Not a Sack of Potatoes: Moving and Removing Children across Borders
![handle is hein.journals/bupi15 and id is 201 raw text is: NOT A SACK OF POTATOES': MOVING AND REMOVING
CHILDREN ACRO S S BORDERS
JACQUELINE BHABHA*
I've had a lot of experience with dealing with borders as the Governor of Texas.
I know there's a compassionate, humane way to deal with this issue.
-President George W. Bush2
[I]t's hard to see little children all alone in detention. Kids who are like 5 years
old. Sometimes they separate them and deport their mommies. I know, I have
seen it.
-Kasim, a teenaged asylee3
I. INSTITUTIONAL CHILD ABUSE: THE VIOLATION OF CHILD MIGRANTS' HUMAN
RIGHTS
Edgar Chocoy made two international journeys in his short life. He chose the
first himself at the age of fourteen-an overland solo migration from Guatemala, via
Mexico, to California. Edgar's purpose was to find what the Convention on the
Rights of the Child (CRC) stipulates for each child-a family environment, ...
I Posting of Casa-Alianza.org, owner-rapid-response@casa-alianza.org to rapid-
response@casa-alianza.org (May 11, 2004, 20:30 EST) (on file with Boston University
Public Interest Law Journal), available at http://www.libertadlatina.org/
LatGuatemalaMexicoImmigration Looses_ 13%2OYear Old_05-11-2004.htm. De-
scribing the case of a 13-year-old Guatemalan girl lost by Mexican immigration
authorities, Bruce Harris, Regional Director for Latin American Programs of Casa
Alianza, stated: You can't simply 'lose' a girl. She is not a sack of potatoes, she is a
human being [whom] Mexican and Guatemalan authorities are obligated by law to pro-
tect....Id.
* Jeremiah Smith Jnr Lecturer at Law, Harvard Law School
2 President's News Conference, 41 WEEKLY COMP. PRES. Doc. 84, 94 (Jan. 26, 2005),
available at http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2005/0 1/20050126-3.html.
3 Interview by Joanne Kelsey with Kasim (July 4, 2004), cited in JACQUELINE BHABHA
ET AL., SEEKING AsYLUM ALONE: UNACCOMPANIED AND SEPARATED CHILDREN AND REFUGEE
PROTECTION IN THE U.S. (forthcoming 2006) [hereinafter SEEKING AsYLUM ALONE: U.S.]
(manuscript at 75, on file with Boston University Public Interest Law Journal). This
child's name has been changed to Kasim to protect his anonymity. After an age dis-
pute, Kasim, a mentally handicapped Guinean youth, entered the United States at age
sixteen and spent nearly three years in detention while seeking asylum. See id.](ViewImageLocal?handle=hein.journals/bupi15&div=12&collection=&method=preview&ext=.png&size=3)
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Not a Sack of Potatoes: Moving and Removing Children across Borders
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