The news for the last few days has been full of stories about the tens of thousands of children entering the United States illegally. According to the media, approximately 60,000 “kids” will be entering the country by the end of this fiscal year. Some reports indicate this is a tenfold increase over years past. While this phenomenon has been underway for some time, it has only recently become a political issue and is now headline news. Government officials in border states and Washington have expressed concerns over the situation.

Officials should be concerned. These are, in many cases, young children. Children who will need care ranging from medical issues to food and housing. There is also the longer term problem of what to do with them.

The concerns and potential problems involving the minors are being discussed on the news, and hopefully among the proper authorities. However, one thing that this writer has not heard mentioned is who is behind this invasion of child refugees. Stories are circulating that foreign officials are telling the kids to get to the U.S. and turn themselves in so they will have food, clothing and recreational time. Some critics say this is due to the weak immigration control position of the current administration.

It is clear the current policies in the U.S. are part of the problem. They give people hope of permanent residency or some form of amnesty if they can reach the border. The policies may be a motivation, but that does not explain how the illegal immigrants can afford this mass invasion.

Published reports indicate that families are paying between $3,000 and $9,000 dollars to have their children smuggled or transported to the U.S. border. While alleged costs of the smuggling fee may be exaggerated, the truth is the smugglers are not doing this for free. Someone is paying to have these children transported hundreds of miles to the Rio Grande. Where is the money coming from, and why is it being paid?

The idea that families in third world countries can come up with thousands of dollars to have a child smuggled into the United States is ludicrous. Either people in those third world countries are much better off than they want others to think, or someone is funding this underage invasion.

The estimate of 60,000 underage immigrants is mind boggling if one considers the money involved. With reported fees ranging from $3,000 to $9,000, the gross amount being paid to smuggle 60,000 children is between $180,000,000 and $540,000,000. That is a lot of money for people in places like Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador to raise. Which brings us back to the questions of how and why this is happening. Is this solely a humanitarian crisis, or is it something else?

The news and the internet are full of conspiracy theories about why someone might want to encourage this mass influx of children and young adults. They range from criminal motives to terrorism to economic warfare. No one knows for certain, but it should be obvious this is not a spontaneous invasion. Unless of course, it is the result of some internet video such as the one that was credited with initiating the Benghazi debacle.

At this point, no one seems to know why this influx of children and younger people has become so dire. That may be true, or it may be, as with other crises lately, that those who know are simply sitting on the information hoping to avoid further embarrassment or for some sort of political gain. Motivation and funding aside, there is another aspect of this matter that needs to be addressed.

This humanitarian invasion must be stopped. As an immigration attorney being interviewed on a news channel recently stated with a smile, “People are dying to get to this country.” He was holding a young illegal in his lap at the time, and did not seem to understand the damning nature of his smirking comment.

People are dying to make their way into the United States. Yet, many do not seem to care. If they do care, they display their callous disregard for human life by smirking into a television camera while trying to use the deaths as leverage in their quest to give amnesty to the inflowing hoard.

No one knows how many people of all ages have died trying to immigrate illegally. However, if 60,000 make it to the border, one can reasonably assume hundreds, if not thousands died without reaching the border. If that is not the case, all the horror stories immigrants and immigrant advocates tell about the situation are hyperbole at best.

Assume for the moment the horror stories are true. Children and adults are being killed, sold into slavery, forced into criminal life and worse while trying to make their way to the United States. If the U. S. does not take steps to stop this incursion, it will have the blood of those people on its hands, as will the smirking immigration attorney and his ilk.

The current administration needs to get off its collective behinds and make whatever changes are necessary to stem this flood at the source. One way would be to make certain people understand they will not find sanctuary at the border. Instead, the administration is going through its standard dysfunctional mode of hand wringing and finger-pointing. As a result of political dithering or political ploys, the United States has become the Pied Piper of the Western world.

Unlike the Pied Piper however, the United States has no justification for its actions. The Pied Piper was initially in the pest control business. He was supposed to rid the village of vermin, and only took the children when the village refused to pay. He believed he had been wronged and struck out at the people who wronged him. The United States through inaction, political dysfunction or warped ideology has gone straight to the enticing the children phase, leading them to their possible doom or worse.

Open border advocates preach the gospel of opportunity for the oppressed of other countries. They never consider the cost to the immigrant. Anyone with a minimal understanding of history should know that immigration is dangerous, even under the best of circumstances. It is especially dangerous under the conditions faced by people immigrating illegally across the U.S. southern border.

In closing, this writer has two final questions. There is little doubt children, and adults, are dying in the jungles, drug cartel hideouts and the red light districts on both sides of the border. They are enslaved and dying because they hoped to find a new life in the United States. Someone will end up paying for this travesty.

So? How many success stories does it take to pay for the loss of one of those children, and who is going to pay the Piper?

© S. E. Jackson – 2014