At almost double the $2 billion that many had expected, The Washington Post reports [5] that The White House will request $3.8 billion from Congress in emergency funding to deal with an influx of unaccompanied minors from Central America. Funds would be allocated to send more immigration judges to the southern border, build additional detention facilities and add border patrol agents, to help stem the recent surge of women and children from El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras.
[6]
Source: Legal Regulation Review [7]
As The Washington Post reports, [5]
The White House on Tuesday will request $3.8 billion from Congress in emergency funding to deal with an influx of unaccompanied minors from Central America, a far higher amount that the Obama administration had previously signaled, according to a Capitol Hill source familiar with the plans.
...
Funds would be allocated to send more immigration judges to the southern border, build additional detention facilities and add border patrol agents, said the source, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the administration had not formally made the request.
The move is aimed at more quickly deporting the tens of thousands of women and children who have entered the country illegally across the souther border, most of them in the Rio Grande Valley in Texas.
...
Administration officials had previously said that they would be requesting more than $2 billion to help stem the recent surge of women and children from El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras. More than 52,000 unaccompanied minors and 39,00 women with children have been apprehended on the southern border this year, far more than in past years.
Read more here [5]
Bloomberg breaks down the allocation:
Supplemental request for FY14 would support U.S. response to high rate of children, individuals from Central America crossing border in Rio Grande Valley, according to White House fact sheet.
• HHS would receive $1.8b to care for unaccompanied children, maintain services for refugees
• DHS would receive $1.1b for Immigration and Customs Enforcement, $433m for Customs and Border Protection
• $300m would go to State Dept for repatriation, assistance to Central American govts, media campaign to inform U.S. policy, deter attempts at border crossing
• Justice Dept would get $64m for legal support, faster immigration court proceedings
• President Obama separately seeking $615m for USDA for wildfire suppression, White House officials say on conference call with reporters
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Who will be blamed for this? Who will be lambasted for not signing off on the funding? We await the next press conference with President Obama surrounded by starving and wretched immigrant children standing 'Oliver-like' demanding 'moar'...
