Politico:
By Seung Min Kim and Manu Raju
July 18, 2014
President Barack Obama’s response to the southern border crisis is under fire from an unlikely source: fellow Democrats.
Republicans
have seized on the ballooning number of unaccompanied children crossing
into Texas as proof of Obama’s failed immigration policies. But
Democrats are also
frustrated and are increasingly blaming the White House for bungling
the response to the situation on the border.
As
Congress struggles to agree on emergency funding in response to the
crisis, Democrats are taking the White House to task any chance they
get.
They
are giving floor speeches, arguing the administration doesn’t
understand the root cause of the crisis. They are sparring with
administration officials in closed-door
discussions. And they say Obama should have better consulted lawmakers
before backing a policy change deeply opposed by their party.
“They
sure didn’t check with me,” said Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa), chairman of
the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee. “I don’t
know who they checked
with, but I just think it was kind of a quick reaction without really
thinking about the humanitarian aspects of this.”
Tension
between the administration and congressional Democrats is becoming more
common. Many Democrats are still fuming about last year’s troubled
rollout of Obamacare.
The party has been on the defensive over the Bowe Bergdahl prisoner
trade swap. The recent veterans health care scandal left many angry. And
with Obama’s poll numbers tanking, many plainly fear that all the bad
news will make it harder to maintain control
of the Senate in the fall elections.
When
it comes to the border, the intraparty dispute centers on a law signed
in the final days of George W. Bush’s presidency that is meant to shield
immigrant children
from trafficking. But it’s led to an unintended effect: Because of
backlogs in the immigration court system, unaccompanied children from
countries other than Mexico or Canada – who are guaranteed their day in
court under that law – can end up staying in the
U.S. for years as they wait for a hearing.
Republicans
are pushing for a change in the 2008 law and say that will be a key
condition of any emergency funding to to respond to the border crisis.
Leading congressional
Democrats are opposed to revising the law, diminishing the prospects of
an aid package emerging from Capitol Hill soon.
But Democrats argue the administration has complicated the issue.
White
House officials are open to changing the 2008 law and initially
signaled that it would ask Congress for revisions so Obama could have
“additional authority to exercise
discretion” in deportation cases. But immigration advocates were
furious over the plan. And Obama did not send along any suggested policy
changes when he submitted a $3.7 billion emergency spending request
earlier this month, though officials stills say they
are considering revisions.
Congressional Democrats are left perplexed.
There
was no need, they argue, to create an unnecessary division on a highly
emotional issue amid a high-stakes election year — particularly when a
large bulk of the party
believes that the 2008 law doesn’t need to be touched. And some
Democrats privately gripe the administration tends to suggest Congress
deal with sticky situations in order to give itself political cover —
similar to how it handled the crisis with Syria last
summer — rather than rely on executive authority as the president has
done for much of his second term.
Top
Senate Democrats, including Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.),
believe Obama already has some existing discretion under the current
law under its “exceptional
circumstances” provisions to accelerate some cases. That makes changing
the 2008 law unnecessary, Democrats believe.
The
issue came to a head at a closed-door briefing for senators Wednesday
evening with Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson, Health and Human
Services Secretary Sylvia
Mathews Burwell and other senior administration officials. At the
meeting, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.)
pressed Johnson on the matter, saying that the administration did not
need change the law to deal with children from countries
other than Mexico, sources said.
Johnson,
however, stood his ground and said the law needed a modification,
something that prompted Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Bob
Menendez (D-N.J.) to
side with Leahy, attendees said.
“I don’t think necessarily the president knew all the prerogatives he has under existing” law, Menendez said.
At
the briefing, members from both parties expressed cost concerns as
well. When the senior administration officials said the costs would
increase from $250 per child
a day to $1,000 when care was transferred to the Department of Health
and Human Services, several senators from both parties gasped, attendees
said.
Sen.
Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) told someone next to her that the HHS costs
are greater than a night at the Four Seasons hotel, according to a
person with knowledge of
the meeting. A spokeswoman said Gillibrand supports the
administration’s proposed supplemental spending package.
On
Thursday, Sen. Bill Nelson (D-Fla.) said that the briefing showed that
the Obama administration was “getting their arms around” the response to
the unaccompanied children.
“However,
it is the opinion of this senator that they do not recognize the root
cause of the problem,” Nelson said. “And if the administration would
listen to their four-star
general, the head of the United States Southern Command, General Kelly,
and the testimony that he has already given to the Armed Services
Committee of what is the problem, then we could get to the root cause of
the problem and stop these future humanitarian
crises.”
The White House is downplaying notions of any rift with Hill Democrats.
“I
think that there is widespread recognition among members of both
parties that we’re dealing with a serious situation at the southwest
border, that these are thorny
policy problems,” White House press secretary Josh Earnest said
Wednesday. “And the administration is working through in a very
constructive way that’s in line with our core values to deal with it.”
Still, the disagreements with the White House extend to House Democrats, too.
Rep.
Luis Gutierrez (D-Ill.) indicated that the White House should not have
initially signaled it was willing to accept changes to the 2008
trafficking law.
“I
try never to negotiate against myself,” Gutierrez said. “That’s all I
can tell you. I try never to begin the negotiation. I think when you do
that, you begin negotiating
with a Republican Party by already making concessions to them.”
The
Congressional Hispanic Caucus has been working overtime to persuade
fellow Democrats against changes to the trafficking statute – even as
one of their own, moderate
Rep. Henry Cuellar (D-Texas), introduced legislation with Sen. John
Cornyn (R-Texas) to revise the 2008 law.
House
Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) assembled a meeting last week
with immigration advocates — such as representatives from the AFL-CIO,
National Council of
La Raza and America’s Voice — and a handful of key House Democrats to
discuss the issue.
There,
Gutierrez made it clear that changing the 2008 law was “bad public
policy,” he said. This week, Pelosi announced her opposition to the
Cornyn-Cuellar bill.
Rep.
Raul Grijalva (D-Ariz.), who attended a meeting between Obama and the
Congressional Hispanic Caucus at the White House on Wednesday, said
Democrats “had to scramble”
to lobby against changes to the 2008 law once they were publicly
floated.
“I
think there was an underestimation of the resistance that you were
going to get from outside groups and members of Congress in undoing that
law,” he said. “Hopefully
when those critical decisions that affect many of us on the border and
other groups, it’d be nice if the White House staff would talk to us
before they jump the gun.”
Part
of the frustration among Democrats, too, is that the White House was
slow in proposing additional funding for the crisis when the problem at
the border has been occurring
for months. After proposing nearly $4 billion last week, the measure is
now locked in the heat of election-year politics.
Still,
some Democrats are content with how the White House has handled the
crisis so far. Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), who wrote the 2008 law,
said she was not upset
with the White House, saying: “Our country has never before faced these
kinds of circumstances.”
And
she seemed open to changes in the statute to ensure that kids from
other countries — such as Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras — are
treated the same as Mexicans.
“Do
we want to? No,” Feinstein said when asked if Congress would have to
change the law. “But we may need to because this isn’t something that’s
just going to be with
us for the next month.”
But
Harkin feared that changing the 2008 law would “take away the
humanitarian aspects and the right of these people to seek asylum.”
“As
I said before, these children that are coming up – first, make sure
they’re safe,” he said. “Second, make sure they are fed and clothed.
Third, make sure they are
housed. Fourth, make every reasonable opportunity for them to apply for
asylum. That’s what the 2008 law provides. “
Still, with their party divided over a growing crisis, some see an opportunity to unite.
Conservative
Republicans, led by Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, are beginning to demand that
any bill also kill an expansion of a 2012 Obama administration program that defers deportation for at least two years for certain undocumented immigrants who came to the United States as children.
Democrats
believe that if Republicans zero in on this issue, it will be a
political loser for the GOP come November, given the popularity of that
program — particularly
with Hispanics.
“We
are going to make him our emissary to the Hispanic community,” said
Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) when asked about the Cruz effort.
For more information, go to: www.beverlyhillsimmigrationlaw.com
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