FAIR Alert – House Leadership May Send Flawed Border Bill to Floor

House Leadership to Send Flawed Border Bill to Floor
Call Your Representatives NOW and Urge Them to Vote No!

Sources all over Capitol Hill are reporting that House Speaker John Boehner plans to send a flawed border bill to the floor this week. The bill will be a response to President Obama’s request for Congress to provide government agencies an extra $3.7 billion to speed up the processing of and provide care for illegal alien minors flooding the border and resettle them all across the country.

CALL YOUR REPRESENTATIVES NOW AND URGE THEM TO VOTE NO!

1. President Obama has caused this crisis.Under the guise of “prosecutorial discretion,” President Obama has blatantly refused to enforce our immigration laws, ordering immigration agents to essentially ignore all illegal aliens who have not been convicted of violent crimes. Removals of illegal alien minors have dropped nearly 80 percent during his Administration. Even President Obama’s former director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) unapologetically declared that the chances of the average illegal being deported are “close to zero.”

   To make matters worse, President Obama has circumvented Congress and adopted administrative amnesty programs, such as the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program (DACA), that shield illegal aliens from deportation. These policies have sent a clear message around the world: if you come, you can stay.

2. Policy changes will either fail in the Senate or become a vehicle for amnesty. As Congress has debated how to respond to the President’s request for $3.7 billion in extra funding, House leaders have insisted that policy changes must accompany the money. They have focused specifically on changing the Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act (TVPRA) of 2008 to allow minors from Central America to be processed and deported quickly like minors from Mexico.

   While this is a laudable goal, the Senate has vowed to block any changes to the 2008 Act. And, if policy changes are sent to the Senate, any legislation that returns to the House is likely to contain some sort of amnesty or other bad policy changes. This would set up a dangerous scenario for a conference committee or action in a lame-duck session of Congress.

3. If policy changes pass Congress, they will be rendered meaningless by the Obama Administration.President Obama has made it clear that he does not care whether Congress amends the 2008 Act to speed up the removal of minors from Central America. Just last Thursday, the White House confirmed that it is considering a plan to admit even MORE Honduran, Guatemalan and Salvadoranminors by giving them refugee status –an act that requires outright ignoring the legal definition of a refugee. Granting refugee status to these minors would nullify any legislation Congress passes to speed up the processing and deportation of illegal alien minors crossing the border.

   More importantly, the Obama Administration has vowed that by the end of August, it will unilaterally grant some sort of administrative amnesty to illegal aliens already in the U.S. By some accounts the plan may shield millions of illegal aliens from deportation! (See, e.g., The New York Times, June 30, 2014)

4. The legislation being proposed by House Leadership will not improve the situation.  In fact, it will make matters worse!In particular, the House Leadership bill is damaging because it includes the Cornyn-Cuellar bill. This bill actually further complicates the process of removing illegal alien minors by giving them an additional hearing before an immigration judge to attempt to establish they have a legitimate claim to stay in the U.S.  In addition, the Cornyn-Cuellar bill allows illegal alien minors who have received final deportation orders in the past 18 months to get those orders expunged and re-apply for admission to the U.S.!! (To learn more, read FAIR’s summary of the Cornyn-Cuellar bill.)

   Finally, the House Leadership bill does nothing to address the real cause of the crisis. It does not attempt to stop President Obama’s non-enforcement policies or his administrative amnesty programs. And it does nothing to impede President Obama from fulfilling his promise to grant administrative amnesty to millions of illegal aliens in the U.S. by the end of this summer!

Act NOW! FAIR is asking all of its members, supporters, and activists to call their Representatives and urge them to vote NO on the House Leadership supplemental spending bill.  Tell your Representative:

• You oppose new legislation that will only complicate the deportation of illegal alien minors;
• You demand that House leaders address the TRUE cause of this border crisis: the President’s non-enforcement policies and administrative amnesty programs. House leaders should support legislation that significantly restricts the President’s ability to abuse various forms of relief such as deferred action, humanitarian parole, parole-in-place, temporary protected status, etc. This includes supporting legislation authored by Senator Ted Cruz and Representative Marsha Blackburn that would end DACA; and
• You demand that House leaders immediately take action to stop the President from fulfilling his promise to grant administrative amnesty to millions of illegal aliens in the U.S.

House leaders plan to vote on their bill THIS WEEK! Call your Representatives NOW!
To find the phone number of your Representative, click here.