Speaker John Boehner has issued an ultimatum to President Obama. Boehner proposes for the president to either support reforms to toughen border controls or face the possibility that no money will be allocated for dealing with the humanitarian crisis involving child migrants from Central America.
Boehner wants Obama to lean Democrats toward changing a bipartisan 2008 anti-trafficking law that prohibits U.S. officials from quickly returning migrating children who are not from Mexico or Canada to their countries of origin.
In a letter to President Obama, he wrote, “Frankly, it is difficult to see how we can make progress on this issue without strong, public support from the White House for much-needed reforms, including changes to the 2008 law.”
President Obama suggested spending $3.7 billion in an emergency fund proposal that would accelerate the processing of more than 57,000 child migrants that have flooded the immigration system within the past few months. The funds would be used to build housing for the children and send in new judges to speed up the decision between offering children asylum and sending them home. The final proposal, presented by Senate Appropriations Chair Barbara McKulski, brought down Obama’s number to $2.7 billion. Boehner suggests $1.5 billion in funding for the border crisis.
The call for action from Boehner comes with time pressure as well; Congress is only six working days away from adjourning for a five-week recess. The idea of border-state lawmakers leaving Washington for the recess without making any progress on the 2008 law is bad news for Boehner and all those in support of border control reform.
In June, Obama’s administration expressed their openness to changing the law, but Democratic leaders expressed their disapproval of the change. Even if the Democrats make progress with consideration of the proposal within a few weeks, they will almost certainly face a filibuster from Senate Republicans that are intent of having the 2008 law changed.
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