What is happening legislatively on stopgap measure to provide emergency funding for migrants
Request for funding to care for unaccompanied migrant children and adults and to hire new judges for asylum claims coming to floor this upcoming week.
Far from enough help, not fast enough, doesn’t address children with families, or the many human rights violations, but such as it is, what’s going on. Read news story for more.
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Congress is nowhere near agreement on any major immigration law changes. As a stopgap, the Senate Appropriations Committee on Wednesday approved a modified version of the emergency funding request by a 30-1 vote. It's on its way to a floor vote next week.
The bipartisan vote likely means that the Senate will take the lead in writing the legislation, which needs to pass into law before the House and Senate leave for vacation next week. A spokesman for the House Appropriations Committee chairwoman, Rep. Nita Lowey, D-N.Y., said the panel has drafted its version of the measure and expects a bipartisan vote early next week.
The legislation contains $2.9 billion to care for unaccompanied migrant children — more than 50,000 have been referred to government care since October — and $1.3 billion to care for adults. There's also money to hire new judges to decide asylum claims.
To win Democratic support, the panel's chairman, Sen. Richard Shelby, R-Ala., agreed to drop Trump's request for Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention beds, where adults and a small number of families are held, and agreed to a Democratic provision to block any of the money in the legislation from being diverted to building a border wall.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2019/06/20/mexico-border-top-immigration-official-pleads-emergency-funding/1508376001/