When President Barack Obama declared the surge of unaccompanied minors a "humanitarian crisis," immigration activists were hopeful the President would help thousands of women and children fleeing violence.
Late Thursday, Mexican authorities said they had processed 1,114 people from Honduras, El Salvador, Guatemala and Nicaragua — including 969 adults and 145 minors — for humanitarian visas.
Buchanan, A, From Nuremburg to Kosovo: The morality of illegal international legal reform, Ethics, vol. 111 no. 4 (July , 2001, pp. 673-705, UnivereprintedChicago Press (reprinted, with minor changes in Humanitarian Intervention: Moral and Philosophical Issues, Aleksandar Jokic, ed. Broadview Press, 2003)., [doi].
Buchanan, A, From Nuremburg to Kosovo: The morality of illegal international legal reform, Ethics, vol. 111 no. 4 (2001), pp. 673-705, UnivereprintedChicago Press (reprinted, with minor changes in Humanitarian Intervention: Moral and Philosophical Issues, Aleksandar Jokic, ed. Broadview Press, 2003)., [doi].
But the handover of the minors was considered a humanitarian measure ahead of the final deal.
The law has changed, but last year the number of unaccompanied Egyptian minors doubled, for reasons humanitarian aid workers say they do not yet fully understand.
None of this is to suggest that the horrors inflicted on the Syrian people are minor or acceptable, or that humanitarian aid is inappropriate; it just is not clear to me that expanded American military intervention would leave conditions much better, or that we are at all in any shape to try, either practically or morally.
Last week, Obama himself spoke out about unaccompanied minors, calling the influx "a humanitarian emergency" and urging congress to authorize additional funds for the care and housing of newly apprehended minors.
An agency spokesman said Central American minors can still apply for humanitarian parole, although their program has been eliminated. .
In the last several years they have fostered a minor renaissance in the culture of humanitarian aid.
