This entire issue is a human tragedy. It's much more than just "those horrible illegals crossing the border without permission".
I had read an article about how horrible conditions are with violence in countries like Honduras. Interestingly, shortly after that, I was at a restaurant and my waiter ended up being from Honduras. He was around 20 and claims his family came here when he was very young. He told me how horrible it is down there for his relatives still there. Basically, the country is ran by two gangs. Let's say the US is ran by the Crips and Bloods. You wear the wrong color? You're dead. You do slightly the wrong thing and piss someone off??? You're dead.
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Most of these kids coming across aren't Mexican. They are from countries further south where conditions are so bad families are willing to send their children north hoping to actually save their lives. This is exacerbated by false information being filtered down there by human traffickers on how easy the trip is and how wonderful life is once the kids are here.
For a long time, I have been an advocate of putting more military on the Mexican border to ensure the building civil war in Mexico doesn't spill over the border more than it already has. However, with these kids, it is an almost guaranteed death sentence if we either send them back or block them from coming across once they get to the border and leave them in the hands of the drug cartels.
We must start with a major information campaign in the countries these kids are coming from. Families have to have correct information as to what they are sending their kids into. Helping countries like Honduras get control of the violence in their countries might help. Heck, forget about violence in Syria...let's concentrate on something closer to home.
What to do with kids once they are here? We have to speed up the process they go through to figure out who they are and where they are going. If they have family in the US, we must quickly unite them. If they don't, then we must do something with them that is humane and help them get a better start on life. Very small children? Adopt them out to families wanting to adopt. A large number of couples go to countries like Russia, Indonesia, China...etc. to adopt kids. Have them adopt these kids. Older kids? Put them into something like a foster home.
None of this is a perfect fix. I'm sure someone can pick apart problems with my ideas. However, herding them into what are basically concentration camps long term is both wrong and is going to cause more problems down the road.
Sending them back for many is a death sentence.