The new head of Customs and Border
Protection said on Wednesday that the Obama administration's leniency on
deportations and deferred action programs have contributed to the increase in
the number of illegal immigrant children crossing the country's southern
border.
Gil Kerlikowske told the House
Appropriations Homeland Security Subcommittee that the agency's
"facilities are not designed to hold these large numbers, nor are our
ports of entry." Therefore, border patrol agents should not spend their
time babysitting foreign children from south of the border.
“The deferred action, the family
unification, is an issue,” Kerlikowske said, according to CQ
Roll Call. “But I’ve also looked at the surveys of some of these
people who were talked to back in 2013. ... The crime and the gang issues in
their own country are a push-out — sometimes there’s family violence
also." He added, "And then of course there’s the economic incentive
to come to America, which has always been there. But I certainly understand
this issue of family reunification being a part of what is really a complex
problem.”
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