Washington, D.C. (May 13, 2021) - Illegal immigration’s impact on youth and the criminal justice system was part of the discussion during a hearing entitled The Juvenile Justice Pipeline and the Road Back to Integration, held today by the U.S. House Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism, and Homeland Security. The uncontrolled influx of illegal immigrant minors, both unaccompanied and as part of family units, has severely strained schools, foster care systems, healthcare, and other social support systems that play a big role in juvenile delinquency prevention and rehabilitation.
Jessica Vaughan, the Center’s Director of Policy Studies, testified that “the uncontrolled entry of lightly vetted and vulnerable minors over the southern border exacerbates our criminal street gang problem and weakens the institutions that could otherwise be more effective in addressing juvenile delinquency and crime.”
Vaughan’s testimony noted that “Of course most of the new arrivals are not already criminals, or doomed to become criminals. Nevertheless, the same lax policies also enable transnational gangs and other criminal enterprises to grow their ranks, enlarge the pool of vulnerable youth from which they can recruit, and strain the institutions that otherwise might help prevent youth from entering the criminal justice system.” She continued in response to a question from Rep. Tom Tiffany (R-Wisc.), "MS-13... specifically sent out a directive a few years ago... to take advantage of the lenient border policies on unaccompanied minors to grow their ranks, to import new foot soldiers... to increase the gang's revenue."
Vaughan explained how lenient border policies have set off a new surge of illegal arrivals and how the screening of minors and sponsors is inadequate to detect and prevent minors from being placed in inappropriate environments that include labor and sex trafficking situations and participation in or exposure to criminal gangs. This means that some will end up in the juvenile justice pipeline.
According to numerous studies, unaccompanied minors are more likely to need counseling and other forms of care as a result of physical or emotional trauma suffered in their home countries, on the journey with smugglers, or after arrival in the United States. Services for them cost more than double what routine services cost for most immigrants and are typically provided through publicly funded state, local, or federal social programs. Vaughan calls for Congress to “act to stem the flow of new illegal arrivals in order to avoid expanding what some advocates refer to as the mental health branch of the 'school-to-prison pipeline."
Vaughan provided several recommendations to interrupt the juvenile justice pipeline, including “to provide job opportunities for youth. ... Teenagers are one of the groups that are most affected by our country's failure to control illegal immigration."
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