DALLAS (AP) — President Barack Obama, seeking to keep a humanitarian crisis at the U.S.-Mexico border from becoming a deeper political liability, pushed back Wednesday at critics who have cast his administration's response to the influx of unaccompanied children as slow and ineffective.
To those pressing Obama to visit the border during his two-day trip to Texas, he retorted: "This is not theater. This is a problem."
Among Obama's harshest critics has been Texas Gov. Rick Perry, a 2012 Republican presidential candidate who is mulling another run for the White House. Perry greeted Obama upon his arrival in the state Wednesday evening, then discussed the situation at the border with him privately and during a larger meeting with local officials and faith leaders.
Obama cast his meeting with Perry as "constructive" and argued that he is already seeking to do much of what the governor is calling for, including sending additional resources to the border to make the deportation process more effective.
"Bottom line is that there's nothing the governor indicated he'd like to see that I have a philosophical objection to," Obama said.
Perry, in a statement released after his meeting with Obama, made no mention of having any areas of agreement with the president.
"Five hundred miles south of here in the Rio Grande Valley, there is a humanitarian crisis unfolding that has been created by bad public policy, in particular the failure to secure the border," he said.
While much of the criticism of Obama has come from Republicans, even some members of Obama's own party were starting to make the case that Obama would be well-advised to visit the border and see the situation for himself.
"Going out there and talking to people who live this day in and day out — that's the perspective that's missing," said Rep. Raul Grijalva, D-Ariz.
For Obama, the border crisis has added another layer of complications to the already fraught debate in Washington over the nation's broken immigration laws.
With no indication that congressional Republicans plan to take up comprehensive legislation, Obama has vowed to make needed changes through his executive powers. But the GOP argues that the action he took on his own in 2012 to allow some young people in the U.S. illegally to stay in the country is to blame for the current crisis, a contention the White House disputes.
The young people arriving at the border are in some cases fleeing violence in their home countries. But their arrival also appears to stem from rumors that they would be allowed to stay if they reached the U.S.
Obama, who is primarily in Texas to raise money for Democrats, said he was getting frequent updates about the situation from his staff and appeared to see little additional benefit in viewing the situation himself.
"There's nothing that is taking place down there that I am not intimately aware of," Obama said, noting that Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson was readying for his sixth trip to the border in recent weeks.
Perry, who has pressed Obama to go, has visited the Rio Grande Valley twice since the surge in unaccompanied child immigrants gained national attention. On June 23, he visited a Border Patrol facility and spoke of an "untenable situation." On July 3, Perry testified at a House Homeland Security Committee field hearing in McAllen, reiterating his call for Obama to come see the situation at the border.
Everything, everything is being done to dismantle America as we know it.
Who is organizing it?
ReplyDeleteThey are taking trains from the south to the US border. Seems to me that this could be stopped with a phone call.
ReplyDeleteExactly. Call the president of Mexico. Tell him America will cut off all foreign aid until he cuts off this invasion into America.
DeleteIts.
ReplyDelete"Everything, everything is being done to dismantle America as we know it." Someone correct me if I am wrong, but wasn't it under Bush that the Border Patrol became a processing agency for children???
We should elect Governor Rick Perry as President, implement Bush economic and fiscal policies, and make the United States so unattractive that no one wants to come here, especially children. We can become like, say, Mexico with gross income inequality. Mexico should be a Saudi Arabia or Norway with its oil resources. In a sense, so should the United States.
"Under the Bush Adm" is inaccurate. Yes the legislative loop hole was created during Bush's term after he had lost control of the House and Senate and was a lame duck Pres. The DEMOCRATS were and ARE the supporters of this travesty. After all, if present trends continue, the DemocRATS plan is to continue to harvest these immigrants and corral them and use them to get more votes. I think it is instructive to note that the Democrats LOVE immigration because those people are the only ones who still fall for their B,S. Also these people tend to be less educated and more in need of services that the DemocRATS will gladly supply them (using our money of course). They need to import voters. All you "Proud Union Homes" can thank Teddy "burp" Kennedy for the changes in policy beginning in 1965. As these people slowly like a huge glacier destroying everything in it's path. This was planned and it is utter insanity. However it looks like the above post realizes it and also realizes that Rick Perry looked more like a President than President Barack"Present"Obama ever has. He is like the incredible shrinking President. He keeps getting up and flapping his jaws with the same snake oil sales pitch.
DeleteIllinois Senator Mark Kirk and Fox News are reporting that 748 illegal immigrants are being held/sent to/released onto the streets of Chicago.
ReplyDeleteFrom Fox News:
Fox News has learned that 748 unaccompanied minors have been transferred from areas near the border to the Chicago area. Of the original group of 748 kids, 319 have been placed with family members or sponsors while they await an immigration hearing. The other 429 have been placed in facilities run by the Heartland Alliance, a nonprofit organization that receives grants from the Department of Health and Human Services.
Sen. Mark Kirk, R-Ill., told Fox News Friday that he did not know the exact locations of the facilities where the children were being kept, and stated his belief that the White House did not want the children's living conditions to be made public.
"My worry is the administration doesn’t want people to know what the condition of these place are or how these kids are being treated in detention," Kirk said. "Kids can sometimes to be pretty cruel to each other, they don’t want those stories to get out and they don’t want us to know what is going on in these detention facilities. These detention facilities should be completely open to the press and to the American people so that we know how what conditions are, we should be able to talk to the kids who are there.
"I can’t explain the incompetence of the Obama administration," Kirk said later. "This is a tremendous self-inflicted political wound ... This narrative, [that] this is Obama’s Katrina, [is] sticking really hard."
Fox goes on to report that the Obama administration is refusing to tell lawmakers about the movement of all of these illegal immigrants children and where they are being sent after being apprehended by the Border Patrol.
These revelations this morning just go to further illustrate the need for the Freedom of Information Act request with both the Border Patrol and the Department of Health and Humans Services that I have filled for the total number of "unaccompanied minors" sent to Illinois(and to which cities in our state).
So much to consider and/or ponder with this subject. First, Chicago/CC is perhaps the most welcoming of sanctuary jurisdictions in the country. This city council passed the WELCOMING measure a few years ago
ReplyDeletefollowing a succession of executive orders,ordinances and resolutions going back to Harold. We have let out hundreds of alien criminals because of a CC ordinance. Pressure came from several orgainzations with
UNO, HDO,Industrial Areas Foundation , ACORN and the most powerful is the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant Rights. ICIR has ties to Obama because one of their honchos worked with Barry as a community organizer.
Traditional Dem. leaders work with these outfits because they have large numbers of Hispanics in their wards and districts and need their fraudulent votes. The local pols are perhaps not directly involved but their support
critical. There has been some vocal opposition from the Repubs.,but largely weak and incensere. I would take Kirk's remarks with a grain of salt.The Catholic Church heavily supportive and the Chicago Celts and a few Muslim organizations are part of the aforementioned coalition.
Citizenship is not what it used to be. Read John Fonte at the HUDSON INSTITUTE.
Every child who comes across the border will become a potential competitor for a job your kid or grand kid may want in the future. Thanks Democrats. Thanks Unions. Thanks lefty Catholics. Hope it all feels so good. I hope you get your guitars and sing kumbaya......I'd like to teach the world to sing. Meanwhile Mexican gangster MS -13 and others are moving in to set up shop create more crime, drugs and law enforcement issues and resources and more money bleeding out. Oh don't forget the Yemenis and other Middle Easterners sneaking in many of whom were caught. How many weren't? Who got in that might one day set off a bomb in Chicago and kill a family member, neighbor or friend? Who cares? It all feeells so goooooood. That feeling is the feeling of Moral Superiority. Also a lack of moral clarity. I for one am offended when there is a parade float for "Immigration Reform" in The South Side Irish Parade. Fools.
ReplyDeletehad a guy with a turban try to sell me a Rolex on western ave."only 5000 ruppes my lord"
ReplyDelete