“According to INS spokesperson Karen Kraushaar, when minors enter the U.S. illegally – like adults, usually seeking democratic freedoms and economic opportunity, or fleeing persecution or war – the government takes great pains to locate U.S. relatives and typically manages to turn kids over to them within three days. In the thousands of instances in which such efforts fail, though, the agency places children into custody in one of some 90 facilities around the country – usually campus-like shelters run by nonprofit agencies, but sometimes in high-security prisons that incarcerate U.S.-citizen juvenile offenders. Meanwhile, the immigration courts consider whether the children will be deported. While that process averages a little more than a month, says Kraushaar, it can drag on much longer if there’s trouble finding a sponsor or if the agency fears that the purported ‘relatives’ are really smugglers who sell kids into indentured servitude or prostitution.” – Publisher’s description
