Obama faces ire from Democrats over law change to ease border crisis

Obama faces ire from Democrats over law change to ease border crisis

Proposal to change 2008 trafficking law to ease influx of child migrants at US border faces fierce opposition from Democrats

President Barack Obama is facing a clash with Democrats in Congress over proposals to water down a law intended to combat human trafficking in order to speed up the repatriation of unaccompanied children crossing the US southern border from Central America.

Senator John Cornyn, a Texas Republican, and Representative Henry Cuellar, a Texas Democrat, together proposed legislation on Monday that would include changes to a 2008 anti-trafficking law, the William Wilberforce Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act, and allow children from countries like Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador to be returned within a week of their arrival in the US rather than holding them for months as they await a full asylum hearing, as currently required.

The proposal from Cornyn and Cuellar matches White House demands for changes to the Wilberforce Act, which has paradoxically been blamed for encouraging smuggling gangs and families in Central America by allowing unaccompanied children to remain with relatives in the US while their cases are processed.

But the idea faces fierce opposition from a number of senior Democrats, especially those in the hispanic caucus, which is urging the passage of a “clean” funding bill to deal with the crisis and refuses to countenance any watering down of anti-trafficking measures it says are vital to ensuring a fair legal hearing for refugees.

Under the new bill, children from countries in Central America would in future be treated the same as those from Mexico, who currently can be fast-tracked back to their country of origin.

“Our proposal would improve the Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2008, treating all unaccompanied minors equally and ensuring due process under the law in a timely, fair manner,” Cornyn said in a statement.

But he insisted the legal rights of minors from Central America would be protected under the changes, with his bill granting them the right to have their claims heard “in court before an immigration judge within seven days of the completion of Health and Human Services screening”.

The White House gave a cautious welcome to the plan put forth by Cornyn and Cuellar. Spokesman Josh Earnest said he would not comment directly on specific proposals, but praised Cornyn for taking action on the crisis.

“We will wait until it is introduced and then we will review the draft. Our views on this are pretty well known.” Earnest told reporters. “We certainly welcome constructive engagement from Republicans; after all, we have seen a lot of talk about how urgent and pressing the situation is, but not a lot of action.”

But critics in Congress told the Guardian they remain deeply concerned at the idea of rolling back anti-trafficking legislation.

“Let me make it absolutely clear I am not voting for a supplemental [funding] bill that includes changes and abrogates the rights of children as established in 2002, 2007 and 2008,” said Representative Luis Gutiérrez, an Illinois Democrat, on Friday.

While Gutiérrez’s staff said he wanted to study the latest proposal in more detail, they said on Monday that his position remained unchanged.

A spokesman for senator Robert Menendez, a New Jersey Democrat, said he “will not support any legislative proposals that roll back or dilute standing law provisions specifically designed to protect the rights of children”.

Senior Democratic senators Dianne Feinstein, Patrick Leahy and Dick Durbin also voiced concerns about the proposal.
Experts say the failure of broader bipartisan immigration reform efforts in Congress may have hardened opinion among Democrats.

“The thing that is going to make it even harder is that Democrats are going to dig their heels in,” said Edward Alden of the Council on Foreign Relations. “Throughout [the] last year they have been tremendously conciliatory, but now that door is shut, there is no reason for them to do anything other than stand 100% behind their constituency. There will be zero willingness on behalf of the Democrats to change that 2008 law and I think that leaves Obama in a very untenable position.”

Source: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jul/14/obama-democrats-border-crisis-wilberforce-law-amendment