"I was a stranger and you did not welcome me."

[07pilt]

In Guatemalan villages, community leaders fear more children will be exploited. “This is a crime. This is human trafficking,” said Marleni Villeda, 46, who helps run a school for at-risk children, one of whom, she contends, recently left for the United States with a man who may not be a relative. “What is happening here is a tragedy.”


Often, these cases can be more complicated than they first appear. The families involved face hunger and threats of violence. There are disagreements about paternity and allegations of abuse. Far from a common practice, illicit “adoptions” seem to brand the participants with a scarlet letter in their own community.


'I don't have any support here'


For three months, Denys Adelmo Mejia lived like a fugitive. Gang members wanted to recruit the 23-year-old auto mechanic. He hardly ventured outside.


“One night, he told me, ‘Mom, I can’t take it anymore. I’m going to talk to the girl’s mother, and if she wants to give her to me, then I’m going to go,” said his mother, Teresa de Jesus Luna.


The girl’s mother was Gilda López, a 33-year-old maid who lived a few doors down, in a dirt-floor shack, the walls a patchwork of burlap bags and boards with exposed nails. Her five children, including the eldest, Elizabeth Dayana, 9, slept alongside her on a ratty slab of foam.


López, a single mother, left each morning at dawn to clean houses and came home 12 hours later. A month of this would bring in $60. In her home, there was rarely enough food.


When Mejia came asking for a child, López was willing to let her daughter go.


“I don’t have any support here,” she said, tears in her eyes. “And so I made the decision that my girl should leave.”

That decision has shaken this village of some 3,000 people, where gossip travels quickly. Town leaders, such as the mayor, and the head of the Catholic charity foundation, say Mejia, who left earlier this year, has no relation to Elizabeth Dayana, and they are concerned for her welfare.


Under the Flores settlement, CBP holds children in Border Patrol stations for no longer than 72 hours.


“Seventy-two hours is such a short amount of time to interview, and in places such as the [Rio Grande Valley of South Texas], you interview people as quickly as you can,” said one senior CBP official who works on fraud detection.


In recent weeks, the agency has processed nearly 2,000 people a day along the border with Mexico, more than half of whom are women and children. After turning themselves in to U.S. agents, most families can expect to be assigned a court date months or years away and released from custody after a few days. With existing detention facilities near capacity, the government has virtually nowhere to put them. In recent weeks, U.S. immigration authorities have been dropping off hundreds of newly arrived parents and children at church shelters and charities in Texas, Arizona and California.


Instances of adults traveling with minors who are not their biological children are not necessarily human-trafficking cases or fake “adoptions,” said Alejandra Colom, an anthropologist at the Universidad del Valle de Guatemala who works with adolescent girls in rural mountain areas facing high levels of emigration.


“In these small communities, a lot of people are related, and traveling with someone who is your cousin or distant family member is not the same as going with a total stranger,” Colom said. At the same time, she said, there is a “now or never” view that has taken hold in some rural areas where it is well-known that the way to gain entry to the United States and avoid immediate deportation is to bring a child. “They think they won’t ever have another opportunity again like this.”


In some rural areas of Guatemala, “adoptions” are viewed as both an economic necessity as well as a source of shame. The country was once a major source for foreign adoptions, which were sharply curtailed a decade ago amid widespread allegations of forged birth certificates, payoffs to lawyers and judges and cash payments to desperate mothers.


For a fee, dubious documents


Dina Casanga is 19 and has four children. The eldest, Benjamin, is either 5 or 6 years old, depending on which of his birth documents is to be believed.


Such documents, issued by the Guatemala’s National Registry of Persons (RENAP), are at the center of the controversy over true parentage in the disputed cases in Chanmagua. The town’s mayor, and other officials, allege the RENAP office in nearby Esquipulas will issue, for a fee, documents establishing a parent-child relationship, particularly for single mothers who did not have a father initially registered.


RENAP did not respond to multiple requests for comment.


Elmer Oseas Moran, 20, left Chanmagua with the young boy, Benjamin, in October, headed for the United States. In an interview with The Washington Post, the mother, Dina Casanga, first described Elmer as “the father” and later as “an acquaintance,” and said she did not know his last name.


Casanga’s father, Héctor Casanga, 50, disputes Moran is the boy’s father and is pressing a legal complaint against his daughter. He said he raised the boy for several years and that his daughter had no right to give his grandson to someone else.


In his cramped home, he showed copies of two RENAP documents. The most recent one, dated Oct 12, listed the boy’s last name as Moran Casanga, taking the last name of the man who left with him. But the earlier document shows his name as Casanga Vasquez, the same as the mother, and it had no information identifying a father.


“She named him as her husband, so he could take the boy with him,” said Héctor Casanga, the boy’s grandfather. “She invented that to take him away from me, and RENAP gave her a paper.”


Dina Casanga, who is unemployed and illiterate, said her father was an alcoholic and abusive and that her son would be better off in the United States. The man with her son will provide for him, she said.


“He is going to pay for someone else to take care of him because he has to work,” she said.

All of that an not a single legal benefit to crossing the border with a child.

 

[MegaPoke]

I think that's your cue to slink away.

Maybe.

Maybe it's everyone else's cue to look at your daily cautionary tale and understand that it's a waste of time to seriously engage you on anything.

 

[07pilt]

Maybe.

Maybe it's everyone else's cue to look at your daily cautionary tale and understand that it's a waste of time to seriously engage you on anything.

Still waiting on serious engagement

 

[07pilt]

BTW that's post number 9 with out you backing up the coyote claim

 

[Pokeabear]

Still waiting on serious engagement

 

[Medic007]

All of that an not a single legal benefit to crossing the border with a child.

Explain that one. How do coyotes use children to evade our laws?

Crossing the border with a child that's not yours so you get processed as a family unit instead of an individual certainly isn't an attempt to evade our immigration laws and is of no legal benefit. Individuals and family units are treated exactly the same under immigration law. There are no laws that deal specifically with children. There definitely wasn't a huge screeching recently when Trump tried to deal with the problem by separating families.

 

[Medic007]

I'm impressed Medic.
However, be careful mixing Jolt Cola with Redbull.

I have no idea how the article got all chopped up like that.

 

[07pilt]

Crossing the border with a child that's not yours so you get processed as a family unit instead of an individual certainly isn't an attempt to evade our immigration laws and is of no legal benefit. Individuals and family units are treated exactly the same under immigration law. There are no laws that deal specifically with children. There definitely wasn't a huge screeching recently when Trump tried to deal with the problem by separating families.

Should be easy to cite the law then

 

[Soonersincefitty]

Maybe.

Maybe it's everyone else's cue to look at your daily cautionary tale and understand that it's a waste of time to seriously engage you on anything.

Tru dat.
I'd rather bludgeon Harp seals.

 

[Medic007]

Should be easy to cite the law then

It's in the article, including the court rulings.

 

[07pilt]

It's in the article, including the court rulings.

No it isn't

 

[AC_Exotic]

While politicians dawdle and play political games with kids suffering at the border, the very people the OP likes to mock by taking Bible verses out of context are doing something about it.

Natural disasters. Floods. Tornadoes. Earthquakes. Human suffering.

They don't need to sit and wait and fight over billions in appropriations, they roll up their sleeves and do something about it.

https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-religion/3759959/posts

The world would be a much better place without religion. Amiright libs?

 

[07pilt]

While politicians dawdle and play political games with kids suffering at the border, the very people the OP likes to mock by taking Bible verses out of context are doing something about it.

Natural disasters. Floods. Tornadoes. Earthquakes. Human suffering.

They don't need to sit and wait and fight over billions in appropriations, they roll up their sleeves and do something about it.

https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-religion/3759959/posts

The world would be a much better place without religion. Amiright libs?

I don't think anyone is mocking the good Christians

 

[AC_Exotic]

I don't think anyone is mocking the good Christians

The only ones that deserve mocking is the gaggle of worthless do-nothings from both parties in DC.

They don't give a rip about the suffering kids at the border and the truth be told, they don't care about you or me.

 

[Medic007]

No it isn't

It is.

 

[07pilt]

It is.

No it lists the benefits of being a child at the border, not accompanying a child. As the Trump administration has already shown there is no law requiring adults be kept with children.

 

[Soonersincefitty]

I don't think anyone is mocking the good Christians

Like you just did?
Heretic.

 

[07pilt]

Like you just did?
Heretic.

Huh

 

[AC_Exotic]

I don't think anyone is mocking the good Christians

You want to bet the overwhelming majority of them doing something about the crisis down there voted for Trump?

 

[Soonersincefitty]

Huh

My holy God, you're obtuse, dull, not keen.
It's in that vein.

 

[07pilt]

You want to bet the overwhelming majority of them doing something about the crisis down there voted for Trump?

Kind of cancels it out then

 

[07pilt]

My holy God, you're obtuse, dull, not keen.
It's in that vein.

Maybe you aren't a very good communicator

 

[AC_Exotic]

Kind of cancels it out then

DC kind of cancels everything out.

Reagan had it right when he stated that the worst words you'll ever hear is this: "Hello. I'm from the government and I'm here to help."

 

[OUSOONER67]

You don't go to someone else's house and try to sneak in through their backdoor (Sys probaby does). Knock and come in through the front door (the LEGAL way) and be welcomed.
END OF STORY.

 

[Medic007]

No it lists the benefits of being a child at the border, not accompanying a child. As the Trump administration has already shown there is no law requiring adults be kept with children.

Yes, the "family" separation is still going strong. Nobody bitched that idea to its grave.

 

[07pilt]

Yes, the "family" separation is still going strong. Nobody bitched that idea to its grave.

Ah executive discretion not laws

 

[Medic007]

Ah executive discretion not laws

There are laws that pertain to the children.

 

[Medic007]

He won't come out with any cogent argument about how coyotes do not run a rent a kid program to take advantage of our asylum system. He'll just try to riddle you into a 10 post back and forth before meandering off topic.

You are clairvoyant, Mr. Cleo.

 

[Soonersincefitty]

Maybe you aren't a very good communicator

Yeah, that's it I'm sure.
Then again, maybe I'm talking to an eggplant on meth.

 

[07pilt]

There are laws that pertain to the children.

Yes but not adult companions

 

[aix_xpert]

My point is the laws on the books do not incentivize coyotes to bring children

Pilt is right. Its our choice by a number of states via Sactuary laws and congress through the lack of funding for immigration enforcement to not enforce the laws on the books that incentivizes the coyotes.

 

[Syskatine]

Guys, the OP didn't demonize or attack anybody. It was a picture. With something Christ said. That's it. The christians took this thread to 10,000 degrees in 5 minutes.

Cognitive dissonance. Coming up with every conceivable justification for the visual reality of MAGA's hate. Well, marinate in it, it's what you all voted for. Wrong side of history.

You all at one time or another read those OP red letters in church and you dont need a theologian or tv guy to tell you exactly what it means. Stick with those basics and you're not on the wrong side of history again.

If some grade A born followers could reconcile their self interest with their religion then this is about a 3 post thread.

 

[aix_xpert]

Guys, the OP didn't demonize or attack anybody. It was a picture. With something Christ said. That's it. The christians took this thread to 10,000 degrees in 5 minutes.

Cognitive dissonance. Coming up with every conceivable justification for the visual reality of MAGA's hate. Well, marinate in it, it's what you all voted for. Wrong side of history.

You all at one time or another read those OP red letters in church and you dont need a theologian or tv guy to tell you exactly what it means. Stick with those basics and you're not on the wrong side of history again.

If some grade A born followers could reconcile their self interest with their religion then this is about a 3 post thread.

 

[MegaPoke]

Still waiting on serious engagement

Exactly.

 

[ThorOdinson13]

Give me the context.

already did

Our last 2 exchanges you tortured plain NT language to make it mean what you want.

One thing I'll guarantee: whoever finally steps in and rescues these kids won't do it in the name of christ. These Christ followers defend it. Theyll find an excuse to protect theirs and their capital every time, as sure as the sun sets. Guar-an-tee.



Yes, you're the victim here.

You are confusing your ignorance of the text with what I said.

Thor is there context I'm missing for why imprisoning children is libertarian?

I oppose open boarders.....not very libertarian of me.

 

[ThorOdinson13]

yeah man, they practically rebelled against got, just like lucifer

Every person is to be in subjection to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those which exist are established by God. Therefore whoever resists authority has opposed the ordinance of God; and they who have opposed will receive condemnation upon themselves.

No they didn't...see the magna carta

 

[ThorOdinson13]

Not bullshit. What pork was in the House plan?

Well, he did fly over $65,000 worth of hot dogs into the white house from Chicago. Can you guarantee they were beef?

 

[07pilt]

already did

Glad to know that politics are outside of the purview of Christian morality

I'll just do all of my murdering via electing a hit man by committee.

 

[07pilt]

No they didn't...see the magna carta

What does the Magna Carta have to do with it?

 

[ThorOdinson13]

What does the Magna Carta have to do with it?

Why would I try to explain anything when your reading comprehension is deplorable? see below

Glad to know that politics are outside of the purview of Christian morality

I'll just do all of my murdering via electing a hit man by committee.