Orphans, the Border Crisis, and the Echo of God’s Love: Part 3 of 3

If you missed previous posts in this series: Part 1 / Part 2

We can—and must—do better for these kids who are part of the “border crisis”, because that is what followers do. We become the hands, heart, and mind of Christ to these children.

The immediate cost of caring for the children crossing our border is staggering. We spend $259 per day for each child in an immigration detention center. If we move them to foster care, that cost is $2,500 per month. Caring for children in long-term residential settings can easily run $90,000 per year per child. And yet…

These costs encompass only the immediate financial outlays. The truth is: orphan problems are always multi-generational. Add 50,000 children to the system today, and you have to factor in the subsequent generations who will almost certainly also fail: 150,000 in the next generation, and 450,000 in the third… The result is a burgeoning and dependent subclass of society for whom the cost of caring is absolutely staggering.

For a fraction of the per child cost we will spend on care once the children enter the U.S. system—with an almost guaranteed outcome of failure—we can instead provide transformational care for them in their own countries. There are hundreds of U.S.-connected, faith-based organizations currently working throughout Central America who are making a difference for kids just like the ones streaming across our borders. They provide safe, healthy homes, education, vocational training, aging-out programs with remarkable metrics of success, and, most important, these organizations give their kids the Hope of Eternity. Children in these programs make it—and they do so in their own countries and societies; in their own cultures. Equally important, as they graduate and are integrated into the communities from which they came, they begin transforming those same communities. Instead of perpetuating cycles of dependence, they help become the role model for cycle interruption, often becoming witnesses to the love of Christ.

Is every child in these residential centers successful upon graduation? Of course not, but the better programs do an exceptional job of transitioning mortal-risk children into young adults who are employed and in stable living situations. For example, at Fundacion Exodo, a small, evangelical residential care center in San Salvador, total care for children abandoned to the streets or trafficked in the city costs only $400 per month, but their kids are successful when they graduate. Instead of fostering another round of dependency, they actually become assets in their communities.

What do you think?