Airline offers to send illegal immigrant children in US separated from families back home for free

Mexican airline Volaris is offering free flights home for illegal immigrant children in the United States to be reunited with their families.

In a statement released on Friday, the airline said, "It hurts us to see these children without their parents and it is our vocation to reunite them."

So, what's the plan?

Coordinating with authorities in the U.S, Mexico, and numerous Central American countries, Volaris said it will provide free seating for the children to all the locations on their pre-existing routes — roughly 65 destinations in North and Central America.

Volaris also said in its statement that "Since its founding, Volaris' mission has been to unite families. Families belong together and our commitment is to help them stay together to better build their future."

What about American-based airlines?

The generous move by Volaris is quite opposite to the response made by several US-based airlines days earlier.

American, Frontier, Southwest and United Airlines all made public announcements this week, saying that transporting children who had been separated under President Trump's "zero tolerance" policy would run counter to their own corporate goals and missions to connect people.

Further, the statements put out by US-based airlines were more focused on having "no part of" what was referred to as "new immigration policies." American Airlines said specifically: "We have no desire to be associated with separating families, or worse, to profit from it. We have every expectation the government will comply with our request and we thank them for doing so."

The statement from United Airlines' CEO Oscar Munoz also said "we have not seen evidence these children have been flown on United aircraft."

A Department of Homeland Security spokesman, Tyler Houlton, responded to the public stances taken by some US-based airlines, saying: "Despite being provided facts on this issue, these airlines clearly do not understand our immigration laws and the long-standing devastating loopholes that have caused the crisis at our southern border.

"Buckling to a false media narrative only exacerbates the problems at our border and puts more children at risk from traffickers."

In fairness, the goal expressed by each airline, including Volaris, is to have families be able to remain together. Wherever that might be, is the question at hand when it comes to immigration cases.