GOP leader calls for migrant children 'warehouses' in Central America

[Peikko 1,575]

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jul/13/border-crisis-immigration-children-warehouses-republicans-america

A senior Republican has proposed that the US government should build “warehouses” in Central America where thousands of unaccompanied children who have attempted to seek asylum in the US could be deported and processed on their return to their countries of origin.

Michael McCaul, a Republican member of Congress from Texas who chairs the House committee on homeland security, has proposed that rather than build extra facilities on domestic soil to handle the surge in numbers of child immigrants attempting to cross the US border, facilities should be located in the territories from which the minors came. “I’m not in favour of building large warehouses in the US to warehouse these kids, I think we have to have deterrence and if we are to build facilities we should think about doing that in the countries of origin in Central America,” he said.

Speaking on Fox News Sunday, McCaul said that Republicans would not write a blank cheque for dealing with the border situation, which he said had reached crisis proportions. President Obama last week asked Congress for $3.7bn in emergency funds to expand the system of immigration courts and speed up the process for dealing with child immigrants crossing the southern border, who have exceeded 50,000 since last October.

Republican leaders gave a round of interviews on the Sunday political shows, clearly sensing that the White House is on the defensive over the child immigrant issue. The opposition party has sought to turn the political flurry into Obama’s Katrina, by suggesting that the president’s decision not to tour the border in Texas last week was a sign that he was as out of touch as his predecessor George Bush had been over the New Orleans disaster in 2005.

The governor of Texas, Rick Perry, accused Obama on CBS’s Face the Nation of not caring about what was happening on America’s southern flank, which he called a “monumental humanitarian” problem. He said he had warned the president in May 2012 about the pending crisis with unaccompanied minors but nothing had been done about it.

Barack Obama and Rick Perry shake hands as the president arrives in Dallas to discuss immigration control with the Texas governor. Photograph: Jacquelyn Martin/AP

“It could have been stopped years ago had the administration listened and focused on what was happening at the border. Time after time you see a response from this administration that is, you know, we are really not that interested in the southern border of the United States,” he said.

For their part, Democrats are hoping to rebuff intensifying conservative criticism over the border issue by counter-attacking that Republican leaders are callous and uncaring towards vulnerable immigrant children. The Democratic party currently enjoys widespread support among Latino voters partly as a result of Republicans’ resistance to comprehensive immigration reforms that would provide a pathway towards citizenship for undocumented immigrants.

Joaquín Castro, the newly appointed housing and urban development secretary in the Obama administration, said that unaccompanied minors should not be deported back to possible violence and abuse in central America without their claims for asylum being heard. “These folks need to be given the chance to go to court and argue their case. It raises the question: who do we consider to be a refugee in America in the 21st century, and that's a very tough question for us and it tugs at our conscience.”

Castro did concede, however, that it was important for Obama to visit the border area at some point in the near future.

[Peikko 1,575]

Is this guy nuts? How do you build a migrant warehouse on foreign soil and how do you continue to process asylum cases when the children are not on US soil? Is it right that children migrate on their own to the US, or course not but what kind of moronic solution is this? Are they actually serious or is this just a stupid bluff that they know can't be implemented? The stupid just goes on and on and on...

[Pooky 3,781]

Is this guy nuts? How do you build a migrant warehouse on foreign soil and how do you continue to process asylum cases when the children are not on US soil? Is it right that children migrate on their own to the US, or course not but what kind of moronic solution is this? Are they actually serious or is this just a stupid bluff that they know can't be implemented? The stupid just goes on and on and on...

About as nuts as the Democrat Congressman from Texas, who wants to send the DHS into Central America to process the kids as refugees before they even leave their country of origin.

[elmcitymaven 9,712]

Is this guy nuts? How do you build a migrant warehouse on foreign soil and how do you continue to process asylum cases when the children are not on US soil? Is it right that children migrate on their own to the US, or course not but what kind of moronic solution is this? Are they actually serious or is this just a stupid bluff that they know can't be implemented? The stupid just goes on and on and on...

Sounds cost effective. Constructing, maintaining and securing US compounds in unstable regions sounds like a winner. I can't see why sovereign nations would object to the US doing this. Give the man a medal!

[Darnell 8,478]

no need to build anything - there's a few hundred abandoned warehouses in the Maquiladoro section in Mexico, just past the border into Mexico. Easy to lease something, or even just take it over.

No need to build anything, really.

[Peikko 1,575]

no need to build anything - there's a few hundred abandoned warehouses in the Maquiladoro section in Mexico, just past the border into Mexico. Easy to lease something, or even just take it over.

No need to build anything, really.

Is that you agreeing that this proposal from Michael McCaul is completely bonkers?

About as nuts as the Democrat Congressman from Texas, who wants to send the DHS into Central America to process the kids as refugees before they even leave their country of origin.

Don't know anything about it, it sounds bonkers too, but still, that doesn't answer to the question asked, is this proposal from someone who is supposed to be senior in the GOP to be taken seriously? If it is, what does that say about this senior GOP politician? After all, these children exist in the US and something has to be done about it, they can't be swept under any carpets, literal or metaphoric.

[Darnell 8,478]

usually building projects are proposed when a lobbyist got to the Congressman.

So, if'n I was in yer shoes, hunting down the malingering bits, I'd chase down which company the lobbyist works for, and cry foul.

[Trumplestiltskin 5,791]

Warehouses eh? These are children he's talking about, not farm animals.

[Mr. Big Dog 10,747]

You just wait until someone comes up with the idea to re-purpose Gitmo. There's only a few dozen "terrorists" left there anyway - most of which are cleared for release as it is.

[kehills 217]

Gotta love the GOP having a fit over Obama following a law signed by W. (Write vague laws, don't be shocked when they're applied to situations that you didn't intend but didn't exclude. Democrats just learned that one with the RFRE.)