US President Barack Obama on Tuesday requested US$3.7 billion in emergency funding from the US Congress to help cope with a surge of unaccompanied child immigrants from Central America.
Obama said the funds — a far higher sum than he signaled he would request late last month — would help ease an “urgent humanitarian situation” that has seen tens of thousands of minors from El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras illegally cross the southern US border this year after a perilous overland journey across Mexico.
To stem the flow, the administration is looking to beef up border security with aerial surveillance, improve housing for the undocumented arrivals and speed up their deportations. The appropriation would go to several US government agencies, funding an increase in the number of immigration judges, asylum officers and border agents; an expansion in court capacity; and the addition of detention facilities, the officials said.
Obama, in a letter to US House of Representatives Speaker John Boehner, urged Congress to “act expeditiously” on his request.
The funds would expand the government’s Alternatives to Detention program through increased use of ankle bracelets, which would allow migrants to stay with relatives instead of in overcrowded, expensive detention facilities while their cases are being processed.
They would also provide US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Jeh Johnson with “flexibility” that could enable US authorities to more quickly process and repatriate Central American migrants, a White House official said.
“We are taking an aggressive approach on both sides of the border,” the official told reporters, referring to US efforts to coordinate with Mexican and Central American authorities to prevent migrants from taking the journey to the US, often with dangerous human traffickers.
“We are taking steps to both protect due process, but also to remove these migrants efficiently,” said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
A first congressional hearing on the emergency request will occur today before the US Senate Appropriations Committee, where Johnson is scheduled to testify.
Johnson was in Guatemala on Tuesday to discuss efforts to reduce illegal immigration. There, Guatemalan President Otto Perez launched a new campaign aimed at putting the brakes on the flight of migrant children.
Obama was to travel to Texas yesterday. He was not planning to visit the border region, but he was to meet with Texas Governor Rick Perry to discuss the crisis.
Under the plan, DHS will receive US$1.53 billion, including US$116 million to pay for transporting migrants back to their home countries.
The US Department of Health and Human Services will be allocated US$1.8 billion, mostly to provide care for unaccompanied child migrants.
The US Department of State will receive US$300 million to repatriate Central American migrants, address the underlying causes driving migration and launch media campaigns emphasizing that illegal immigrants will not be allowed to stay in the US.
More than US$60 million will be given to the US Department of Justice.
The plan is not a done deal, especially in a divided Congress, but White House officials said they were confident that the emergency request would be taken up in a “spirit of bipartisanship.”
Budgetary savings are an obsession in Washington, but the White House said it would not offer savings to pay for Obama’s proposal.
“With emergency requests like this, traditionally Congress has not sought to bog down that process in a search for offsets,” White House spokesman Josh Earnest said.
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