Washington - The US House of
Representatives on Tuesday approved a $4.5 billion aid package
to address the migrant surge along the US-Mexico border,
including new standards for migrants in custody following
reports of poor conditions facing young children at overcrowded
facilities.
The Democratic-led House voted 230-195, mostly along party
lines, to pass the measure, but its future is uncertain. The
Republican-run Senate is working on its own version of the bill,
and Republican President Donald Trump has vowed to veto the
House legislation, with White House officials saying it would
hamstring the administration's border enforcement efforts.
Trump on May 1 requested the aid for programs that house,
feed, transport and oversee record numbers of Central American
families seeking asylum in the United States and straining
capacity at migrant shelters in border cities.
Attorneys raised alarms last week after finding more than
300 migrant children in an overcrowded Texas border patrol
station, where they said some had been held for weeks in squalid
conditions without adequate food and water.
Amid the ensuing outcry, the acting commissioner of the U.S.
Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agency, John Sanders, said
on Tuesday he was resigning.
Democrats emphasized on Tuesday that while they were
approving the border aid to address the humanitarian crisis,
they were not ratifying the administration's attempts to
restrict and discourage immigration, which Trump has made a
central focus of his presidency.
"Our legislation is a vote against the cruel attitude toward
children of this administration. This bill does not fund the
administration's failed mass detention policy. Instead it funds
effective humane alternatives to detention that have a proven
record of success," House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said ahead of the
vote.
WOOING PROGRESSIVES
But Democratic leaders had to work to secure votes for the
bill from progressive lawmakers worried the Trump administration
might use the funds for other purposes, such as deportation of
migrants.
On Tuesday afternoon, Democrats added provisions to better
protect the health of migrants in the custody of US Border
Patrol agents, including standards for medical care and
nutrition. They also added language to set a three-month limit
for any unaccompanied child migrant to spend at an intake
shelter unless notice is given.
Another amendment said shelters run by contractors must meet
standards of care within six months or risk losing their
contracts. Representative Pramila Jayapal, the co-chair of the
Congressional Progressive Caucus, agreed to back the bill after
that provision was included.
The House legislation would also reinstate hundreds of
millions of dollars in aid to El Salvador, Guatemala and
Honduras that was cut off by the Trump administration.
The same provisions that helped win over progressive
Democrats were denounced by House Republicans as "poison pills."
Republicans said they preferred the $4.6 billion Senate version
of the bill, which has passed a committee on a bipartisan basis,
and includes money - left out by the House - to pay overtime for
Immigration and Customs Enforcement employees.
The House bill is a sham that "does not help our
overstretched law enforcement authorities," said House
Republican leader Kevin McCarthy.
With administration officials warning they will soon run out
of funds at the border, and a one-week congressional recess
coming up next week, House Democrats hurried to pass the measure
on Tuesday. But the Senate has yet to pass its version, and the
two chambers must agree on the same legislation before it is
sent to Trump.