Flood of children is another signal reform is needed

A humanitarian crisis is playing out along this nation's southern border. As many as 90,000 children are expected to cross into the United States this year, according to The Associated Press, most of them without their parents or other adults. For the most part, they are refugees from the horrors of their Central American homelands, El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala. These are countries plagued by poverty, drug and gang violence.
News reports about these children have again raised the issue of America's immigration policy. But no matter how desperate their plight, these youngsters have become the most recent pawn in the debate over one of our most politically divisive issues.
Look no further than Tuesday's defeat of House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, ousted in the Virginia Republican primary by a tea party candidate who's never held elective office. Cantor's demise demonstrates how toxic immigration can be to a politician. Never mind that the nation's growing Hispanic population makes dealing with this issue politically inevitable.
Xenophobia, often fed by thinly-veiled racism, has a storied history in this nation. Virtually every immigrant group has faced it to some degree. We pride ourselves on being a nation of immigrants, a refuge for the tempest tossed, but when it comes down to it many Americans would be just as happy if the doors were slammed shut on newcomers and even happier if many the newly-arrived simply left.
Politicians long ago learned to cater to Americans' darker side and exploit our fears. They've long been helped by a cooperative media. But little in our national history -- not even when William Randolph Hearst controlled 25 percent of the nation's newspaper circulation -- compares to the torrent of fear-mongering flowing from FOX News. There is nothing fair or balanced or, often, even factual about the rabid-baiting analysis offered by Rupert Murdock's network commentators. That's what was so startling (and welcome) about what FOX's Brit Hume said Monday concerning those thousands of children now trapped in an immigration purgatory.

Brit Hume

Hume: "The immigrant children illegally crossing American borders by the thousands have triggered a logistical, humanitarian and law enforcement crisis to which current US immigration policy has no satisfactory answer. It may be tempting to call for their deportation but that ignores an important consideration: what the minor children most of them unaccompanied by adults had to go through just to get here. Nearly all are from Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras, three countries plagued by extraordinary levels of drug and gang violence. Honduras now has the highest per capita murder rate in the world.
"These kids are not so much immigrants as refugees who somehow had to make it here by crossing the treacherous terrain of Mexico, a harrowing journey of a thousand miles or more. If this country had an immigration policy that gave priority to those who had shown the personal wherewithal to succeed and contribute in this country we would find a way to keep these hearty and obviously capable kids. Remember how well the Vietnamese boat people have done in America, their mettle having been severely tested by their arduous journey here after the fall of Saigon in 1975.
"We should try to keep these immigrant children here not because it’s compassionate, though it is, but because it’s the smart and self-interested thing to do."
Bret Bair: "We hear Brit these towns and cities along the border, Arizona, talking about it, how they’re overwhelmed by this stuff."
Hume: "They are and that’s a very serious problem that must be dealt with on an emergency basis. But I have seen some of these kids. A youth home where I serve on the board here in Virginia has taken in dozens of them. They are remarkable kids from what I have seen of them. They are well behaved. When meals are served some of them weep at the fact that they’re eating better than their families can back home. They wait til all are served before they’ll eat. They turn up at prayer services. This is an extraordinary breed of young children. They potentially could make an enormous contribution to this country if we can find a way to house them and care for them and let them stay."
Americans can differ on immigration policy. You can quibble about Hume's analysis. But you can't argue with the fact that a healthy immigration debate is needed. America needs to find a practical, workable solution. Demonizing people who are different or hold different views advances nothing. Hume himself became a target by offering a more measured, humane view of some tempest tossed children.
Unfortunately, Cantor's defeat Tuesday likely signals to those leaning toward common-sense immigration reform that there is nothing to be gained by pushing the issue. And, sadly, it gave those opposed to any type of reform an even greater license to cater to our fears.