Hillary Clinton Still Doesn’t Get the Central American Child Refugee Crisis
During an event in Las Vegas yesterday, Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton spoke to reporters on several issues, including immigration, and attempted to clarify her previous response to the child refugee crisis in which she suggested the children fleeing violence in Central America be deported immediately.
From yesterday’s remarks, Sec. Clinton said, “Specifically with respect to children on the border, if you remember, we had an emergency and it was very important to send a message to families in Central America, ‘do not let your children take this very dangerous journey’ because a lot of children did not make it. They were robbed, they were raped, they were kidnapped, they were held for ransom by smugglers. So I think it was the responsible message, that I and many others, including the White House, was trying to say to families, ‘do not let your children, your young children do this.’ Now I think we have a different problem, the emergency is over. We need to be moving to try to get people out of these detention centers, particularly the women and children. I think we need more resources to process them, to listen to their stories, to find out if they have family in this country, if they have a legitimate reason for staying. So I would be putting a lot of resources into doing that but my position has been and remains the same.”
Cristina Jimenez, managing director of United We Dream issued the following statement,
“Frankly, it’s disappointing that Sec. Clinton stands by her out of touch and heartless remarks about refugee children.”
“To be clear, Sec. Clinton said that refugee children from Central America should be sent back into violence.”
“It’s also disappointing that after more than a year, she’s still unable to put herself in the shoes of parents having to “choose” between the threat of losing their children to forced gang recruitment, violence and possible death, or doing everything possible to keep them safe.”
“The journey that many Central American children have been forced to take is undoubtedly dangerous, but to place the blame on parents and offer them a lecture is patronizing and wrong.”
“While Sec. Clinton has joined the other Democratic candidates in speaking out against family and child immigration detention practices, she stands alone as a major recipient of campaign contributions from the Corrections Corporation of America (CCA) and the GEO Group, who operate many of these facilities and profit from the detention of each immigrant.”
KJ