Flying Double Time


For the last two years the McAllen branch has averaged nearly 9,000 flight hours per year, yet just three years ago they were averaging half that. So what happened?


An immigration crisis of epic proportions began in 2013 when a surge of unaccompanied children from Central America sought entrance to the U.S. This influx reached crisis proportions in 2014 when tens of thousands of women and children from El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras migrated to the U.S.


Most women and children from Central America simply crossed the Rio Grande and turned themselves into the Border Patrol, relying on the partly well-founded belief that U.S. immigration and refugee law made special provisions for children.


The causes of this crisis are still hotly debated. Many conservatives believe it was sparked by President Obama’s 2012 decision not to deport young adults brought to the country illegally as children. The leniency extended to these “DREAMers” (so named from the Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors Act) led to more families hoping for similar treatment. In contrast, those with more liberal views say that Central American families were misled by rumors — often spread by profit-seeking


“coyotaje” smugglers — that their children would readily be reunited with relatives already in the U.S. No matter the reasons, the result is that McAllen’s sector became ground zero for the crisis and remains a hotspot to this day. Approximately 200,000 people will attempt to illegally cross the border this year alone.


FLYING DOUBL


46


May/June 2016


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