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Obama Seeks $3.7B in Border Aid White House taking heat as crisis along the Mexico line rages
U.N. Steps In
Tackling what he has called a humanitarian crisis, President Barack Obama on Tuesday asked Congress for $3.7 billion to cope with a tide of minors from Central America who are illegally crossing the U.S. border, straining immigration resources and causing a political firestorm in Washington. The W hite House said the money would help increase the detention, care and transportation of unaccompanied children, help speed the removal of adults with children by increasing the capacity of immigration courts and increase prosecution of smuggling networks. The money would also increase surveillance at the U.S. border and help Central American countries repatriate bordercrossers sent back from the United States. Obama requested the money in a letter to House Speaker John Boehner. The request did not include proposals for legislative changes that the White House wants. But Obama said he still will seek such changes, including providing the secretary of homeland
NICK UT (AP)
Washington
Immigrant families protest U.S. policy Monday at the Los Angeles federal building.
Militia Mobilizes An armed Texas militia is planning to make a move for the U.S.-Mexico border, according to news reports. Members said the goal is not to interfere with law enforcement but to help secure the border and slow the surge of undocumented immigrants illegally entering the country. The group, called Operation Secure Our Border-Laredo, was identified to the San Antonio Express-News as “Patriots,” “Oathkeepers” and “Three Percenters,” a reference to the 3 percent of colonists who took up arms against England during the Revolutionary War. Organizers are looking to mobilize armed volunteers to send to Laredo, Texas. (AP)
security additional authority to speed up the removal of children who have arrived from countries such as Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador. Obama said he also wants increased penalties for individuals who smuggle vulnerable migrants, such as children. More than 50,000 children have
arrived since October, in many cases fleeing violence at home but also drawn by rumors that they can stay in the U.S. Obama plans to discuss the crisis with faith and local leaders during a political fundraising visit to Texas today, but he is resisting calls to visit the border for a first-
United Nations officials are pushing for many of the Central Americans fleeing to the U.S. to be treated as refugees displaced by armed conflict, a designation meant to increase pressure on the United States and Mexico to accept tens of thousands of people currently ineligible for asylum. Officials with the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees say they hope to see movement toward a regional agreement on that status Thursday when migration and interior department representatives from the U.S., Mexico and Central America meet in Nicaragua. (AP)
Gay Groups Want ENDA Changes Washington
hand look. The White House invited Texas Republican Gov. Rick Perry to today’s meeting in Dallas. House Appropriations Committee Chairman Hal Rogers, a Republican, called the situation on the border “extremely dire.” “It is clear that additional funding will be needed to ensure the proper care of these unaccompanied children, to enforce the law, and to further secure our border so that these problems can be mitigated in the short term,” he said in a statement. “Our committee will focus on providing what is necessary to meet these ongoing needs.”
Several major gay rights groups withdrew support Tuesday for the Employment Non-Discrimination Act that would bolster gay and transgender rights in the workplace, saying they fear that broad religious exemptions included in the current bill might compel private companies to begin citing objections similar to those that prevailed in a U.S. Supreme Court case last week. Signs of crumbling support for ENDA came first Tuesday from the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, one of several gay rights groups that have aggressively pushed President Barack Obama to expand gay rights through executive action since the start of his presidency. Rea Carey, the group’s executive director, said, “If a private company can take its own religious beliefs and say you can’t have access to certain health care, it’s a hop, skip and a jump to an interpretation that a private company could have religious beliefs that LGBT people are not equal or somehow go against their beliefs and therefore fire them. … The implications of Hobby Lobby are becoming clear.”
ERICA WERNER AND JIM KUHNHENN (AP)
(THE WASHINGTON POST )
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