GOP Rep: Border Crisis Not About Amnesty Legislation

Even though numerous illegal immigrants flooding across the border have said they made the journey because they believed President Barack Obama would not deport them, the Chairwoman of the House GOP working group on the border crisis said the crisis has nothing to do with immigration reform.  

Rep. Kay Granger (R-TX), whom House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) appointed to the group, said, “please don’t call this an immigration reform issue, this is a humanitarian crisis, and we need help now.”

According to Roll Call, “Granger visited a bus station in Laredo, TX that is providing shelter and aid for dozens” of illegal immigrants, a “Customs and Border Patrol facility in McAllen, TX where hundreds of unaccompanied minors and family units are apprehended while they await to be processed through the system,” and “Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio, TX that is serving as a temporary shelter and processing center for thousands of unaccompanied minors.” 

After the visit, Granger said that despite Obama’s claims, “this is not about immigration reform, this is about managing the immediate humanitarian crisis that this country faces at the Texas-Mexico border.”

“This is about making a priority the thousands of children who have made a horrific journey based on false hope that they will be able to stay in the United States,” she continued.

Nearly 50,000 illegal immigrant children have crossed the U.S.-Mexico border since October of last year and Texas Gov. Rick Perry said that 160,000 more will try to enter illegally next year, largely because they have been led to believe that the Obama administration will never deport them. After Breitbart Texas first reported on the illegal immigrant children being warehoused, Obama’s approval ratings on immigration plummeted. And after Dave Brat shocked House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA) in a June primary, the chances for amnesty legislation essentially ended. 

Boehner told Obama last week that there would not be a vote on a bill this year, and Obama vowed to push forward with executive actions this summer to change as many of the nation’s immigration laws as possible.