Thread by @YaelSchacher

You'd think, given this has been going on for a decade, policy makers would not be surprised. It's been pretty consistently large migration flow for many years. Something we should plan for and accept. Period.

https://twitter.com/MigrationPolicy/status/1370449516038660097

The flow started EARLIER than MPI tracks. And led to a major shift in the way that the UNHCR approached migration in the hemisphere. This was YEARS AGO.
unhcr.org/en-us/children…

Remember Enrique's Journey? A hugely important book, published back in 2007! Or the scholarship of Jacqueline Bhabha, who has been tracking the rise in child refugees all over the world for over a decade.

Bhabha wrote Children without a State in 2011. And other books afterwards. The kids have been coming for a long time. I think there is another problem.

The problem is that legal system we have to handle these kids in the US was CARVED out in the law that established DHS in 2002. It is what first sent kids to ORR. It's like, we'll make this exception to enforcement, but it's not really a full fledged humanitarian response.

And then the TVPRA made it about trafficking and non-contiguous territory. And left Mexican kids in a netherworld. And is only half heartedly in the best interest of kids.

Enrique's Journey by Sonia Nazario is still relevant. The path kids take is different. But many reasons they come are similar. Lots come because their parents are here. Passing legislation to regularize status of these parents is definitely part of the solution, not separate.

So it's not just administrations that have responded to a long term flow as a crisis every time. Congress too hasn't looked at the whole problem. And we've got more families coming now. But not much protection at all for them. So the kids will keep coming alone.