Migrant children go to school in the morning and go to work at night
Near 0:00 at night, in a large factory in Grand Rapids city (Michigan state, USA), workers are still rushing to work. Among them is Carolina Yoc, 15 years old.
A year ago, Carolina overland traveled more than 1,000km from her hometown of Guatemala to the US in the hope of changing her life.
A year later, every day, she only goes to two places: the school by day, the factory by night.
But Carolina wasn’t the only juvenile “worker” in the factory.
Carolina Yoc (back, right) arrives at school right after her shift. My deskmate also works night shift at a factory – Photo: NEW YORK TIMES
Before working as a porter at the same factory, in the same shift with Carolina, Kevin Tomas worked at a component manufacturing workshop of the famous Ford automobile company since he was 13 years old.
Every day, he works until 6:30 am, then without a break, he immediately prepares to go to school.
“We don’t like this job. But we have to do it to support our family,” Kevin shared honestly.
Immigrant children go to earn money to support their families
In 2008, the US government allowed minors who were not from Mexico to live with a conservator while they were waiting for naturalization.
The guardian is usually a relative or acquaintance of the children, but in many cases can be a complete stranger. These children are registered and protected by the US Department of Health and Human Services.
In fact, those immigrant children are under the tremendous pressure of earning money to send back to their families back home.
More than half of them come from Guatemala, where the economic crisis and the COVID-19 pandemic have made life extremely miserable. Across the country, the only way to make ends meet was to receive foreign exchange sent back from the United States by relatives.
Children are waiting for the US border patrol to complete their documents at the Roma border gate, Texas – Photo: NEW YORK TIMES
U.S. Customs certainly won’t let adults into the country, but they’re not allowed to deny hungry children thousands of miles away from home alone.
Across the United States, these kids have no choice but to do hard, age-inappropriate jobs: 12-year-old roofing workers in Florida, 14-year-old bakers for Walmart, supermarket workers. 13-year-old employee standing at Ford parts factory…
In 2017, the US recorded at least 12 immigrant children died at work, the newspaper reported The New York Times Compiled from state and federal occupational safety reports.
Among these are a 16-year-old case who died under a bulldozer in Atlanta, another 15-year-old boy who unfortunately died when he fell from a 15m-high roof, or a 14-year-old food delivery worker died of an accident. traffic accident.
Immigrant children – delicious bait
When the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services was required to process immigrant children cases more quickly, safeguards such as guardian background checks, case studies, and child tracking were lax. .
Since then, poor children in Central American countries have become good prey for bad actors to take advantage of.
Notebook of what Nery Cutzal once owed to his guardian – Photo: NEW YORK TIMES
Nery Cutzal met his guardian via Facebook when he was 13 years old. This guy convinced him to come to America, promising to send him to school and take care of him.
However, as soon as he arrived in Florida, he asked Nery to accept a debt of up to $ 4,000 and forced him to find a place to live.
From there, Nery had to work until 3 a.m. every day at a Mexican restaurant to pay off his debt. He was only released when he accidentally contacted the authorities, and the other guardian was arrested.
However, cases like Cutzal are rare. In the past 10 years, federal prosecutors have only prosecuted 30 cases of forcing unaccompanied immigrant children to work, according to figures released by the newspaper. New York Times synthetic.
Immigrant children “missing”
Adolescent workers leave the night shift at a meat factory in Worthington, Minnesota – Photo: THE NEW YORK TIMES
In the two years 2021-2022, the US has received up to 250,000 cases of unaccompanied immigrant children. Of these, only a third were sent to live with their parents.
The rest are sent to live with relatives, acquaintances or even strangers. In which, more than 85,000 children disappeared immediately after being sent to stay with their guardians, accounting for more than half.
Guardians, schools, and authorities are faced with difficult ethical choices: turn a blind eye to children doing dangerous jobs, or force children to stop going to work, directly pushing them and their families into deep water. than in poverty.
Source: postsen.com
