Immigration Think Tank Says Boise CC Resolution is Hypocritical

2014 picture of children being held in detention center – US Customs and Border Patrol photo

Washington DC (670 KBOI News) – While the Boise City Council is expressing their disapproval of the practice of separating children of illegal aliens from their parents at the border, a national immigration think tank asks where’s the outrage over parents subjecting their kids to the dangerous journey?

Margarite Telford with the Center for Immigration Studies tells 670 KBOI News, the people who are really responsible for the plight of the kids are their parents.

“I’d like to see your Council be just as outraged at that journey that these parents are taking with their minors,” said Telford. “Remember, this is like 2,300 miles of being on top of the trains, we have 1,700 I think, over a period of time, that just plain disappeared, 8 out of 10 girls and women are raped on the way up here.”

She says it’s also hypocritical of the Council to denounce the practice of separating families now, when it’s the Trump administration doing it, when they voiced no outrage in 2013 and 2014, when the Obama administration was doing essentially the same thing.

City Council President Lauren McLean says that’s because back then, it wasn’t as bad.

“I would say all of us have watched this issue over the years, with a grave concern for what’s happening. Our decision to take action last night (Tuesday) is reflective of the fact that what is happening right now is incredibly different than what we’ve seen historically, at a much greater scale,” said McLean.

However, federal government numbers tell another story. According to the Department of Health and Human Services, there are currently slightly less than 11,000 children being held in detention centers. In 2013, the US Office of Refugee Resettlement had more than twice the number of children — 25,000 — in detention centers.

Telford says short of Congress passing a law addressing the matter, the executive order President Trump signed Wednesday may not stand up in court…due to a 9th Circuit Court decision, which said kids have to be separated from their parents, while the parents are going through their asylum hearings.