WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama is summoning Central American leaders to the White House to discuss the influx of young immigrants from their countries to the U.S., hoping to show presidential action even as Congress remains deeply split over proposals to stem the crisis on the border.
The meeting comes as the administration is considering creating a pilot program giving refugee status to young people from Honduras, White House officials said Thursday. The plan would involve screening youths in their home country to determine whether they qualify for refugee status. The program would be limited and would start in Honduras but could be expanded to include other Central American countries.
Guatemalan President Otto Perez Molina, speaking Thursday in Washington, said he hadn’t heard about the plan but expected it to come up Friday. He said Central American nations have sought to pursue a unified approach. “We expect that the solution to this problem also is equal for the three countries,” he said.
Besides Molina, Obama was to host Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernandez and El Salvador’s President Salvador Sanchez Ceren on Friday, the day after they met with lawmakers on Capitol Hill who are considering Obama’s requests for emergency funds and additional authority to send unaccompanied children back to their home countries more quickly. Those lawmakers appear unlikely to resolve their differences on either front before leaving Washington late next week for their annual August recess.
With critics claiming Obama’s own policies triggered the crisis, the president has been eager to demonstrate an aggressive approach to reducing the flow of immigrants and returning those found not to have a legitimate claim to stay here.
The U.S. has mounted a communications campaign to inform Central American residents that they won’t be allowed to stay in the U.S., and Obama sent a team to Texas this week to weigh the possibility of dispatching the National Guard to the border.
Under the in-country screening program the White House is considering, the legal standard for youths to qualify for refugee status would remain the same as it is for those who seek the status after arriving in the U.S., officials said, adding that the goal is to deter children who would not ultimately qualify for refugee status from attempting the dangerous trek. The officials briefed reporters ahead of Obama’s meeting on the condition they not be identified by name.
More than 57,000 minors have arrived since October, mostly from Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador. The trio of nations has become one of the most violent regions in the world in recent years, with swaths of all three countries under the control of drug traffickers and street gangs that rob, rape and extort ordinary citizens with impunity.
In recent weeks the number of children being apprehended daily has fallen by roughly half, but White House officials said seasonal patterns or other factors unrelated to the administration’s efforts may be to thank for some of the decline.
Sen. Robert Menendez, D-N.J., chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, met with the Guatemalan and Honduran presidents Thursday. He said he was impressed by what the leaders were doing to crack down on human trafficking. Yet he said he also made clear the responsibility those governments had to follow through as the U.S. considers sending more money to Central America to help address the problem.
Obama has asked Congress for $3.7 billion in emergency spending, but lawmakers were looking at cutting that number down significantly. At the same time, Republicans said they wouldn’t agree to any money without policy changes to give the government more authority to turn kids around fast at the border and send them home.
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Follow Josh Lederman on Twitter at http://twitter.com/joshledermanAP
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TRANSLATION: “Could you keep your kids in your yard? They’re making our Republicans foam at the mouth!”
For years the U.S. has provided a safety valve/deal for the Mexican and Central American governments. The deal is: You go ahead and provide a terrible economy and lousy government services to your people, and we’ll allow them to immigrate to this country and give you foreign aid for lining your pockets. That way you won’t face revolution. It’s time to change that deal and use the foreign aid as rewards for changing the whole deal: We need to say to those governments: You end corruption, provide employment or welfare for your people, and we’ll reward you with foreign aid.
More invaders invading our sacred governmental symbol building things! Call out the army! OMFG this is the end of American civilization! Thanks Obama!
See, this shit is why I can’t stand the AP.
And what will happen to all those millions who will be left behind? The flow of illegals will continue and Obama and his Dream Act and the 2013 “Family Interest Directive,” will still allow all those who can make it across our borders will remain.
Obama also has every intention to amnestize by executive order six million illegal aliens already in the country before the November elections. I know you are leftest, but you are also Americans, and this is not a fascist state, operating as an oligarchy of one political group in Congress and the US Chamber of Commerce yet; is it?
Check it out so you can at least have a heads up on what is coming:
Click here “On Thursday, Sens. Jeff Sessions (R-AL) and Ted Cruz (R-TX), who have arguably been the two most influential conservatives in stopping amnesty legislation, urged their colleagues to put more pressure on President Barack Obama, so he does not unilaterally grant temporary amnesty to millions more illegal immigrants.”
Click here The Gang of 8 knows what Obama is going to try and pull off, so they are stepping out front, making sure their constituents know they have no part in this wholesale theft of Congressional authority.
Click here “Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández said the mixed messages from the Obama administration on the country’s immigration laws have contributed to thousands of his citizens believing that amnesty awaits them across the U.S.-Mexico border.”
But it is Hernández who doesn’t know the score. Obama fully intends to give over 97% of these people presently crashing our border legal status as well…and they know it.
ex animo
davidfarrar