Immigrant Surge Rooted in Law to Curb Child Trafficking

As tens of thousands of unaccompanied minors cross into the United States this year, immigration reform is stalled. The issues are related but not the same. Here’s why.  Image Credit: Eric Gay/Associated Press

nytimes.com - by Carl Hulse - July 7, 2014

WASHINGTON — It was one of the final pieces of legislation signed into law by President George W. Bush, a measure that passed without controversy, along with a pension bill and another one calling for national parks to be commemorated on quarters.

“This is a piece of legislation we’re very proud to sign,” a White House spokesman, Tony Fratto, told reporters on Dec. 23, 2008, as the president put his pen to the William Wilberforce Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act of 2008, named for a 19th-century British abolitionist. “This program has been very effective around the world in trying to stop trafficking in persons.”

Now the legislation, enacted quietly during the transition to the Obama administration, is at the root of the potentially calamitous flow of unaccompanied minors to the nation’s southern border.

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CLICK HERE - U.S. Department of State - William Wilberforce Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act of 2008