Bipartisan Lawmakers Push For The HUMANE Act To Solve The Border Crisis
Erika Villanueva | | Jul 15, 2014 04:33 AM EDT |
Bipartisan legislators from Texas presented a bill to reform the current U.S. immigration law on Tuesday to quickly resolve the humanitarian crisis along the country's southern border.
Republican Sen. John Cornyn and Democrat Rep. Henry Cuellar teamed up to amend the 2008 law on immigration intended to stop sex trafficking and gives migrant children from Central America additional legal protections after they cross the border.
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President Barrack Obama cited these protections as the main reason it is more difficult to send the children back to their home countries. Under the current law, the migrant children are able to stay in the country while waiting for their case to be heard in the backlogged immigration court, taking years to conclude.
In the legislation dubbed as the Helping Unaccompanied Minors and Alleviating National Emergency (HUMANE) Act, the U.S. Border Patrol will be able to return many of the migrant children faster.
The legislation will give the migrant children the chance to choose if they want to go back to their country of origin. It will also accelerate immigration court hearings in seven days -- from their Homeland Security screening for children with legal claims to stay in the country -- giving immigration judges 72 hours to decide whether the child can stay with a sponsor.
"Our proposal would improve the Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2008, treating all unaccompanied minors equally and ensuring Due Process under the law in a timely, fair manner," Cuellar explained.
The lawmakers told the media that the legislation is expected to begin at the House of Representatives, and to be included as a pre-condition to Obama's requested supplemental budget bill.
"The money itself is not a solution to the problem. This is a solution to the problem," Rep. Cornyn stated adding that he "couldn't vote for this supplemental without the reforms."
TagsDemocrat, Republican, border crisis, Sen. John Cornyn, Rep. Henry Cuellar, Central America
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