Competing plans may delay solutions to US border problem

By Balitang America Staff, ABS-CBN North America Bureau

July 24, 2014

REDWOOD CITY, Calif. – It may take the United States government a little longer to compromise on a law that would deal with the influx of illegal border crossings in America. President Barack Obama has requested congress to approve a $3.7 billion funding but many conservatives in the House of Representatives oppose this, saying it’s too expensive.

The plan would include $2.7 billion to house and process undocumented children, as well as to send more resources to the border.

House Republicans are considering a less expensive proposal — $1.5 billion — which would require the deployment of national guard troops, increase of funding for border patrol and mandate the administration to process the deportations more quickly. The GOP also wants to change a 2008 law to expedite the removal proceedings of these unaccompanied minors.

Republican House Speaker John Boehner said, “The administration started earlier this month by signalling some openness to changes in the 2008 law to accelerate the process of returning these children to their home countries. The President called for this change, the Secretary of Homeland Security called for this change, and other administration officials have called for this change. Now the President and his team have apparently flip-flopped. Now they want billions of new spending, with no commitment to actually solving the problem.”

Meantime, Senate Democrats are proposing a $2.7 billion plan to address the border crisis. The funding would provide $1.2 billion to the Department of Health and Human Services to care for the children and $1.1 billion to the Department of Homeland Security. The bill would also grant $300 to the State Department to go after traffickers and smugglers and would give more than $124 million to the Justice Department to provide ten more immigration judges and help solve the current backlog in courts.

Now, it remains unclear just how fast President Obama and both parties can come to an agreeement on a final deal before Congress begins its five-week recess on August 1.

What’s clear for many lawmakers is that time is crucial in handling the border crisis.

Rep. Xavier Becerra, a Democrat from California said, “Had we not waited 390 days in the House of Representatives to match the Senate in passing a common sense solution to the broken immigration system, this crisis, this humanitarian crisis on the border, might have been averted altogether, or certainly would have been addressed in a much faster and comprehensive way. But right now, you can see what happens when you’ve got a broken immigration system, and you’ve got this shut-down, do-nothing mentality politics that pervades the House of Representatives.”