WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama appealed to Congress on Tuesday for $3.7 billion in emergency spending to deal with the immigration crisis on the nation’s southern border, where unaccompanied children have been showing up by the thousands in a human drama that’s causing a political storm in Washington and beyond.

Obama himself was flying to Texas on Wednesday, a trip designed mostly for political fundraising for Democrats but now including a meeting on immigration with Gov. Rick Perry and religious and local leaders in Dallas. He rejected pressure from the Republican governor to visit the border for a firsthand look.