House Republicans Have a New Plan for the Border Crisis: Deport Everybody Right Away
In 2008, in an ill-advised fit of uncharacteristic empathy, George W. Bush signed a law that prevented children who enter the US from countries that do not border the US from being immediately deported. Today, the Republican Party is proposing a “plan” to deal with the current influx of migrant children.
“I’d like to act. We’ve got a humanitarian crisis on the border that has to be dealt with,” House Speaker John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) told reporters Wednesday.
So, to address this humanitarian crisis in the most humane Republican way possible, the centerpiece of the plan is … changing that Bush-era law to allow deporting all these burdensome children back to the dangerous, corrupt, and often violent countries from which they fled. Were you expecting something else?
They also want to send in the National Guard, because there’s no problem the National Guard can’t fix, if you’re a Republican.
In a brief interview with The Washington Post, Granger said that her proposals would tweak current immigration laws. The goal is to “change the law - not to repeal the law, not to completely change the law but change a portion that will let us send the children back in a very speedy way,” she said.
“We’ve been to Guatemala and Honduras and twice to the border to see what is really happening. The consensus, absolutely, is that we send the children back as quick as we can. We also want to make sure the countries receiving them have the capacity,” she added.
“The president’s supplemental [spending request] asks for a lot of money, but it’s money to spend here to keep the kids, and we disagree with that,” Granger said. “The Border Patrol is doing a great job, but there just aren’t enough of them. National Guard, I think, is absolute.”
Of course, the head of the National Guard under George W. Bush has said that sending in the Guard isn’t the answer, but what does he know?