Why Can’t Congress Do More to Protect Migrant Children?

Our lawmakers are too busy, too divided, and too slow to get anything done on the border

Jennifer Victor
GEN

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Photo: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

There’s a human rights atrocity happening along the United States’ southern border, and Congress continues to do practically nothing in response. Why?

As unrest and violence in Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador continues to drive families from their homes in search of greater security, the U.S. southern border has seen a record number of families with children seeking asylum. Recent reports suggest the Trump administration separated thousands more children from their parents than initially reported in 2018. New York Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has caused a buzz by calling the camps housing the immigrants concentration camps. Her fiery words come in the wake of a number of immigration controversies: reports, including a recent one from the New York Times, that children as young as four months old have been taken from their parents; significant overcrowding in the facilities meant to house these migrants; and news that some migrants will be moved to facilities that once housed Japanese Americans in internment during World War II.

Both Democrats and Republicans in Congress have condemned Trump’s border policy, and polls show that most…

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Jennifer Victor
GEN
Writer for

Associate professor political science, Schar School Policy and Government, George Mason Univ.; Congress, parties, campaign finance, networks. Blogger @MisofFact