What about the children?

For the last few months America has been the target of a tidal wave. It is a tidal wave of humanity from across our southern border, a tidal wave of people, a tidal wave of children — unaccompanied children in most cases. Nearly all come from Central America. It is a flood stemming from countries like Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua. Fueled by the lowest of the low, the Coyote — traffickers of human flesh to our borders for money in the dirty trade of illegal immigration.

The fuel used to delude desperate families is a law signed by then President George W. Bush. It’s called the “William Wilberforce Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act of 2008.” What was a humanitarian act to protect children in cases of human trafficking has turned into a free-for-all flood.

It was designed to ensure children in the process of being deported back to their home countries a measure of protection from going back to a problem they were trying to flee or sending them into harm’s way. It delayed the process to make sure all is safe. Great idea.

Sadly, it has been distorted to make people believe that all children sent north will live in the U.S. Hence the huge numbers of children joining wave after wave of people trying to cross over the border.

We have always had problems with illegal immigration on our borders both north and south. What to do about it has become a game of hot potato. And no one wants to play. Why? Politics. Politics has locked the entire issue up until it is nearly impossibility to solve.

We need to find answers and to take action or a set of actions to slow the flood down to a trickle.

And then is the issue of what to do with those children. That old law does state we must take measures to ensure there is a safe place for them to go. Some want to just turn them back by the planeload. What if it is back to certain harm or death? That law says we can’t. Morally we can’t. We must do everything humanly possible to make sure they get the best chance of being returned to their loved ones.

And the rest? I have a few suggestions. Separate the smugglers of drugs, drug money, weapons and people from the rest. Throw them to the tender mercies of justice systems and prisons of their country of origin. They are far worse than ours.

Beef up our border patrols and processing personnel to handle the load.

There must be due process. Whether the outcome is amnesty, sanctuary, refugee status or deportation. The adults and children need that. They also need to be humanely housed and fed until the entire process is concluded. This must be in accordance of U.S. and international law. There will deportations. Sad to say the current administration holds the highest record of deportations in U.S. history.

We must find ways of helping those countries in Central America and Mexico fix their problems with drug cartels, gang violence, extreme poverty and whatever else is afflicting them, forcing many to flee. That they would even think of sending their children on a journey that is often fatal proves how desperate they are. Just how many never make it, both child and adult, is unknown and I shudder at the thought.

We need to educate people who want to immigrate here on the right way to go about it. We must streamline the process and make it user-friendly for all. We should show them the right path so they, too, can take part in the American dream of freedom — freedom without fear.

Now as to the political game, the blame game, the toxic partisan mess that has given us all this nightmare ready to explode in our faces: it stops now. Take up that hot potato, take the heat and work together to end this. This must include everyone from the President all the way down to the most junior of senators and congressmen, as well as all the parties and their supporters. Is that really too much to ask?

If some of you say, “yes” to that last question, then we will have failed utterly. Failed as a nation and as a people. It can be done. It has to be done. It can work without turning our beloved country into a forbidding walled fortress armed to the teeth. That is the stuff of a science fiction nightmare.

Something has been forgotten with all this. Something fundamental. A symbol of what America has come to mean for many seeking freedom. As a grandson of immigrants, this symbol has great meaning to me. Perhaps we need to step back and remember.

She stands in New York harbor, torch held high. A plaque in bronze sits inside her base. Placed there in 1903 is a poem written by Emma Lazarus in 1883 called the “New Colossus.” I will leave you with the last few lines to think about.

“Give me your tired, your poor,

Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,

The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.

Send these, the homeless, tempest- tost to me,

I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”

Wasilla resident Daniel D. Grota retired from the U.S. Army after more than 21 years of service.