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  • 2014-08-24 (xsd:date)
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  • Iowa Shoved Back (en)
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  • The most common response to the question of why an Internet-circulated political item describes events we haven't heard about on the news is because the referenced events didn't take place. Such is the case with this rumor positing that Iowa governor Terry Branstad refused to allow 124 undocumented children to remain in his state and instead chartered a flight to return them all to Honduras. The genesis of this account was an influx of undocumented children (primarily those fleeing violence and worsening economic conditions in Central America) who were entering and remaining in the United States without satisfying any of the legal requirements for immigration. U.S. law prohibits the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) from immediately deporting such children if they come to the U.S. from countries other than Canada or Mexico; instead, the DHS is required to turn the youngsters over to the Department Health and Human Services within 72 hours. According to reports, however, most of these undocumented children were handed over to relatives or sponsors in the U.S., or simply released on their own recognizance, and were thereby illegally remaining in the U.S. rather than being sent back to their countries of origin: President Obama declared the issue to be an urgent humanitarian situation: Nonetheless, U.S. border facilities didn't have enough food, beds or sanitary facilities to provide for all the children entering the U.S., and critics took aim at the Obama administration and the federal government for not adequately addressing the situation -- including Arizona governor Jan Brewer, who objected to busloads of immigrant children being transported to her state: All of this background went into the example cited at the head of this page, a claim that Iowa governor Terry Branstad refused to allow 124 undocumented children to enter and/or remain in his state and instead chartered a commercial flight to return them to Honduras. That example is only true to the extent that Governor Branstad did indeed express opposition to housing such children in his state: However, the main thrust of this rumor was false because: According to local Des Moines press reports, the children referenced here were actually dispersed to the care of relatives throughout the state (or otherwise provided for) rather than being returned to their home countries: (en)
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