Omaha World-Herald - Amid Immigrant Influx at Border, Midlands Lawmakers Repeat Support for 2008 Law Aimed at Child Trafficking

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By: Joseph Morton

A 2008 law aimed at child trafficking is getting blamed for complicating the U.S. response to a flood of unaccompanied children from Central American countries, but Rep. Jeff Fortenberry is standing by his previous strong support for the measure.

"That was a very important bill," the Nebraska Republican told The World-Herald.
"Human trafficking is a modern form of slavery, and the United States needs to
project our conscience and our values in this regard, and I'm very proud of that effort."

The law -- which was passed with overwhelming bipartisan support -- provides various procedural protections for children who enter the country alone from countries other than Mexico or Canada. For example, they are entitled to an immigration hearing and consultation with an advocate. In the meantime, their care falls under the Department of Health and Human Services, which places them with sponsors or relatives.

In practice, the law often allows children to stay in the U.S. for years as their cases wend their way through the badly backlogged immigration court system, and often they don't show up for their court dates.

The White House points to the law as one reason it has had difficulty taking quick action on the thousands of children pouring over the border.
Fortenberry, an original co-sponsor of the 2008 law, acknowledged that it could be having some impact on the situation.

"This may be an unintended consequence of the law and may have further complicating factors in terms of repatriation, but that could be fixed immediately if that is the case," he said.

Fortenberry said the issue is much more complicated and nuanced than the current political discussion reflects.

"There are larger factors at play here -- high crime, desperate poverty, ungoverned conditions in Central America, as well as the signals that were sent by the president that we're going to decrease deportations," he said. "That sets the condition, the stage if you will, for exploitation of the law."

He said that Congress could tweak the law in some way that might help the crisis but that the administration should be focused on negotiating agreements with countries such as El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras that would allow the children to be sent back expeditiously.

"I am not going to accept the premise that the '08 law is the primary culprit here," Fortenberry said. "To divert all the attention to this and not the other factors is simply wrong."

Signed by President George W. Bush, the bill initially passed the House 405 to 2. On final passage, both the House and Senate cleared it with simple voice votes.
All House members from Iowa and Nebraska, Democrats and Republicans alike, supported the legislation on the initial vote, except for Rep. Adrian Smith, R-Neb., who missed it because he was attending his uncle's funeral at the time.
Smith spokesman Rick VanMeter said the current crisis is the result of the current president's "failed policies."

"Congressman Smith is considering a number of proposals to help address this situation including changes to the 2008 trafficking law," VanMeter said.

Rep. Lee Terry, R-Neb., said the 2008 law set up a system to ensure children weren't being sent back to a trafficker.

"That's good policy," he said. "But right now, the 90,000 who are expected to cross into our country have only heard the message that if kids come they can stay due to the president's unwillingness to enforce our nation's immigration laws."

Rep. Steve King, R-Iowa, said Obama needs to be aggressively pushing countries such as Guatemala to sign agreements easing the way for the unaccompanied children to return home.

"All he needs to do is put them (the children) on a military airplane and then call up the president of Guatemala and say, "Be on the tarmac in two hours.' That would get the job done," King said. "And I'm ready to cut off all foreign aid to the countries that wouldn't agree to that."

King downplayed the complications presented by the 2008 law but he also said that he has drafted legislation that would clarify the situation and "remove a talking point for the White House."

But he said he hasn't introduced that bill because he doesn't want to give the Senate any vehicle that could be used to pass "amnesty." Instead, he entered the bill into the Congressional Record and called on the Senate to pass it first as a stand-alone bill.

Some Democrats are resisting changes to the law, saying that the children coming across the border are entitled to due process and highlighting the horrible situations many are feeling in countries with rampant violence.

King took issue with that characterization, however.

"Aside from Honduras, there is no country south of us that has a higher murder rate than Detroit," King said. "So if we're going to take kids out of El Salvador or Guatemala and bring them to America because our heart bleeds for them because they're living in a more dangerous society -- we dare not take them to Detroit because we'd put them in a more dangerous society."

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