http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/sus ... nt-chicago
1000 Children Fleeing Violent Honduras Heading to Violent Chicago
(CNSNews.com) - A thousand children said to be fleeing the violence in Central America will be welcomed to Chicago, where local children are routinely in the cross-fire of gang-related grudges.
Mayor Rahm Emanuel, at the request of the Obama administration in which he formerly served, says he is working with local organizations to make room for up to one thousand additional unaccompanied children "traveling" from Central America to the U.S.-Mexico border in the coming year.
“The influx of unaccompanied child migrants is a growing humanitarian crisis that we can no longer ignore,” said Mayor Rahm Emanuel. “While we have our own challenges at home, we cannot turn our backs on children who are fleeing dangerous conditions. We will do our part to ensure that these children are given access to services and treated fairly and humanely.”
The city is also asking Chicago law firms to provide free legal assistance to the foreign children.
Emanuel on Wednesday said that his own grandfather left eastern Europe at age 13, all alone, to get away from the violence directed at Jews.
Likewise, "These kids are leaving violence," the Chicago Sun-Times quoted Emanuel as saying. "There are 1,000 kids. We are not only a city of big shoulders. We’re a city of big hearts, and we welcome them and get ‘em on their way. And we will also make sure that the city of Chicago has universal pre-K, universal kindergarten, expanding after-school programs, expanding summer jobs, because the test and measure of this city is how we treat our children.”
Based on reporting by Chicago Tribune staff, there were 440 homicides in Chicago in 2013, down from the 500 counted by the FBI in 2012. So far this year, 223 people have been killed by the Tribune's count, including an 11-year-old girl shot by a stray bullet at a sleepover with friends.
U.S. Rep. Luis Gutierrez (D-Ill.), an amnesty advocate who is pressing President Obama to stop deportations for most illegal aliens in the U.S., says he's proud that Chicago is leading by example in "welcoming migrant children and working with them as their cases are resolved."
The mayor's office said that earlier this month, the federal government approached the Emanuel about the possibility of housing Central American children in a federally-funded facility containing one thousand beds. The federal General Services Administration would oversee and pay for the renovation of the facilities while the Department of Health and Human Services would fund support services for the children, including education, health care, food, security, and legal assistance.
http://townhall.com/tipsheet/katiepavli ... s-n1861082
According to Border Patrol sources, violent MS-13 gang members are using the Nogales processing center in Arizona as a recruitment hub and as a transfer point for gang members to get into the United States.
The Red Cross has set up phone banks inside the processing center so unaccompanied minors can make phone calls to family members inside the United States and back home in Central America. According to sources, those phones are also being used by MS-13 members to communicate with gang members already in the United States and operating in cities like Atlanta, New York and Chicago. Further, many teenaged males inside the facility have approached Border Patrol agents and have said gang members have tried to recruit them from shared cells. According to the FBI, MS-13 regularly targets middle and high school students for recruitment.
"The National Border Patrol Council believes there to be serious security issues at the Nogales Processing Center. Agents' hands are tied due to the policies governing the care and lodging of juveniles and this has allowed gang recruitment and activity to flourish amongst those being detained," vice president of the National Border Patrol Council Shawn Moran tells Townhall. "Customs and Border Protection needs to do more to ensure that gang members that are in custody at the NPC are identified, prosecuted, and prohibited from benefiting from this crisis."
Earlier this week an internal Border Patrol summary confirmed at least 16 MS-13 gang members from El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala are being housed in the processing center after graffiti was found on bathroom walls. These same gang members admitted to acts of torture and murder in their home countries before heading north to the United States.
