Dozens of angry House Democrats said Tuesday they plan to send a letter to President Obama urging him to stop recent raids by U.S. Immigration Custom Enforcement against illegal immigrants, despite recent White House efforts to explain ICE’s actions after 121 illegals were apprehended for deportation.
Rep. Zoe Lofgren, D-Calif., said Tuesday afternoon that a group of Democratic members had a “very cordial” meeting with White House counsel Neil Eggleston earlier in the day, but it did not end their concerns over the raids.
“There is continuing dialogue with the administration,” she told reporters. “If [the White House wants] to call anytime, I’d love to take their call, but we want to lay out our viewpoint.”
The group of Democrats, she said, fear that mothers and children the Obama administration is deporting aren’t receiving adequate due process and should be treated as refugees because they are fleeing violence in Central America. The raids are targeting families who came to the U.S illegally some time after May 2014, when a flood of women and children created a crisis at the southern border in Texas.
“Congress can always pass legislation but there’s plenty of room within existing law” to provide better due process for the mothers and children, Lofgren said.
“Eighty-five to 90 percent of these mothers who are interviewed by trained asylum workers are found to have a fear that they will be killed if they return [to their home countries], then they go to court and they don’t have a lawyer, they don’t speak English and they can’t explain their situation. So there’s a due process concern,” she said.
It was the second time in a week the White House sent top aides to Capitol Hill to try to allay Democratic concerns about the raids.
Last Thursday, the White House send domestic policy adviser Cecilia Munoz and Homeland Security Deputy Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas up to speak to members, but that meeting left many unanswered questions and did nothing to satisfy Democratic outrage over the issue.
