Posted on 07/03/2014 7:56:24 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
WASHINGTON – Congress seeks to stop an influx of unaccompanied children from Latin American countries as thousands continue to stream across the southern border – and wants enforcement to start with an “unambiguous message” from the Obama administration.
The House held three hearings last week on the crisis as federal officials struggle to slow the tide of young immigrants crossing the border.
More than 52,000 minors traveling without their parents have been caught crossing the southwest border illegally since October, including 9,000 in May alone. More than 250 children are being apprehended every day along the southern border.
Nearly two-thirds of them have crossed through the Rio Grande Valley section of the U.S.-Mexico border in Texas.
The surge in migration also includes 39,000 adults with children detained since October – an unprecedented figure. According to DHS data [1], the increase in unaccompanied children from El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras began in 2012 and has accelerated since then.
The massive wave of illegal immigration through the southern border has prompted outrage on Capitol Hill, particularly among Republicans who maintain that the Obama administration’s immigration policies have fueled the influx.
“Word has gotten out that, once encountered by Border Patrol agents and processed, thanks to this administration’s lax enforcement policies, one will likely never be removed,” said House Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.).
Goodlatte pointed to a report from Rio Grande Valley border officials saying 95 percent of migrants interviewed said they believed a new U.S. law would give women traveling with minors and unaccompanied minors a free pass into the U.S.
At a different hearing, House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Michael McCaul (R-Texas) also blamed the Obama administration for wrongly encouraging poor residents of Latin American countries to believe that they can cross the border with no repercussions.
“The tragic fact is these children are making a dangerous journey based on misinformation and the false promise of amnesty,” McCaul said.
He said the economic condition and violence in these countries that have led to the surge of youth trying to cross the border are not new.
“What is new is the series of executive actions by the administration to grant immigration benefits to children outside the purview of the law,” he added.
Republican lawmakers specifically criticized a program created by President Obama in 2012 that defers deportation for many young illegal immigrants. The president’s Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program allowed certain undocumented immigrants who have graduated from U.S. schools or served in the U.S. military to be protected from deportation and allowed to work in the country legally.
“This administration should send an unambiguous message that those arriving will be promptly sent home. I, for one, do not want to see another child harmed because we have not clearly articulated the realities on the ground consistent with current law,” McCaul said.
McCaul said the U.S. Border Patrol estimates that next year more than 150,000 unaccompanied children may attempt to cross the border.
“This is a crisis. It’s a crisis that’s been in the making for years,” he said. “One that we should have seen coming. But few concrete actions have been taken. The Department of Homeland Security and the United States government as a whole has been slow to act, turning a blind eye to the warning signs.”
Department of Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson told the committee smugglers have spread a campaign of disinformation that these immigrants will get a “free pass” once they cross the border.
Once they arrive at the border, the children are simply turning themselves in to the nearest Border Patrol agents. About three-quarters of the children come from Honduras, El Salvador, and Guatemala.
Johnson said he has sent an open letter to the parents of the children to inform them that DACA will not apply to the children arriving now or in the future in the U.S. He also said DHS is intensifying a public affairs campaign with radio, print, and TV spots in Spanish to emphasize the dangers of sending unaccompanied children to the U.S.
He said DHS has relocated agents from less active areas to the Rio Grande Valley to step up operations there. Johnson said the agency is considering sending 150 additional Border Patrol agents to the area.
DHS has only one permanent family detention center in Pennsylvania, with just 96 beds. The administration is dealing with the influx by creating temporary detention facilities on the border, including at military bases in Texas, to house the children before they can be transferred to the Health and Human Services Department (HHS).
Federal Emergency Management Agency Administrator Craig Fugate, who is heading the federal government’s coordinated response, said more capacity is needed to house the children and meet the processing requirements under existing law.
A 2008 law prohibits the U.S. government from immediately sending the children back to their home countries. Instead, the law requires the Border Patrol to transfer unaccompanied children to the HHS Office of Refuge Resettlement within 72 hours, where many are reunited with family members already living in the United States as they await deportation proceedings.
Fugate said the 72-hour limit for transfer is not being met. He said HHS has added over 3,000 beds at the temporary resettlement facilities and the Border Patrol is currently building a processing center and another one is expected in mid-July to meet the requirement.
Francisco Palmieri, deputy assistant secretary for the Bureau of Western Hemispheric Affairs at the State Department, said U.S. officials are working with their counterparts in Central America and Mexico to spread the word to families about the dangers of sending unaccompanied children to the U.S. border.
“Embassies in [El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, and Mexico] have launched aggressive public outreach campaigns to counter false messages and accurately portray the dangers of the journey,” he testified before a House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee.
An official of the U.S. Agency for International Development told the subcommittee that the agency is increasing funding of programs aimed at addressing the root causes of the mass exodus of Central America: high murder rates, gang and drug violence, poverty, lack of education and employment opportunities.
A bipartisan congressional delegation will visit the Rio Grande Valley sector of the border this week to get a first-hand glimpse of the situation.
These kids are probably already fornicating like rabbits even while in lockup.
This is a nightmare.
THANKS HUSSEIN!
Or forget multiple languages and just bus them all to the Hamptons.This nonsense should come to an immediate halt!
*******
That 1982 Supreme Court ruling is the reason we need Constitutional amendments like the following to try to control illegal immigration:
1. "School attendance: Only citizens, legal residents, those with special student visas can attend elementary, high school, and colleges in the United States."
2. "One parent must be a citizen before a newborn child is given automatic citizenship."
3. Felony: We must finally declare that crossing the border illegally is a felony.
Illegal parents come to the United States for the wonderful benefits that their children can receive, like a quality education and great health care. Can you blame them for making the dangerous, long trip with their young children, or sending their children by themselves with the hope that the United States will automatically let them stay?
I don't understand how a child can illegally cross the southern border one day and automatically be eligible to enroll in public school the next day. That is wrong.
I’ve seen this movie before-it features a song-and-dance about what should be done ro stop this from happening again, the next time. The current invasion will be dispersed amongst rhe citizenry to spread disease and crime, and further steal from them through redistribution.
Then Hussein & Co will instigate another “crisis”, which the GOP will be blind to until it’s a done deal, then they will do the same tap dance about how it needs to never happen again.
Exactly, only they don’t really lock it, they just put the lock on loosely while we’re looking, then when we are distracted by the next latest scandal, they sneak back with the “welcome, come this way” signs.
Congress doesn't 'do nothing'... Congress makes it possible for people to hire illegals without having to worry about consequences... they allow the children of illegals to be be educated free, they give freedom and the protection of our systems to illegals... AND they've hold out the promise of possible citizenship...
Yep, a letter will undo all of it...
Happy Birthday, Patriot
How do they know the parents can read?
How do you say “wink-wink” in spanish?
I call BS. If the feds actually wanted to enforce border security, this whole cluster.... wouldn’t even exist.
For all intents and purposes, by decree of obama, with full backing of the federal government, we no longer have a southern border.
Try to stop the influx of illegals if you dare, but expect to be either shot in the face by coyotes, cartel enforcers, or the mexican military -OR- get shot in the back by the county, state, or federal authorities.
Damned if you do, damned if you don’t. Either way the odds are stacking up against Americans.
RE: How do you say “wink-wink” in spanish?
guiño-guiño ?
Anyone wanna bet they posted that letter on twitter?
Was it strongly worded? Well, alrighty, then. That should take care of it.
Someone please show me the remarkable Postal Service in Mexico and Central America.
Somehow, I don’t think such exists.
SENDING a LETTER???
Do they really think Americans will buy this kind of story???
“More than 52,000 have been caught this year up to the middle of June”.
The Obama administration is saying that as many as 60,000 will come this year.
IF there already have been 52,000 ( I think there are more)......
Then how come another 6 months of their illegal crossing will only be about 8,000 more to get to 60,000????
There is nothing about these numbers that makes sense-—which is exactly what Obama wants us to think.
La Raza is happening right in front of us on a daily basis & the media is shoving it down our throats.
And parents in Central America will say: Why not, you aren't sending any back home who are already there, senor?
Only to assist in anyway possible......
Don’t send them. We’ll come to your door and pick them up!
Happy Birthday, Patriot
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