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Notes -
Think of the five year olds! It is a nice emotional appeal, but what does it actually mean?
My take on children who are not legally present is that they will either have a illegally present parent or their parents are in another country. It is a pretty weird edge case for one to have a legally present parent but somehow be illegally present themselves. If that is the case, then I 100% would prefer they become naturalized themselves over deportation.
If their parents are in another country, they were effectively kidnapped. They should be recovered and sent back to their parents.
If their parents are not legally present and have a final order of removal, then the child should also be deported with their parent. The fate of staying in the US and going into the foster system is not superior to keeping the child with their parents.
If the child was sent to stay with legally present relatives by their parents in another country, I still think it's better to send them back to their parents. How do we know that both parents consented to this? Otherwise we have to investigate a lot of domestic situations in other countries, which each might have their own custody laws, it's simpler and more ethical to send them back to their parents.
Ideally we would have a lot more family detention centers that look more like kindergartens than Alcatraz. We need a place to put kids and their guardians in a monitored and controlled way while we determine if they are even related to the people bringing them over the border. That would be my ideal. But deporting fewer five year olds seems like an odd goal when actually thought through.
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