By the end of last week, July 18, Congress’s path forward to address the issue of the surge of unaccompanied minors across the US boarder was becoming less clear with each house pursuing different approaches. The President has requested $3.7 billion in emergency funding mainly for services both legal and humanitarian with the bulk of funding for HHS and smaller parts for the State Department and Homeland Security. The House leadership, mainly through Speaker John Boehner (R-OH), has made clear that the House will not honor the request by the President. It is not clear exactly what the House will be able to pass or if they will get it done before they leave for the August break. Elements of the House majority proposal could include: reducing the funding request, changing the current 2008 Trafficking Victims Protection Act (TVPA) amendment that allowed greater protections for unaccompanied minors coming into the country (if they weren’t from Mexico or Canada) and possibly a cut in other domestic programs as a way to pay for the request. The President asked the funding to be covered under the emergency spending category.
The Senate was considering several options. One proposal by Senator John Cornyn (R-TX) and Congressman Henry Cuellar (D-TX) would bundle funding with a change in the TVPA law but Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) opposes such a plan and there appears to be strong opposition to the proposal by members of the Congressional Hispanic caucus. There is also an intense feeling among advocates that the law should not be changed since it was a bipartisan proposal signed into law by President George W Bush in an increased effort to better assist the worldwide force-labor and sex trafficking victims. Another potential issue is an effort led by Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) to repeal the President’s 2012 executive order that created a version of the “Dream Act.” The order, similar to the legislation, allows some children and youth to stay here legally if they came to the United States before age 16 and before 2007, have lived here for at least five years, and are in school, are high school graduates or are military veterans in good standing.
