President Obama could take action now to stop the flood of illegal immigration across the southern border, none of which he included in his funding request to Congress Tuesday, according to House Judiciary Chairman Bob Goodlatte.
“President Obama created this disaster at our southern border, and now he is asking to use billions of taxpayer dollars without accountability or a plan in place to actually stop the border crisis,” the Virginia Republican said in a statement Tuesday afternoon.
Goodlatte pointed out that much of the funding in the president’s $3.7 billion request to Congress goes to simply processing the tens of thousands of Central Americans streaming across the border, as opposed to looking for ways to stop it.
According to the committee chairman, no amount of funding will alleviate the situation until there is real enforcement of current immigration law. He added that House Republicans are even open to changes to current law, if that will stem the tide.
“President Obama can and should take action now to halt the flood of illegal crossings at our southwest border. President Obama has many tools at his disposal now to quell this activity at our southern border, such as enforcing immigration laws and cracking down on rampant asylum fraud. Unfortunately, none of these tools are mentioned in his proposal,” Goodlatte said.
Last week Goodlatte lead a bipartisan delegation of House Judiciary Committee members to the southwest border. The judiciary chairman urged Obama to visit the border himself to see how his policies have contributed to the crisis. Goodlatte said:
During my trip to the Rio Grande Valley last week, Border Patrol and ICE agents unanimously stated that the best way to end this crisis is deterrence. Some of them expressed frustration that political appointees at the Department of Homeland Security have not sought input from the agents on the ground dealing with this problem first hand. As President Obama is in Texas this week, I urge him to meet with law enforcement officers who are on the front lines, so that he can better understand how his policies have created this crisis and how he can end it.
Obama is scheduled to visit Texas this week for fundraisers. He does not plan to visit the border. He is scheduled, however, to meet with Texas Gov. Rick Perry in Dallas during his visit.
Since October, more than 52,000 unaccompanied minors and 39,000 women with children have been apprehended illegally crossing into the United States from Mexico. The vast majority of the illegal entries are from El Salvador, Honduras, and Guatemala.