Closer Look: Strangers in a strange land

LYNN – Seventeen-year-old Miriam Mendez tells how she and her brother, Marcos Soliz, spent weeks walking to a better future.They plodded through the deserts and mountains of Mexico from their native San Marcos, Guatemala, for days at a time without food, a bath or a break. They did so in the hopes they would find jobs and an education in a new land to support their impoverished family back home.”I decided to come here to get a better future, to work, to help my mom, my dad, and make money here,” Mendez said in Spanish in an interview with The Daily Item.Eventually she and her brother swam across the Rio Grande with the clothes on their back, diving in on the Mexican border and emerging on the other bank in the United States.A quick fact sheet on federal government’s unaccompanied minors programThey made it almost 2,000 miles from home before they were caught. Not long after crossing into Texas, U.S. border patrol agents apprehended the pair, who were alone except for a black-market guide, known as a coyote, who guided them throughout the dangerous trip for $3,000 per person. They still owe the coyote money.The agents turned the two unaccompanied minors over to the federal Health and Human Services department, which placed them into a network of shelters across the country, many of which are in Texas, while a pro-bono lawyer guided them through immigration proceedings and social workers scrambled to locate their family or appropriate sponsors back home or here in America.”They asked us, ?Why did you come to us, what are you going to do here?'” Soliz said. “We said we came to work and study ? that we have a family that’s very poor.”Eventually the two said they were released to a friend in Lynn, who signed papers proving he or she had a relationship with the youth and promised to supervise them in America.By the numbers
In fiscal year 2012, 71 unaccompanied minors settled in Lynn.
That’s 1/3 of all unaccompanied minors who came to Massachusetts in fiscal year 2012.
In fiscal year 2012, 13,00-14,000 unaccompanied minors were apprehended by border agents and turned over to the federal government. That’s double from fiscal year 2011.
Unaccompanied minors account for 5 percent of all illegal border crossings.
In fiscal year 2011, 77 percent of unaccompanied minors were males and 23 percent were females.
The majority were 14-17 years old.
They mostly come from Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras.
Congress approved $169 million in fiscal year 2012 for HHS’ program with unaccompanied minors.
Facts courtesy of The Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of Refugee Resettlement
Two of 70Mendez and Soliz are just two of about 70 unaccompanied minors who have showed up in Lynn this past year without any parent or guardian, requesting to enroll in Lynn Public Schools despite hardly any formal education, and confounding city officials about how to educate them.”There’s no clear explanation as to how they came here except what they share with us,” said Hana Walsh, the director of Lynn Classical’s English Language Learners department.Mendez and Soliz now attend afternoon classes at Lynn English High School, learning how to read, speak and write English with about 20 more Central American youth with stories just like theirs. Another 40 or so unaccompanied youth study at Lynn Classical High School during the day. All of the students range in age from 14 to 21.Their sudden presence is unlike anything the public school system has ever dealt with, said Eunice Aldrich, the director of Lynn Public Schools language support department.”We’re still trying to figure out the best way to handle this,” she said. “The speed at which it’s occurring is something we have to take a deep look at.”Unaccompanied minors from Central America started showing up in Lynn about three years ago, but never more than five at a time attended Lynn schools, said Gene Constantino, the principal at Lynn Classical. But in January 2012, about 17 came from Central