House Moving Quickly on Border

Politico

By Seung Min Kim and Jake Sherman

July 15, 2014

House moving quickly on border 

House Republicans are moving quickly to address the growing humanitarian crisis on the southern border, possibly holding votes as soon as next week.

As Congress moves closer to the monthlong August recess, the speedy action sends a clear message to Senate Democrats: Take it or leave it.

Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio), incoming Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) and a group of top lawmakers working on the border crisis are set to file a bill that very closely mirrors the legislation crafted by Texas lawmakers Sen. John Cornyn, a Republican, and Democratic Rep. Henry Cuellar.

The legislation will come with additional funding for the Obama administration somewhere between $1 billion and $2 billion — much less than the nearly $4 billion the White House requested last week. The bill also would aim to give President Barack Obama “more tools” to deal with the crisis, such as policy changes to speed up deportations of unaccompanied minors.

The House Republicans’ measure could be filed as soon as Thursday and passed next week.

“We want to swiftly and humanely return [the children] to their home[s],” House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Michael McCaul (R-Texas), a member of a House GOP group working on the issue, said Tuesday. “Only until we do that will we stop the flow. We need a message of deterrence.”

The dramatic influx of unaccompanied children from Central America attempting to cross into the United States illegally has left Capitol Hill scrambling for a response before lawmakers leave town in August — when some of the government agencies charged with handling the crisis will start running out of money.

The debate is playing out while the public is expressing disapproval of the response to the crisis by both the White House and congressional Republicans. About 58 percent of respondents said they didn’t approve of how Obama is tackling the issue, while 66 percent said the same about congressional Republicans, according to a Washington Post-ABC News poll released on Tuesday.

Aside from the amount of money that should be spent on the border, there is debate over amending a 2008 anti-trafficking law meant to give migrant children from countries other than Mexico or Canada more legal protections by guaranteeing them their day in immigration court. Changing that law to treat the children coming to the U.S. in record numbers from Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador the same as the minors from countries that border the U.S. is at the heart of the plan proposed by Cuellar and Cornyn — and a critical demand of congressional Republicans.

The Obama administration has expressed openness to such a provision, though it worries many congressional Democrats and could cost their votes.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) said Tuesday he doesn’t support the emerging Cornyn-Cuellar plan, indicating that he believes Obama can speed up the judicial process for unaccompanied children on his own without Congress having to change the law. The 2008 statute has an “exceptional circumstances” provision that could allow for that.

As much as half of the 55-member Senate Democratic Caucus would oppose changes to the 2008 trafficking law, according to one Senate Democratic aide. Another Senate aide said opposition to Cornyn and Cuellar’s plan is especially deep.

Senators who have been publicly outspoken against revisions include influential figures such as Illinois Sen. Dick Durbin, the chamber’s second-ranking Democrat, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Bob Menendez and Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), who helped write the 2008 law.

“The 2008 law, as you know, sets up a reasonable standard for requesting asylum,” Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) said Tuesday. “That should never be changed, and the administration should not try to short-circuit that by shipping kids back.”

Harkin added: “If the House tries to change that law, it’ll never pass over here. I won’t let it pass.”

Meanwhile, Senate Democrats have yet to coalesce around a plan of their own and are instead waiting to hear from top administration officials during a closed-door briefing on Wednesday. Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson, Health and Human Services Secretary Sylvia Mathews Burwell, acting Office of Management and Budget Director Brian Deese and Deputy Attorney General James Cole are scheduled to brief senators.

Multiple Senate sources indicated that the House was likely to move first, with the Senate potentially moving on the legislation during the last week lawmakers are in Washington before the August recess.

“We’re still working it through,” New York Sen. Chuck Schumer, the chamber’s third-ranking Democrat, said Wednesday of the leadership’s plan to act on Obama’s emergency spending request.

Arizona Republican Sens. Jeff Flake and John McCain have filed a separate bill that mirrors the effort by Cuellar and Cornyn. But it also proposes boosting the number of refugee visas available for El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala by 5,000 for each country — an effort meant to encourage migrants to explore legal ways of coming here while back in their home countries. It’s unclear whether this bill will gain traction.

No final decisions have been made in the House. Aside from changing the 2008 law, Republicans there are also discussing language that would make it easier for Border Patrol agents to pursue illegal migrants at the border. The Obama administration designated roughly 500,000 acres of land near the border as a national monument, which Republicans say says hampers law enforcement.

The House Republican working group on the border crisis plans to recommend adding immigration court judges — perhaps bringing some out of retirement — to ease the caseload, additional border-security measures and bolstering National Guard presence on the border.

“An average case of someone coming across the border illegally, going through the process that we have, will take between a year and a half, or as long as five years,” Rep. Kay Granger (R-Texas), who is chairing the group, said Tuesday. “With 57,000 unaccompanied children, that’s just not acceptable. So we’ve got to change that.”

Boehner told reporters Tuesday that he expects to have a clearer sense of his plan by the end of the week. Asked what he thinks should be done, Boehner said he has “lots” of ideas but declined to go into detail.

House GOP leaders will also have to watch for resistance on the right.

Boehner has stressed that the House needs to act on some response to the border crisis before the August recess. But several conservative House lawmakers, who have been the most vocal about blaming Obama for the crisis on the border, signaled some opposition Tuesday to even smaller levels of increased funds.

“I’m not in favor of giving him any more funding at this stage,” Rep. Randy Weber (R-Texas) said.

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