RBP
07-08-2014, 11:32 PM
The White House on Tuesday formally requested $3.7 billion from Congress in emergency funding to deal with an influx of unaccompanied minors from Central America, a far higher amount than the Obama administration had previously signaled.
The money would go to several federal agencies: $1.6 billion to the Departments of Justice and Homeland Security; $1.8 billion to Health and Human Services; and $300 million to the State Department, administration officials said.
Funds would be allocated to send more immigration judges to the southern border, build additional detention facilities and add border patrol agents. The move is aimed at more quickly deporting the tens of thousands of women and children who have entered the country illegally across the border, most of them in the Rio Grande Valley in Texas.
“Today, I ask the Congress to consider the enclosed emergency supplemental appropriations request. . .to comprehensively address this urgent humanitarian situation,” President Obama said in a letter to House Speaker John A. Boehner (R-Ohio).
The administration’s comprehensive strategy represents a “super-aggressive deterrence and enforcement strategy,” a senior administration official told reporters, speaking on a conference call on condition of anonymity to provide more details.
The request also will include an additional $615 million to help the federal government fight wildfires.
Administration officials had previously said that they would be requesting more than $2 billion to help stem the recent surge of women and children from El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras. More than 52,000 unaccompanied minors and 39,000 women with children have been apprehended on the southern border this year, far more than in past years.
Obama, who will leave Washington on Tuesday evening, will visit Dallas on Wednesday and Austin on Thursday. Administration aides said he will not visit the border while in the state, but they said he will meet with local leaders to discuss the border crisis.
Boehner’s office said that the House Appropriations Committee and a separate working-group of seven Republicans on border issues would review the White House’s proposal.
“The speaker still supports deploying the National Guard to provide humanitarian support in the affected areas - which this proposal does not address,” said the spokesman, Michael Steel.
Rep. Hal Rogers (R-Ky.), the Appropriations Committee chairman, called the border crisis “extremely dire” and said it is “clear that additional funding will be needed to ensure the proper care of these unaccompanied children, to enforce the law, and to further secure our border so that these problems can be mitigated in the short term.”
The fiscal request does not include details about other measures that the administration said last week it would pursue, according to administration officials and lawmakers. The administration has told Congress that it wants statutory changes to make it easier to return children to Central America.
Under anti-human-trafficking laws signed by President George W. Bush in 2008, unaccompanied minors from non-contiguous countries are afforded greater legal protections than those who arrive illegally from Mexico or Canada. They are usually placed in the care of relatives, but many do not show up for their court hearings, which are routinely delayed for more than a year because of backlogs, officials said.
Democrats have balked at rolling back those protections. Late last week, 225 organizations led by the American Civil Liberties Union sent a letter to Obama warning that eliminating those safeguards could ultimately jeopardize the children’s lives.
White House officials emphasized that they believe it is important for the Homeland Security Department to have more flexibility to deport the Central American children.
In his letter, Obama said the administration “will continue to work with the Congress . . .to ensure that we have the legal authorities to maximize the impact of our efforts, including providing the Secretary of Homeland Security additional authority to exercise discretion in processing the return and removal of unaccompanied minor children.”
Officials also said they plan to step up detention for adults traveling with children, creating a place with 6,350 bed capacity for adults and using non-detention measures to track adults who are apprehended while traveling with children. They include ankle monitors to ensure that people make it to their hearings.
A Capitol Hill source had said Tuesday morning the figure would be $3.8 billion, but a fact sheet provided by the White House put the total at $3.7 billion.
http://i.imgur.com/YsdySam.png
The money would go to several federal agencies: $1.6 billion to the Departments of Justice and Homeland Security; $1.8 billion to Health and Human Services; and $300 million to the State Department, administration officials said.
Funds would be allocated to send more immigration judges to the southern border, build additional detention facilities and add border patrol agents. The move is aimed at more quickly deporting the tens of thousands of women and children who have entered the country illegally across the border, most of them in the Rio Grande Valley in Texas.
“Today, I ask the Congress to consider the enclosed emergency supplemental appropriations request. . .to comprehensively address this urgent humanitarian situation,” President Obama said in a letter to House Speaker John A. Boehner (R-Ohio).
The administration’s comprehensive strategy represents a “super-aggressive deterrence and enforcement strategy,” a senior administration official told reporters, speaking on a conference call on condition of anonymity to provide more details.
The request also will include an additional $615 million to help the federal government fight wildfires.
Administration officials had previously said that they would be requesting more than $2 billion to help stem the recent surge of women and children from El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras. More than 52,000 unaccompanied minors and 39,000 women with children have been apprehended on the southern border this year, far more than in past years.
Obama, who will leave Washington on Tuesday evening, will visit Dallas on Wednesday and Austin on Thursday. Administration aides said he will not visit the border while in the state, but they said he will meet with local leaders to discuss the border crisis.
Boehner’s office said that the House Appropriations Committee and a separate working-group of seven Republicans on border issues would review the White House’s proposal.
“The speaker still supports deploying the National Guard to provide humanitarian support in the affected areas - which this proposal does not address,” said the spokesman, Michael Steel.
Rep. Hal Rogers (R-Ky.), the Appropriations Committee chairman, called the border crisis “extremely dire” and said it is “clear that additional funding will be needed to ensure the proper care of these unaccompanied children, to enforce the law, and to further secure our border so that these problems can be mitigated in the short term.”
The fiscal request does not include details about other measures that the administration said last week it would pursue, according to administration officials and lawmakers. The administration has told Congress that it wants statutory changes to make it easier to return children to Central America.
Under anti-human-trafficking laws signed by President George W. Bush in 2008, unaccompanied minors from non-contiguous countries are afforded greater legal protections than those who arrive illegally from Mexico or Canada. They are usually placed in the care of relatives, but many do not show up for their court hearings, which are routinely delayed for more than a year because of backlogs, officials said.
Democrats have balked at rolling back those protections. Late last week, 225 organizations led by the American Civil Liberties Union sent a letter to Obama warning that eliminating those safeguards could ultimately jeopardize the children’s lives.
White House officials emphasized that they believe it is important for the Homeland Security Department to have more flexibility to deport the Central American children.
In his letter, Obama said the administration “will continue to work with the Congress . . .to ensure that we have the legal authorities to maximize the impact of our efforts, including providing the Secretary of Homeland Security additional authority to exercise discretion in processing the return and removal of unaccompanied minor children.”
Officials also said they plan to step up detention for adults traveling with children, creating a place with 6,350 bed capacity for adults and using non-detention measures to track adults who are apprehended while traveling with children. They include ankle monitors to ensure that people make it to their hearings.
A Capitol Hill source had said Tuesday morning the figure would be $3.8 billion, but a fact sheet provided by the White House put the total at $3.7 billion.
http://i.imgur.com/YsdySam.png