Brownsville Non-Profit and Trump Administration Clash on the Handling of Undocumented Minors

Bishop Daniel Flores

People do whatever they can to get to a heaven that likely doesn't exist. They give ten per cent of their earnings to religious bodies, abstain from "sins," sell the Watchtower door-to-door, crash aircraft into skyscrapers, attach suicide bombs to their bodies, all for access to a make-believe "heaven."

For residents of the so-called Western Hemisphere, especially those in the throes of extreme poverty, hunger, likely also endangered by ruthless cartel gang-bangers, the closest, actual, real "heaven" is the United States, sometimes called "America."

America may have a less benevolent guy at the helm than in recent centuries, and, to a certain extent, some American citizens are less welcoming, embracing their fears and insecurities, forgetting the statue that rests on Liberty Island in Upper New York Bay.

But, except for a few hotheads in the Border Patrol, we treat immigrants kindly, even illegal or undocumented ones.  Volunteers scour the forbidding, arid areas of Texas and Arizona, searching for those foolishly, but understandably trying to go north on foot, feeding, watering and clothing them, taking them somewhere to safety.

Undocumented Children at Brownsville U.S.
Customs Facility

In recent years, many of these sneaking across our southern border are kids, well below the age of majority. Many of these kids crossing illegally are accompanied by parents doing the same, but, recently, many are coming here without their parents.

As Nena took this photo of the former Walmart, a rent-a-
cop, security guard tried to stop her.  She took the pic
anyway and several others.

Southwest Key, a non-profit, has set up a shelter for unaccompanied, undocumented minors in the former Walmart on Padre Island Highway.  As reported in the Brownsville Herald:

Southwest Key is federally funded by the Office of Refugees Resettlement. The group’s mission is to provide a safe environment for unaccompanied children while they wait to be reunited with a sponsor or relative in the U.S.

Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly

While the Brownsville shelter deals with unaccompanied children crossing the border, Trump's new Secretary of Homeland Security, John Kelly, wants to separate children from their undocumented parents at the border.  As Kelly explained:

"We turn them over to (Health and Human Services) and they do a very, very good job of putting them in foster care or linking them up with parents or family members in the United States."