This is an interesting turn of events for a guy and his administration who had essentially created the current situation at the border
(NY Times) (NM) President Obama will ask Congress to provide more than $2 billion in new funds to control the surge of illegal Central American migrants at the South Texas border, and to grant broader powers for immigration officials to speed deportations of children caught crossing without their parents, White House officials said on Saturday.
Mr. Obama will send a letter on Monday (he obviously couldn’t do that Saturday, cause golf) to alert Congress that he will seek an emergency appropriation for rapidly expanding border enforcement actions and humanitarian assistance programs to cope with the influx, which includes record numbers of unaccompanied minors and adults bringing children. The officials gave only a general estimate of the amount, saying the White House would send a detailed request for the funds when Congress returned after the Fourth of July recess that began Friday and ends July 7.
The president will also ask Congress to revise existing statutes to give the Homeland Security secretary, Jeh Johnson, new authorities to accelerate the screening and deportation of young unaccompanied migrants who are not from Mexico. Fast-track procedures are already in place to deport young migrants from Mexico because it shares a border with the United States.
Mr. Obama will also ask for tougher penalties for smugglers who bring children and other vulnerable migrants across the border illegally, the officials said.
This seems like a serious and reasonable proposal from Mr. Obama. One has to wonder what the catch is, considering that, as mentioned, it was his administration policies that created the “humanitarian crisis” in the first place. Perhaps he’s realizing that there is zero chance of any sort of amnesty, er, sorry, pathway to citizenship, passing Congress, particularly the House, as long as he is seen by Republicans as being weak on border security.
Meanwhile, Nancy Pelosi headed to the border to meet with the Border Patrol and other law enforcement personnel, who are working hard to deal with the influx
(Breitbart) Saturday at a press conference from the Rio Grande Valley, Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) discussed her tour of a border holding facility and addressed the humanitarian crisis of thousands unaccompanied minors flooding across the U.S.-Mexico border, which she called a “humanitarian opportunity.”
Pelosi explained, “We are all Americans — north and south in this hemisphere,” and urged America to see this as not a crisis but an opportunity “to be helpful.” She also said she wished she could simply “take home” the thousands of children temporarily housed in the overburden facilities.
Oh, wait, no, she met with the illegals, and rather than excoriate them for breaking the law, she called them Americans. Powerline notes that Nancy has plenty of room at her mansion which would allow her to take quite a few home with her. And her vineyard has lots of space. “As long as they don’t try to join a union, anyway: the Pelosi vineyard is strictly non-union.”
Crossed at Right Wing News.
Teach you must be a fool to think that the letter to Congress would have made a diffeence if it arrived on Saturdau I mean was Congress in session?
There are two American continents, North and South, so technically all residents are Americans. Traditionally, US residents have preferred that only they be referred to as Americans, but other American nations are not obligated to abide by our conceit. There are some 44 countries and territories in North America alone, from the tiny Federation of Saint Christopher and Nevis (est pop = 51,000) to the United States (est pop = 318,000,000).
“The Obama administration has a lot of executive authority in enforcing immigration law. But when it comes to unaccompanied children, it actually doesn’t have much leeway to change policy. That’s because of a series of laws passed by Congress that set a particular process for unaccompanied child migrants as a way of fighting human trafficking. (These laws reinforced a 1997 government lawsuit settlement that set certain standards for care.) Most of this process was codified by Congress under the Homeland Security Act of 2002; Congress added some additional protections under the Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act, in 2008.
Under those laws, the Border Patrol is required to take child migrants who aren’t from Mexico into custody, screen them, and transfer them to the Office of Refugee Resettlement (a part of the Department of Health and Human Services).
The law tasks HHS with either finding a suitable relative to whom the child can be released, or putting the child in long-term foster care.” (http://www.vox.com/2014/6/16/5813406/explain-child-migrant-crisis-central-america-unaccompanied-children-immigrants-daca)
“Why are they coming to the U.S.?
Although there has always been crushing poverty in Central America, violence in the region has escalated in recent years. For example, Honduras has the most murders per capita of any country.
Drug cartels and gangs are at the root of the increased violence. Some of these children are fleeing gang initiations, according to several reports.
But not all the children fleeing the region are arriving in the U.S. They are also looking for refuge in Mexico and other nations, such as Panama, Nicaragua, Costa Rica and Belize, according to the United Nations Refugee Agency.
Meanwhile, false rumors are circulating throughout Central America that the U.S. is giving families and children traveling solo permisos, that is, documents to permanently reside in the U.S.” (http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-ff-immigration-answers-20140621-story.html)
It’s called the United States Of America, so if you didn’t come here legally, you broke the law and are an illegal immigrant.