As children from Central America pour across the nation’s southwest border, most Americans want to speed up their deportations and disapprove of President Barack Obama’s handling of the situation, a poll out Wednesday finds.
Only 28 percent of those surveyed approve of Obama’s response to the surge of children along the border, while twice as many (56 percent) say they disapprove of his efforts, according to the poll by the non-partisan Pew Research Center.
“That is one of the lowest ratings for his handling of any issue since he became president,” the report said.
Republicans don’t get off the hook in the report’s finding. More respondents said Republicans need to do a better job on immigration (42 percent) than those who said Democrats need to do better (40 percent).
A majority (53 percent) said the United States should speed up the deportation process for those children, even if it means that some who are eligible for asylum end up getting deported.
More Republicans favor that option – 60 percent. Democrats are more divided on the issue: 47 percent say they’d rather keep the policy of a slower deportation process, while 46 percent support faster deportation.
Those numbers help explain the difficulty Washington has faced in getting a handle on the flood of immigrant children crossing the southwest border with Mexico.
The White House has responded with a range of proposals. It has requested $1.8 billion to help the Department of Health and Human Services provide better care and housing for the children, who have been packed in overcrowded Border Patrol facilities along the border. The White House also requested $1.6 billion to tighten border security and add dozens of judges, prosecutors and asylum experts to speed up deportation hearings.
Republicans in Congress, have pushed for a change in a 2008 law that allows children from Central American countries to remain in the country for a longer period of time while their immigration cases are resolved.
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Democrats harden stance
WASHINGTON – Democratic opposition increased Wednesday to legal changes that would speed removals of young Central American migrants, jeopardizing President Barack Obama’s call for $3.7 billion in emergency border spending to deal with the remarkable surge of unaccompanied youths at the South Texas border.
Republicans insist they won’t agree to the spending without accompanying changes to a 2008 law that gives unaccompanied minors arriving from Central American the right to an immigration hearing, in practice keeping them in this country for years.
But Democratic resistance to such changes hardened, with House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi changing her stance Wednesday and announcing her opposition to altering the law in a way that would create shortcuts around the immigration court system for Central American youths. Members of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus also took a firm stand against any changes and met with Obama on Wednesday to press the point.
“We made an impassioned plea that the children be protected and that we follow the law,” Rep. Luis Gutierrez, D-Ill., said after the meeting.
The White House has said it wants Congress to give the administration expanded authority to more quickly send back unaccompanied minors from Central American who are crossing the border, but officials have not spelled out what specific provisions they would like.
Rep. Joaquin Castro, D-Texas, said Obama assured the group that the due process rights of the minors would not be compromised, while Gutierrez said Obama does not need a change in law to speed up the immigration process.
“I think within existing law, he can achieve what he needs,” Gutierrez said. “Look, I didn’t come to Congress to diminish and abolish protections that people have.”
The lawmakers also spent time pressing Obama to take executive actions to decrease deportations of immigrants who entered the U.S. illegally but who have been in the country for some time. Obama has said he is reviewing his options and promised to act on his own after House Republican leaders made it clear there would be no vote this year on a comprehensive overhaul of immigration law.
