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U.S. NEWSSaturday 19 March 2016
Homeland Security using raids to curb border crossings
Aaron Marin Lopez holds a sign while standing with his family during a rally on Friday, March 18, who don’t win permission more than 474,000 cases.
2016, in Durham, N.C. in support of Riverside High School senior Wildin Acosta, who was arrested to stay in the United States Now Homeland Security
during an immigration raid on his way to school in January. would be sent packing. It Secretary Jeh Johnson is
comes at a time when Re- touting government efforts
(Kaitlin McKeown/The Herald-Sun via AP) publican presidential candi- to find and deport families
dates are pushing for tough- as well as those unaccom-
ALICIA A. CALDWELL cally stepping up efforts to ings. er immigration action. panied children who are
Associated Press find and deport unaccom- The politically fraught en- Homeland Security officials now adults and have been
WASHINGTON (AP) — The panied children and families deavor is a follow-through have kept a wary eye on ordered home.
Obama administration is who arrived in the U.S. in the on a nearly 2-year-old warn- the border since more than One of those unaccompa-
openly and unapologeti- 2014 surge of illegal cross- ing that those immigrants 68,000 unaccompanied nied children-turned-adults
children and roughly as targeted by Immigration
many people traveling as and Customs Enforcement
families, many fleeing wide- is 19-year-old Wildin David
spread violence in Cen- Guillen Acosta. He said he
tral America, were caught came to the United States
crossing the border illegally from Honduras by bus, car
in 2014. The effort to step up and on foot after a gang
enforcement against fami- member threatened his life.
lies and young immigrants “He’d say, ‘I’m going to kill
started in the midst of a new you, I’m going to kill you,’”
wave of such immigrants. Acosta said in Spanish. “I
Previous efforts to curb illegal told my mother, and she
crossings seemed to work ini- told me to come to the Unit-
tially, as the number of chil- ed States.”
dren and families making Speaking in an immigration
the journey dropped about jail in rural Georgia, Acosta
40 percent between 2014 said he was afraid to go
and 2015. But that number home.
started to rise again late “There’s a lot of violence,
last summer. At the same a lot of death,” Acosta
time, the immigration court said. “They’ll kill you for a
system faced a backlog of telephone.”q
