The door is wide open for young Mexican gang members to enter the United States to be reunited with their families, frustrating border patrol personnel who are powerless to stop them,
The Washington Times reported.
Border Patrol union representatives say that even youths with tattoos
identifying them as members of the Mara Salvatrucha gang have unrestricted access to the country.
"If he's a confirmed gang member in his own country, why are we letting him in here? I've heard people come in and say, 'You're going to let me go, just like you let my mother go, just like you let my sister go. You're going to let me go as well, and the government's going to take care of us,'" said Chris Cabrera, of the National Border Patrol Council Local 3307 in the Rio Grande Valley,
according to National Review.
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Cabrera said that only tighter restrictions on who can may cross the border can stem the flow of minors.
"Until we start mandatory detentions, mandatory removals, I don't think anything is going to change. As a matter of fact, I think it's going to get worse," Cabrera said.
Meanwhile, Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., said her staff had confirmed that Mexican radio outlets have been putting out rumors that the doors to the U.S. are open to minors from Mexico and Central America. This has led to a deluge that is overwhelming Border Patrol stations.
The rumors are being instigated by human traffickers,
according to The Washington Post.
Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson insisted that children regardless of age who are illegally entering the U.S. "are priorities for removal," the Post reported.
They do not qualify under the administration's "dreamers" program. Homeland Security plans to use television, radio, and newspaper advertising in Latin America to dissuade parents from sending their children to the U.S. in the hands of smugglers.
Most of the 47,000 children who have arrived illegally at the U.S. border in 2014 are from Mexico and can be immediately deported. Minors from other Latin American countries cannot be turned away and
must be sent to a shelter pending efforts to unite them with a relative, NBC reported.
Republicans accuse the administration of stoking illegal immigration by sending mixed policy signals, the Post reported.
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