House Speaker John Boehner announced Tuesday that House Republicans are finalizing a bill to address the surge of migrant children coming over the southern U.S. border from Central America. The $659 million bill, provides much less than President Barack Obama’s $3.7 billion request.

Boehner said that he expects the House to pass the bill Thursday.

“I think there’s sufficient support in the House to move this bill,” Boehner told reporters after a House GOP conference meeting. “We’ve got a little more work to do, though.”

The bill, however, has little chance of passing through the Senate. That’s because it would, among other things, change a 2008 law that requires now-backlogged immigration courts to screen children who aren’t from Mexico or Canada. House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid oppose changing that provision, arguing it would give the unaccompanied minors, many of whom are from Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras, fewer legal protections and that there are other ways of speeding up immigration cases.

The Senate is voting on its own $2.7 billion bill, which doesn’t include the policy change, as soon as Wednesday.

House Appropriations Chairman Hal Rogers broke down the House bill into three pots of funding: border control, temporary housing and foreign aid to Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador. The majority of the money, $405 million, is set aside to boost the Border Patrol and Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Another $197 million would be allocated for the Department of Health and Human Services, which is charged with taking care of the children until their family members or guardians can be located while their immigration cases are handled. There’s also $22 million in funding to hire temporary immigration judges, $35 million to send in the National Guard to secure the border and $40 million to support uniting the families in the aforementioned Central American countries.

The bill would be offset, Rogers announced, primarily through a $405 million cut from the Federal Emergency Management Agency. Other cuts to the State, Defense and Justice departments will bring the bill to be fully offset.

The Obama Administration predicts that as many as 90,000 unaccompanied minors could be apprehended on the U.S.-Mexico border before the end of September. (Source: Time)

Story Date: July 30, 2014