Johnson said that DHS is enforcing immigration laws consistent with priorities set by President Obama in November 2014, including public safety and border security. According to Johnson, more than 99 percent of people in immigration detention fit those enforcement priorities, and about 85 percent are in the top priority for removal. 60 percent of people deported by Immigration and Customs Enforcement today are convicted criminals, compared to 35 percent in 2009.

According to Johnson’s statement, the Border Patrol effected 34,463 apprehensions on the southwest border in June 2016, a decrease from May and April, but higher than the number of apprehensions per month in the first quarter of 2016. Overall, apprehensions are higher this year than in fiscal year 2015, but lower than 2014 and 2013. The number of apprehensions is indicative of the number of attempts to illegally cross the border, Johnson said.

Johnson said that he visited Central America in May, for the third time in two years. He said there was a need to provide a legal and safe path to the United States, and that many immigrants from Central America should be regarded as refugees. He also said that the “ultimate solution” is long-term investment to help with the humanitarian crisis and underlying problems in the region.

Since October 2013, more than 52,000 children have been taken into custody. Most are from Central America, and a large proportion are not accompanied by parents or guardians. Their numbers represents a ten-fold increase from 2009. Twice as many unaccompanied children arrived this year than did in the last.

In large part, the current crisis is fueled by violence in Central America. El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala are all facing high levels of gang violence, which is closely related to the illegal drug trade. According to the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees, 58 percent of the unaccompanied immigrant children are migrating for safety reasons.

This fact has led many organizations and officials, including the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees, to urge that the children be treated as refugees, even as immigration reform opponents blame the crisis on lax immigration policy and enforcement.

Other factors are also in play. For children from poor, rural parts of Guatemala and El Salvador, economic strain can provide the motivation to migrate. For those who already have family members in the United States, the desire to reunite with family may be central — especially because in Central America, the idea that children can easily reunite with U.S. relatives is prevalent.

The situation is complicated by the fact that the U.S. government cannot return migrant children from Central America to their home countries as easily and quickly as they can those from Mexico. This is a result of the Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act, a law designed to curb child trafficking. The law requires that children from Central America receive a court hearing before deportation.

Due to the influx of unaccompanied child immigrants, a years-long backlog has accumulated. Most children stay with U.S. relatives while they wait; the rest enter the foster care system.

Congressional sluggishness adds another layer of difficulty. This year, Congress has failed to pass anticipated immigration reform. In response, President Obama is expected to release an executive order which will address the child immigration crisis, as well as other aspects of immigration law.

A. Banerjee is a Houston immigration attorney in Texas. Before selecting an lawyer, contact the Law Offices of Annie Banerjee by visiting their website at http://www.visatous.com.

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While the children’s attempts to reunite with family members in the United States has garnered much attention and opened a new subject for discourse, another example of divided immigrant families, working through legal immigration, has been largely overshadowed.

Since October 1, 2013, some 57,000 children, mostly from Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala, have made their way from their countries — all of which are plagued by drug-trade-fueled violence — through Mexico and illegally into the United States in an attempt to reunite with relatives here. Most of the children have been caught by U.S. authorities and are being housed in temporary emergency shelters, pending a determination of their status. Several of the emergency shelters are in Texas, which has become immigration’s ground zero for these children from Central America.

And Texas is also is the hub of another phenomenon caused by immigration — the significant number of people who have entered the United States legally with an H-1B visa to work, but whose spouses have not been permitted to join them. The federal government grants 85,000 H-1B visas per year to highly skilled workers from overseas. Most work in the technology sector, with 70 percent in computer technology alone. Twenty thousand of the annual H-1B visas are reserved for immigrants with advanced degrees from U.S. universities and colleges.

Many of the spouses of H-1B visa workers are also well-educated, but no matter their credentials, they are not automatically permitted to accompany their spouses into the United States. Of those H-1B visa workers in computer technology, 26 percent of the men and 76 percent of the women are married, but in 2013, only half of the eligible spouses joined these workers in this country.

These statistics do not even account for the children of H-1B visa workers who have been left behind in India and other countries.

Spousal separation adds yet another dimension to the debate over immigration that policymakers Washington may have to address.

A. Banerjee is a Houston immigration lawyer in Texas. Before selecting an attorney, contact the Law Offices of Annie Banerjee by visiting their information filled web site at http://www.visatous.com.

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