Posted on July 23, 2014

House Republicans Unveil Plan to Deal with Border Crisis

Robert Costa and Ed O'Keefe, Washington Post, July 23, 2014

House Republicans began coalescing Wednesday around a new set of proposals to address the influx of illegal immigrants crossing the U.S.-Mexico border that mandate deploying National Guard troops and requiring the Obama administration to more quickly process and deport young children and families who have entered the country in recent months.

But it was still unclear how quickly the House will take up the issue and whether House Republicans will be able to reach agreement with Senate Democrats on a final plan before Congress adjourns Aug. 1 for a five-week recess.

“I’d like to act. We’ve got a humanitarian crisis on the border that has to be dealt with,” House Speaker John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) told reporters Wednesday. “The president clearly isn’t going to deal with it on his own, even though he has the authority to deal with it on his own. But I do believe that Congress should act, and I hope that we will.”

Rep. Kay Granger (R-Tex.), who led the House GOP “working group” tasked with tackling the issue, shared her team’s recommendations during the closed-door weekly House Republican meeting. {snip}

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But the House and Senate remain at odds over whether Congress will vote to change a 2008 anti-trafficking law to make it easier to deport minors from Central America. Senate Democrats plan to move forward on a spending bill to provide $2.7 billion in emergency funds to deal with the influx of minors–about $1 billion less than President Obama’s request for $3.7 billion in emergency funding to address the crisis. But the Democratic plan will not include amendments to that law.

Boehner said Wednesday that House Republicans would seek to authorize $1.5 billion to pay for more border security and Guard deployments, dramatically lower than Obama’s request.

In a brief interview with The Washington Post, Granger said that her proposals would tweak current immigration laws. The goal is to “change the law–not to repeal the law, not to completely change the law but change a portion that will let us send the children back in a very speedy way,” she said.

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“The president’s supplemental [spending request] asks for a lot of money, but it’s money to spend here to keep the kids, and we disagree with that,” Granger said. {snip}

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