There’s no doubt the Obama administration is already far, far behind in the job of processing and returning the tens of thousands of unaccompanied children from Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador who have illegally crossed the border into the United States in recent months. Asked again Tuesday how many of those immigrants have been given notices to appear in court, and how many have actually shown up, White House spokesman Josh Earnest said he didn’t have the figure. “But let me just stipulate something,” Earnest said. “Without knowing what that number is, and without having seen it, I think we can all stipulate that that number is too high.” At three other times in the White House briefing, Earnest repeated his belief that the number he did not know was nevertheless too high.
Meanwhile, on Capitol Hill, Democrats noted that a 2008 law requires the administration to offer extensive and time-consuming procedural protections to the young illegal immigrants. “In 2008, then-President George Bush signed the William Wilberforce Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act,” Rep. Bennie Thompson, ranking Democrat on the House Committee on Homeland Security, said at a hearing. “The law recognizes that special care is demanded when dealing with the young and vulnerable. Under these laws, the Border Patrol is required to take unaccompanied children who are not from Mexico into custody, screen them and transfer them to the Department of Health and Human Services Office of Refugee Resettlement.”
