New York Times
By Jackie Calmes
July 9, 2014
DENVER
— President Obama is traveling to Texas on Wednesday and will come
face-to-face with liberal and conservative critics of his government’s
handling of a humanitarian
crisis on the southern border, including Gov. Rick Perry.
Just
a day after Mr. Obama asked Congress for nearly $4 billion to address
the influx of unaccompanied children, aides continue to say the
president will not travel the
extra distance to the Texas-Mexico border to see the detention centers
where thousands of Central American immigrants have been held. He will,
however, attend a previously planned immigration meeting in Dallas, as
well as Democratic fund-raisers there and
later in Austin.
Before
leaving for Texas, Mr. Obama spoke to an audience of invited officials
in Denver about an economy showing some renewed strength – his intended
message before the
border crisis built in recent days.
“So
far this year Republicans in Congress have blocked or voted down every
serious idea to strengthen the middle class,” Mr. Obama said, citing
their opposition to measures
for a higher minimum wage, pay equity, unemployment insurance and an
immigration overhaul. He mentioned the House Republican leaders’ lawsuit
against him for taking executive actions, saying that instead of
“political stunts” they should work together.
Mr.
Obama also attended the first of three fund-raisers on his three-day
Western swing, this one for Senator Mark Udall of Colorado. Mr. Udall,
who like a number of Democrats
is struggling for re-election against the headwinds of Mr. Obama’s low
poll ratings, did not attend; he stayed in Washington for a vote. Mr.
Udall’s race is among those that will determine whether Democrats retain
control of the Senate.
Mr.
Obama will reach Dallas by late afternoon and meet with local officials
and representatives of faith groups concerned, like many Democrats,
that the children – mostly
from Guatemala and Honduras – are handled humanely at a time when many
on the right, including congressional Republicans, are calling for
immediate deportations.
Mr.
Perry, a potential aspirant for the Republicans’ 2016 presidential
nomination, has emerged as one of the president’s loudest critics. He
has accused Mr. Obama’s administration
of not securing the borders, even as Latino groups assail the president
for his administration’s record of deporting nearly 2 million people
who are in the United States illegally.
Mr.
Perry is trying to overcome an image among some Republicans that he is
too soft on immigration. His presidential campaign in 2012 failed in
part because of criticism
of his policies, like tuition benefits for Latinos brought into Texas
as children.
On
Tuesday, before Mr. Obama left Washington, Josh Earnest, the press
secretary, said that “there should be a level at which we can agree that
it’s important for this
humanitarian situation to be addressed.” He dismissed Mr. Perry’s
remarks that Mr. Obama had caused the crisis, saying, “I don’t think
that any fair appraisal of the president’s record when it comes to
border security would allow that criticism to withstand
any scrutiny at all.”
At
the Capitol, however, House Republican leaders refused to commit to
passing the president’s request for emergency funds. They expressed
skepticism not only about the
components he seeks – additional money for immigration courts,
detention centers, border surveillance, action against criminal networks
transporting migrants and care of detainees – but also about a separate
2012 executive order of Mr. Obama’s.
That
order deferred deportation of young illegal residents who were brought to this country as infants or children, many of them in college and the military and known
among advocates as Dreamers.
“It’s
time for us to take a serious look at what needs to happen,” House
Speaker John A. Boehner of Ohio said. “If we don’t secure the border,
nothing’s going to change.
If you look at the president’s request, it’s all more not continuing to
deal with the problem.”
Representative
Kevin McCarthy of California, soon to be the House majority leader,
said in a brief interview that the executive order had sent a message to
Central American
countries: “You can send your children here.”
“You’ve
got to stop the flow,” he said. “You think of the challenges these
children have going through the desert. How many are dying? How many are
being taken for human
trafficking? What’s the safety? If you really want to protect these
children, we need them back with their families.”
White
House officials said that the 2012 executive order for illegal
residents who have been in the country for years had nothing to do with
encouraging the more recent
stream of children from strife-torn and impoverished Central American
countries. Officials say crime networks are much to blame, enticing
families to send their children to the United States.
Until
the influx reached crisis proportions this summer, many congressional
Republicans otherwise opposed to a comprehensive overhaul of
immigration, like a bipartisan
bill the Senate passed a year ago, were open to some accommodation for
the so-called Dreamers, especially those who enlisted in the military.
The issue has been prominently used against Representative Cory Gardner,
Republican of Colorado, who is seeking Mr.
Udall’s Senate seat, and also Representative Mike Coffman, another
Colorado Republican who seeks re-election in a Denver-area district with
significant numbers of Latino voters.
But
now national Republican leaders see an opening to further weaken Mr.
Obama and, by extension, his party’s candidates, by blaming him for the
problem. Instead of compromising
on the issues behind the 2012 executive order, Republicans talk of
blocking the deferrals. The House has voted in the past to do so, but
the Democratic-controlled Senate has not.
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