The White House is preparing an emergency request to Congress for additional powers to enable the fast-track deportation of tens of thousands of unaccompanied children from Central America who are crossing the US border illegally, a move that could bypass protections introduced by the the Bush administration.
President Barack Obama has called the surge of minors pouring across Mexico border and into the Rio Grande Valley a “humanitarian crisis” and has ordered officials to open emergency shelters on military bases and increase the number of border agents.
But in a significant toughening of the president’s stance, to be announced formally on Monday, the administration will request the authority to immediately repatriate children from Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador — the Central American countries from which most of the child migrants are travelling
A White House official told the Guardian the administration is planning to ask Congress to provide the department of homeland security with “additional authority to exercise discretion” in dealing with children from those countries. The request has been drafted in a letter to Congress that will be sent on Monday, the official said.
More than 52,000 unaccompanied children have been apprehended on the border since October. Administration officials have been particularly alarmed by the increase in children, many of them girls, under the age of 13. Border officials have reported finding some children as young as four or five or travelling alone.
However, the the administration has been hampered by anti-trafficking laws passed under George W Bush, which set out strict protocols for handling unaccompanied minors, which in turn delay the deportation process.
Unlike migrants from Mexico and Canada, children from countries that do not have a direct border with the US, such as Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador, must first be screened by a US border control agent, who cannot hold them for more than 72 hours before they are transferred to the Office of Refugee Resettlement, which is part of the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS).
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