On Friday, President Obama discussed the bill that Republicans have been planning to pass and described it as an unworkable and extreme piece of legislature. He also added that the bill is clearly going nowhere and that Republicans aren’t trying to solve the problem.
Obama’s statement during a press conference at the White House was actually much harsher. The bill is, according to President Barack Obama, only a bill that couldn’t be pulled off on Thursday so Republicans made it a bit more extreme and hoped they could pass it on Friday. He added that it looked like they were simply trying to check the box before they would leave for the August recess.
Since October, an astonishing number of minors have been apprehended at the Mexican-U.S. border (more than 57,500 unaccompanied minors). Most of them come from countries in Central America that are violence stricken, so the president requested $3.7 billion in funding to make sure that agencies could swiftly and effectively care for the minors that have already crossed the border, go through the removal cases and also deter those who will try to cross the border in the future.
Such funding is unlikely to be awarded as Senate left Washington before it could pass any kind of legislature that would deal with the border crisis.
It would be possible for the House to pass a measure to ensure funding, but such a bill could not get through Senate. Moreover, another bill is being prepared that would end one of president Obama’s immigration policies that allows undocumented young adults to remain un-deported if they have been residing within the U.S. for seven years and are undocumented.
The package that the House is planning on voting on involves $694 million in funding and aims to deal with the border situation. They plan to send in National Guard troops to patrol the border as well as modify the 2008 law that prevents unaccompanied minors from countries other than Mexico and Canada from being deported so easily.
President Obama was accused of wanting to act alone in respect to this situation. He defended himself by explaining that Republicans simply accused him of acting alone a day before they suggested that he should act alone because they did not manage to pass the bill. After addressing the Republican’s contradictory statements, president Obama explained that he might in the end be forced to act on his own as there are not enough resources for him to find another solution.