Senate #Dems Balk at Faster Deportations — #BorderInvasion

Of course they're balking. Democrats never wanted border enforcement in the first place.

At the Wall Street Journal, "Some Senate Democrats Balk at Faster Deportations: Securing Funding to Tackle Immigration Surge Remains Top Priority" (via Google):

WASHINGTON—Senior Senate Democrats are expressing concern that President Barack Obama's plans to speed up deportation of thousands of children crossing the southern border could hamper a careful review of the migrants' cases and potentially return them to danger back home.

Mr. Obama has asked Congress to direct $3.7 billion to deal with the surge of migrants, many of whom are Central American children and families fleeing gang violence. He has also asked for more flexibility in dealing with a 2008 trafficking law seen as slowing down the administration's response, but Mr. Obama didn't directly tie altering the law to his funding request.

While Democrats are broadly supportive of the funding request, some of them worried Thursday that changes in the law to expedite deportation of children could prevent them from getting the appropriate legal protections.

The top Democratic leaders in the House and Senate, however, didn't take a hard line on altering the law, saying their top priority is getting the funding request passed. House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D., Calif.) said that while she would prefer not to see the law altered, "it's not a deal breaker."

Republicans including House Speaker John Boehner have said they want to change the 2008 law to expedite the process used to return many of the children to their home countries. The 2008 law, signed by President George W. Bush, aimed to protect children from human trafficking.

It requires that migrant children other than those from Mexico and Canada be placed with sponsors in the U.S. during potentially lengthy waits until the backlogged court system can hear their deportation cases.

"We're required to hold those people," said Mr. Boehner, who said Republicans "would probably want language similar to what we have with Mexico" to speed up the process.

Senate Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy (D., Vt.) said he would "fight tooth and nail" changes to the 2008 law. "When you have an 8- or 9-year-old girl who's being raped by gangs, that are being sent by their parents to escape that kind of violence, I'm not sure Americans really feel we should immediately send them back," he said at a Senate appropriations hearing on the president's request.

Sen. Richard Durbin of Illinois, the second-ranking Democrat in the Senate, also told reporters Thursday that he couldn't support changing the 2008 law unless he had more confidence that the children were receiving adequate legal representation and wouldn't be returned to dangerous situations.

"There's terrible poverty and violence going on and I need some assurance that there's some basic social service infrastructure there to protect them," said Mr. Durbin, who noted that he had discussed his concerns with Mr. Obama in a phone call last week.

In the Senate, a bill introduced by eight Republicans including Arizona Sens. Jeff Flake and John McCain, would enable officials to treat unaccompanied children entering from Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador—where most of the children are coming from—comparably to how they treat children from Mexico and Canada...

Treat them just like children from Mexico and Canada?

Dems don't want that --- they're loving this manufactured crisis.