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Tag: unaccompanied children
2 Texas Lawmakers Offer Bipartisan Bill To Combat Border Crisis

2 Texas Lawmakers Offer Bipartisan Bill To Combat Border Crisis

By Lisa Mascaro, Tribune Washington Bureau

WASHINGTON — In an unlikely partnership, two Texas lawmakers — one Democrat, one Republican — are proposing a bipartisan bill that would empower the United States to speed up immigration hearings in hopes of stemming the crisis of unaccompanied children at the border.

The proposal from Sen. John Cornyn, the No. 2 Republican in the Senate, and Rep. Henry Cuellar, a Democrat who represents the south Texas border region, comes as Congress pans the White House request for $3.7 billion in emergency funds to handle the migration crisis.

House Republicans are expected to consider alternatives to President Barack Obama’s proposal privately Tuesday. Many have said they will not support the administration’s request because it costs too much and does not provide policy changes to halt the flow of new arrivals.

About 57,000 unaccompanied minors have been apprehended at the Southwest border since October, and most are from Central America.

“Unless we do something like what Henry and I are proposing, those numbers will keep going up,” Cornyn said as he and Cuellar briefed reporters late Monday. “The money alone will not solve this problem.”

On Monday, the U.S. sent a planeload of Honduran mothers and children home in what officials called the “initial wave” of repatriations.
The Texas lawmakers’ proposal is likely to draw opposition from immigrant advocacy groups and some Democrats, because it would change a 2008 anti-trafficking law that guarantees children from all nations but Mexico and Canada a judicial hearing once they are apprehended.

But the proposal could lay the groundwork for an unusual alliance between the White House and the GOP. The measure could satisfy Republicans while giving the administration the new authority it says it needs to quickly deport the children and send a message to stop the flow of migrants.

“You’ve got to have changes in the policy,” said Cuellar, a five-term Democrat who has criticized Obama on the issue.

Cuellar just returned Monday from a weekend trip to Central America with House Republicans. The message from those leaders, he said, is that “they want their kids back.”

The proposal would change the special treatment children receive under the 2008 law, no longer guaranteeing them a judicial review once they arrive in the U.S. Instead, if Border Patrol officials determined that a minor might be eligible for asylum or other types of visas for children fleeing harm, the youths would be guaranteed a hearing before an immigration judge within seven days.

The proposal tries to strike a balance between gutting the 2008 law, as advocates for immigrants have feared, and expediting the judicial review that can now drag on for at least a year.

An additional 40 immigration judges would be added, as the White House requested, but the lawmakers would scale back other money the administration is seeking, including $1.8 billion to care for the minors while in custody.

A cost estimate for the Texans’ proposal was pending.

Photo: Los Angeles Times/MCT/Don Bartletti

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Texas Officials Encouraged By Obama, Perry Border Talk

Texas Officials Encouraged By Obama, Perry Border Talk

By Molly Hennessy-Fiske, Tribune Washington Bureau

DALLAS — Although President Barack Obama and Texas Gov. Rick Perry have sparred over the Southwest border crisis, officials who joined them for a Dallas meeting described fruitful discussions as well as occasionally tense exchanges.

Dallas County Commissioner Elba Garcia called Wednesday’s hourlong round-table meeting of local officials and religious leaders “cordial.” Obama did a lot of listening, she said.

“The president allowed all of us to speak, and everybody expressed their concerns,” she said.

Garcia, a Democrat and the first Latina to serve on the Dallas commissioner’s court, has fielded complaints from constituents upset by the border crisis, but also from those concerned for the Central American children pouring over the border.

About 57,000 unaccompanied youths have been apprehended at the Southwest border since Oct. 1, according to federal figures — 5,000 of them since June 15. Most crossed into the Rio Grande Valley after traveling north from Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador. The administration has appealed to Central American leaders to stem the movement north, and warned that most of the immigrants would be deported.

However, a 2008 law requires that children from all nations but Mexico and Canada get a hearing in immigration court, and those courts are backlogged.

At the Wednesday meeting, Dallas County Judge Clay Jenkins said he and other local officials had a “frank discussion” about the crisis with the president and the governor.

Perry renewed his call to deploy National Guard troops to shore up border security. Obama promised to study the governor’s proposal, but noted that he had spent more on border security than his predecessors.

“For Texas politics, it was not a particularly tense meeting,” Jenkins said. “We were able to lay the partisan positions aside.”

Jenkins, a Democrat, has drawn criticism for spearheading a plan to open three new shelters in the Dallas area this month to house 2,000 of the children.

“Whatever your politics are, these are children,” he said. “They deserve our help.”

Jenkins was inspired to act after touring the overcrowded holding area at the McAllen Border Patrol station last week. Built to house 250, the facility he called “basically a drunk tank” now routinely houses twice that many immigrants.

“Anyone who sees what we saw on the border is going to want to help these children,” Jenkins said.

Perry, who toured the McAllen station last month, did not oppose Jenkins’ plan Wednesday, Jenkins said, considering it a matter of local rule.

Jenkins said he had already been contacted about the shelter plan by a fellow county leader — from conservative Maricopa County, Ariz.

“This need not be a partisan issue,” Jenkins said. “We need more of that — more urban leaders reaching out to say we can’t help all the children, but we can help some.”

Photo: Dallas Morning News/MCT/Louis DeLuca/

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Obama: U.S. To Aid Unaccompanied Children Arriving From Mexico

Obama: U.S. To Aid Unaccompanied Children Arriving From Mexico

Washington (AFP) – President Barack Obama on Monday said his administration would provide special assistance to children arriving to the U.S. alone after making the treacherous overland journey from Mexico.

In response to what he called an “urgent humanitarian situation,” Obama ordered federal departments to coordinate relief for the unaccompanied children, including medical care, housing and efforts to reunite them with their parents.

He said the effort would be led by his Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson.

Cecilia Munoz, the top White House domestic policy advisers, said that the number of children apprehended along the border had “increased substantially” over the past month, particularly in Texas.

“These are children from Central American countries, and they are crossing the border alone,” she said.

Munoz said the uptick in the number of children fleeing Central America was the result of “economic conditions in those countries, increase of violence in those countries, as well as desire to be reunited with their families in the U.S.”

She added that in contrast to past years, the Central American children arriving to the US “include more girls than we have seen in previous years, and more children under the age of 13.”

AFP Photo/Jim Watson