Wall Street Journal
By Kristina Peterson
July 29, 2014
WASHINGTON—House
Republicans later today will release a bill providing $659 million over
two months to help deal with the influx of Central American children
and families
crossing the border.
The
House GOP bill would grant less than one-fifth of the $3.7 billion
requested by President Barack Obama to deal with the border crisis, in
part due to its short time
frame. Mr. Obama had asked for enough money to stretch over 15 months;
the House bill would extend only until the end of the fiscal year on
Sept. 30. The House is expected to vote on the measure on Thursday.
Republicans
have responded to the surge of more than 57,000 unaccompanied children
migrating from Central America since October by emphasizing the need to
tighten security
at the border. The GOP bill would deploy the National Guard to assist
the Border Patrol and alter a 2008 anti-trafficking law to speed up
deportations of the Central American children.
"The
2008 law will be tweaked so that all children are treated the same,"
said Rep. Kay Granger (R., Texas), who led a group that developed
recommendations on the issue.
Ms.
Granger said the law would be amended so that children from Central
America could be returned to their home countries more quickly, in the
same way that children from
Mexico and Canada are currently treated. Democrats, who didn't include
the change in the Senate bill, have worried that a speedier process
risks sending home minors who have legitimate legal grounds to stay in
the U.S. and could return them to dangerous situations.
"The
crisis is at our border because of the crisis in Central America,"
Senate Appropriations Committee Chairwoman Barbara Mikulski (D., Md.)
said on the Senate floor.
Although
some conservative lawmakers are expected to oppose the bill, many
Republicans said they expected the bill would have enough GOP support to
pass. However, with
few Democrats expected to vote for the measure, Republicans cannot
afford to lose very many GOP votes.
"I
believe there is sufficient support in the House to move this bill,"
House Speaker John Boehner (R., Ohio) told reporters, but added, "We
still have work to do."
Some
lawmakers have pressed to have a vote on ending Mr. Obama's 2012
Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, or DACA, which shelters
many young people from deportation.
However, GOP leaders didn't indicate Tuesday in a closed-doors meeting
of House Republicans that legislation addressing the issue would come to
the floor anytime soon, lawmakers said.
"There's
room for debate there, but let's keep this bill targeted on this
particular crisis," said Rep. Tom Cole (R., Okla.) "We're trying to make
sure we can get the
votes without overreaching."
The
House GOP bill wouldn't add to the federal budget deficit because it
will tap into unused funds floating around other parts of the budget,
said House Appropriations
Committee Chairman Hal Rogers (R., Ky.) Many Republicans had balked
earlier at not offsetting the cost of the border bill. Approximately
two-thirds of the funds will go to the Homeland Security and Justice
departments to beef up border security, while roughly
one-third will go to the Health and Human Services Department for care
of the children, Mr. Rogers said.
The
House legislation seeks to speed up the legal view of the migrants'
claims by adding more temporary immigration judges and equipping hearing
rooms with videoconferencing
capabilities so that judges in other parts of the country can help
tackle the border backlog, lawmakers said. Ms. Granger said the House
bill will also include a "Sense of the Congress" resolution that the
migrant children should not be housed in military
facilities, where they may be impeding some military activities.
A
Senate bill providing $2.7 billion through the end of the calendar year
to deal with the border crisis isn't expected to advance past
procedural votes later this week.
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