of US Customs and Border Protection, “Immigration Bill Fails in Senate Vote”, by Julia Preston, New York Times, December 18, 2010. 

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