Human Rights Groups Outraged Over Obama's Accelerated Deportation Proposal Amanda Sakuma - MSNBC
go to original July 1, 2014

Immigration and Customs Enforcement last year carried out more than 72,000 deportations of parents who said they had U.S.-born children, according to reports to Congress obtained by The Huffington Post. (The Huffington Post)

Immigration and human rights advocates are expressing outrage over President Obama’s proposal for Congress to speed up deportations of child migrants caught at the U.S. border.

“This administration is throwing these kids under the bus and returning them to countries where their lives may be at risk,” Wendy Young of Kids In Need of Defense, an advocacy group for unaccompanied minors, told msnbc. “They’re hitting the panic button way too soon.”

Obama on Monday formally requested a $2 billion infusion to help cope with the unprecedented number of kids caught at the southwestern border. In a letter to leaders on Capitol Hill, the president urged Congress to expand the Department of Homeland Security’s authority with “an aggressive deterrence strategy focused on the removal and repatriation of recent border crossers.”

The proposal would unravel a bipartisan provision adopted under President George W. Bush that protected children fleeing countries that do not share borders with the U.S. Children traveling from countries other than Mexico or Canada are currently exempt from expedited removal screenings and are given asylum hearings. The administration is asking for that to change.

If the proposal is enacted, Border Patrol agents would be tasked with screening children after they’re arrested along the border. The interview would effectively give children one shot at convincing officials that they have legitimate concerns for their safety and should remain in the U.S. to go through immigration and asylum proceedings.

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