From the Denver Post:
Immigration influx: Kids are flooding over the border in the hope they’ll be allowed to stay “We’re fighting a losing battle right now.” By David Nakamura Washington Post POSTED: 06/14/2014Feinstein’s Republicaness comes as news to meWASHINGTON — There is growing evidence that a surge of tens of thousands of Central American minors across the Mexican border into Texas is being driven in large part by the perception they will be allowed to stay under the Obama administration’s immigration policies.
Administration officials — after initially dismissing such reports — are now attempting to push back on the idea, warning parents not to send their children as they scramble to accommodate tens of thousands already arrived in Texas.
“Those who cross our border today illegally, even children, are not eligible for an earned path to citizenship,” Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson said this week. “Those apprehended at our borders are priorities for removal … regardless of age.” …
Republicans point to the crisis as evidence that Obama’s policies have contributed to a widespread belief that young migrants will be allowed to remain in the country. Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif.
, said that her staff found evidence on a recent tour of a border patrol station in Nogales, Ariz., that the young migrants are being promised as much before leaving home.It seems overly partisan to blame these predictable events solely upon Democratic politicians. What about, say, Eric Cantor? Breitbart reported before his primary:“After engaging with the children and U.S. personnel, my staff learned that many of the children were smuggled across the border after hearing radio ads promising they would not be deported,” Feinstein said. “My staff also heard that religious organizations are spreading the same message.”
A leaked internal memo written by U.S. Border Patrol agents in the Rio Grande Valley offers additional evidence of such perceptions. The document was distributed to reporters and congressional offices this week by the conservative Center for Immigration Studies, which advocates for limited immigration. It is a summary of interviews May 28 with 230 youth and women from Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador who were apprehended trying to enter the United States.
The main reason the migrants had crossed into the U.S. was “to take advantage of the ‘new’ U.S. law that grants a free pass or permit” from the government, referred to in their home countries as “permisos,” the memo stated.
“But I have told the President there are some things that we can work on together,” Cantor said. “We can work on the border security bill together. We can work on things like the Kids.”Cantor was referring to what has commonly been referred to as his “Kids Act,” which, as Breitbart News reported, would grant amnesty to illegal immigrants who were brought to America through “no fault of their own”–like many of the illegal immigrant children who have been pouring into the country in recent weeks.