President Obama is asking Congress to grant almost $4 million in emergency funding in a bid to try to deal with the immigration crisis that has seen a wave of unaccompanied immigrant minors surging through the southern border of the United States, according to White House officials.
The financial request made by the president, which is nearly double the amount suggested in initial reports last week, would increase spending on border patrol agents, aerial surveillance, new detention facilities and immigration judges. Around 50% of the money would be used to improve the standard of care for minors as they go through the deportation process.
“We are taking steps to protect due process but also to remove these migrants more efficiently,” a White House official declared yesterday. “We are taking an aggressive approach on both sides of the border.”
Congress is, of course, likely to have ideas of its own about how this money ‒ $3.7 billion to be exact – should be spent, and there have already been signs that some members of the Republican party feel that not all their concerns have been met by Obama’s proposal. A spokesman for House speaker John Boehner said that the proposal from the president is set to be reviewed by a “working group on the border crisis,” adding: “The speaker still supports deploying the National Guard to provide humanitarian support in the affected areas, which this proposal does not address.”