The plan for the children

There is finally a Republican immigration bill in the House of Representatives. It is unfortunate that it took the arrival of tens of thousands of Central American children and youths for the GOP leadership to take action on this issue.

The legislative majority is expected to present a bill allocating $659 million, of which two-thirds will be for border security, leaving $197 million to care for the minors. This bill does not do much, compared to proposals from the White House and the Senate, to allocate funds to have more immigration judges to process the children.

The proposal even changes other legislation by determining how a 2008 law expires. That law lets minors who are not from a country that borders the U.S. have a hearing in front of an immigration judge before being deported.

There are many inadequate and obsolete immigration laws, but this law that Republicans want to change in order to speed up deportations is not one of them. Neither is the awful idea of eliminating Deferred Action as if it had something to do with the arrival of Central American children.

The House of Representatives was forced to take action. Like on many other issues, it was unable to achieve a reasonable position that did not result from the contradictions of a caucus that is split ideologically.

Therefore, this bill allocates a much lower amount than the billions that the White House and the Senate proposed, emphasizing the argument of border security to tackle a humanitarian issue.

Ironically, the same lower chamber that has delayed taking action on immigration as much as possible, rushed to produce a bill to be approved days before the next legislative recess, just to be able to say that they are doing something.

In reality, Republican representatives were forced to take action on immigration, showing that, despite all the pressure and lobbying, they won’t go beyond border security and increased deportations.