On November 18, Arizona Congressman Matt Salmon convened a hearing of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Subcommittee on the Western Hemisphere entitled “Unaccompanied Alien Children: Pressing the Administration for a Strategy.”
Afterwards, he released a statement questioning the Obama administration UAC policy announced earlier this month by Vice-President Joe Biden. That policy will enable minors in El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras to travel to the United States to reside with parents who are in the United States ‘legally,’ according to Salmon. As Salmon noted, “What VP Biden didn’t mention publicly is that among those here ‘legally’ the Administration includes individuals that the President refuses to deport regardless of whether they are here in accordance with our laws or not.”
According to Salmon, the Obama Administration “incentivizes the mass exodus of citizens from those countries by changing immigration policy by decree.” While he believes that while the Obama administration’s ideas plans appear acceptable, they are not.
In his opening statement at last week’s hearing Salmon said, “We have all talked about the treacherous journey these children must take to make it up to our border, so offering those people who might qualify for refugee status the opportunity to apply in their countries would be a good way to dissuade them from otherwise traveling up to our southern border. Upon closer inspection, however, it appears that this program is yet another example of President Obama’s flouting of immigration law. This newly announced program allows family members present in the United States under varying statuses, including deferred action, to petition for children and spouses in Central America to be interviewed for refugee status.”
“If they are ineligible,” according to Salmon, “the newly announced program allows for humanitarian paroles on a case by case basis. It is very important that the State Department’s Bureau of Population Refugees and Migration provided a witness to answer the many questions my colleagues and I have about this newly announced in-country processing, particularly to understand the criteria being applied to both refugee and parole eligibility. The answer to the problems plaguing the region is not to further incentivize citizens of El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras to leave. Rather, we should double down on serious efforts to empower the people of the region to achieve lasting peace and prosperity. Using this crisis to attempt to curry favor for sheer political gain is shameless. Sadly, I believe that is exactly what President Obama is doing.”