The Logistics of Deporting 57,000 Immigrant Kids

摘要

In recent weeks, President Obama and congressional Republicans have begun to offer the same simple-sounding solution for dealing with the flood of children crossing the U.S. border alone: Send the kids home. But with tens of thousands of them churning through the system, some just toddlers, the logistics are overwhelming. A decade ago, the Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR), which cares for minors soon after they are picked up, handled just 6,200 kids a year. By 2013 that figure had ballooned to almost 25,000. Since October, more than 57,000 children have arrived by themselves, most from Central America, and 22,000 more have been detained with their parents. While the majority of those caught are teenagers, the greatest increase has been among children younger than 12.