President Barack Obama is blocking several simple actions that would quickly stop the rising flood of migrant youths and adults crossing the Texas border, according to border officials and immigration reformers.
If officials wanted to block the “Dream Deluge†of Central Americans youths, for example, “they would stop releasing them to family members [in the U.S., and] make sure they’re in long-term detention until they could either verify an asylum claim or a claim for persecution,†said Shawn Moran, vice president of the National Border Patrol Council.
Immigration officials could make sure the youths’ parents are legal residents before they transfer the children and youths, and then deport the parents if they’re here illegally, said Moran, whose council serves as a union for border patrol officers.
But Obama’s appointees say “the whole goal of the process is family unification, so we’re not allowed to even ask the legal status of whosoever is picking them up,†he said.
“If they could do this very routine immigration enforcement, it would be a hugely powerful disincentive to keep trying to smuggle the kids,†said Jessica Vaughan, policy director at the Center for Immigration Studies, an organization that opposes the president’s immigration reform plan.
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