Nazira Coury
R.A. James
Rhetoric 1030
17 November, 2014
Formal Speech: Immigrant Child Crisis at the Border
The news that thousands of unaccompanied children are crossing the U.S. border is just making headlines, but the surge has been happening for months, even years. Since October, more than 57,000 children have been caught traversing the U.S.-Mexico border without an adult. That’s more than double the number in 2012 and triple the number in 2011, according to the Department of Homeland Security. The U.S. Border Patrol was already noticing an increase in children coming up from Central America in the fall of 2011. Most of the apprehended children are between 14 and 18-years-old, according to the Women's Refugee Commission. These children come here for various reasons. Some come to avoid the growing violence that has taken over their countries. Other’s come due to the inevitable poverty that their families live in, and others just come to join their loved ones who have long been gone. Regardless of the different reasons, one thing is certain, the number of children has overwhelmed the U.S. Immigration System, which faces a backlog of hundreds of thousands of undocumented immigrants, according to the Associated Press. The government no longer knows what to do, President Obama is asking Congress for $3.7 billion to tackle the issue, which has become a flashpoint in the debate over immigration. I will be representing an activist group trying to get funding and support from