Democrats on Border Crisis: Help Migrants, Not American Wage-Earners

Moises Castillo/AP

Border agencies should provide even more help to Central American migrants, top Democrats said in response to the White House’s emergency funding request to manage the migration inflow.

The support for migrants came after the White House asked for $4.5 billion to help process the growing flood of economic migrants from Central America.

“As a country, we must do more to meet the needs of migrants – especially children and families – who are arriving in increasing numbers,” said a statement by Rep. Nita Lowey, chairwoman of the House Appropriations Committee. She urged the administration to speed up the release of the migrants:

However, the Trump administration appears to want much of this $4.5 billion emergency supplemental request to double down on cruel and ill-conceived policies, including bailing out ICE for overspending on detention beds and expanding family detention. Locking up people who pose no threat to the community for ever-longer periods of time is not a solution to the problems at the border.

“This crisis is one largely of the Trump Administration’s own making,” claimed Rep. Bennie Thompson, chairman of the House Committee on Homeland Security. His statement also urged the border agencies to release the migrants at a faster pace into the U.S. labor market:

We will not appropriate more funds that will add to the chaos and make the problem worse … this request holds a number of non-starters – such as doubling down on the Administration’s cruel and failed policies including mass detention. There is no reason to lock up thousands who pose no threat, especially in an already-strained system.

Thompson said Democrats were ready to provide more aid to the foreign migrants: “House Democrats understand that there is a humanitarian crisis at the border, and we stand ready and willing to provide necessary resources to help fix this challenge and alleviate the suffering of thousands.”

Read the rest from Neil Munro HERE.

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