The lawmakers voted 223-189 to pass the package, and many of them had to break the vacation mode and returned to the Capital for the matter even as the five-week summer break already started on the day.
However, the just-approved emergency funding is just a fraction of the 3.7 billion dollars requested by President Barack Obama to handle the crisis.
Earlier in the day, Obama urged House members to craft a workable bill to the border issue before leaving Washington for summer recess.
He threatened that if the Congress fails to pass additional funding to deal with the influx of child migrants and families from Central America, he will have to act on his own.
"I'm going to have to act alone because we don't have enough resources," he said.
Since October, more than 57,000 unaccompanied minors have been apprehended crossing illegally into the United States through the southwest border. The vast majority of them are from El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras.
The Democrats and Republicans are quarrelling over the issue. While Democrats argue the massive influx of unaccompanied minors is largely due to bad conditions in their homelands, Republicans say Obama administration policies and lax enforcement are the primary pull factor.
Sources: Xinhua - globaltimes.cn
2/8/14
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- The Obama Administration’s Government-Wide Response to Influx of Central American Migrants at the Southwest Border...
Obama creates another humanitarian catastrophe, this time in USA (52,000 abandoned children)
Obama calls for $3.7 billion border security “surge”....
- Obama readies executive action on immigration
Administration officials have told allies in private meetings that both the current surge of Central American children crossing the border and Congress’s failure this year to pass a broader immigration overhaul have propelled the president toward taking action on his own by summer’s end.
Obama aides have discussed a range of options that could provide legal protections and work permits to a significant portion of the nation’s more than 11 million undocumented residents, said Democratic lawmakers and immigrant advocates who have met recently with White House officials. Ideas under consideration could include temporary relief for law-abiding undocumented immigrants who are closely related to U.S. citizens or those who have lived in the country a certain number of years — a population that advocates say could reach as high as 5 million.
Some Senate Democrats running for reelection in traditionally conservative states, such as Arkansas and Louisiana, have expressed misgivings about Obama going too far on his immigration order, fearing it will not play well among voters in their states............................http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/obama-readies-executive-action-to-legalize-millions-of-undocumented-immigrants/2014/08/01/222ae2e8-18f8-11e4-85b6-c1451e622637_story.html?wprss=rss_homepage
1/8/14
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US border crisis: 'These children are refugees, not immigrants'...
ReplyDeleteAn influx of tens of thousands of Central American children at the US border has sparked an intense debate among politicians and the media on immigration. FRANCE 24 spoke to Michelle Brané of the Women’s Refugee Commission in Washington, DC.
Since last October, more than 57,000 unaccompanied minors have been detained while crossing the US-Mexico border, about three-quarters of them fleeing violence in El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras.
On Friday, the US Congress went on a five-week recess without reaching an agreement on an emergency spending bill to deal with the issue, despite the fact that the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency (ICE) was set to run out of money by mid-August.
Faced with the congressional stalemate, the Obama administration said it would transfer $405 million from other programs to keep ICE’s border operations afloat.
Michelle Brané is director of the Migrant Rights & Justice Program at the Women's Refugee Commission (WRC). The WRC runs the “Unaccompanied Minors Program”, which advocates for the rights of child migrants both in and out of federal immigration custody.
Brané spoke to FRANCE 24 about what she calls a “humanitarian crisis”.........................http://www.france24.com/en/20140803-usa-immigration-children-border-central-america-refugees-not-immigrants/
3/8/14
Child migrants, who arrive to the United States, are treated like criminals rather than vulnerable group; the US saw an influx of some 70,000 unaccompanied child Central American migrants travelling through Mexico and reaching its southern border over this summer...
ReplyDeleteGUATEMALA CITY, November 17 (Sputnik) – Unaccompanied child migrants who arrived to the United States this year have being treated as criminals rather than vulnerable youngsters, a representative for Asociacion Pop Noj advocacy group told Sputnik Monday.
"Before being considered as migrants, we must first remember that they are children. They should be treated as children, instead they are treated like criminals, detained for long periods and then deported from Mexico," Juan Jose Hurtado Paz y Paz said.
"Many of those emigrating from Guatemala are from indigenous backgrounds, which means that they could not speak Spanish or English very well and are more likely to suffer from abuse and discrimination at the hands of the authorities they encounter along the route to the US," the immigration expert added.................http://sputniknews.com/us/20141117/1014823956.html
17/11/14