President Trump signs $4.6 billion in humanitarian border assistance

President Donald J. Trump signed a bill yesterday evening that will deliver $4.6 billion in emergency funding for humanitarian aid and security at our southern border.

“For many weeks, Democrats were giving us a hard time,” the President said from the Oval Office. But in the end, “it became a bipartisan bill. We were very happy about it.”

The bill provides desperately needed funding for America’s immigration law enforcement officers and includes resources for medical care, shelters, and increased housing for minors through the Department of Health and Human Services. But the package is only a short-term remedy, not a long-term solution to our border crisis.

Something to share: Border Patrol agents thwart human smuggling attempt

“This is a humane solution to a tremendous problem that’s caused because we have bad immigration laws, and we can solve that problem very, very quickly if we could get together with the Democrats,” President Trump said. “It shouldn’t be this way. We’re the only ones in the world that have a system like this. It’s absolutely insane, our system of immigration.”

America’s broken asylum laws have fueled an unprecedented surge at the border that has stretched our immigration facilities to the breaking point. If the current pace holds, more than 1 million illegal immigrants will be apprehended trying to enter the United States this year—more than the population of seven U.S. states.

Among the biggest of these loopholes comes from the Flores settlement agreement. Those terms, coupled with additional rulings from activist judges, have forced immigration officials to release alien families into the American interior after only a short period of time in detention. The result is a free pass for anyone arriving at the U.S. border with a minor, leading children to be exploited as a means of beating the system.

U.S. officials, including President Trump, have been warning for more than a year about people using abducted or abandoned children to pose as family units and gain entry into the United States—“a claim that critics said was overblown,” Wendy Fry of The San Diego Union-Tribune reports. “But now, authorities in Tijuana are warning migrant mothers to keep their children close by and supervised.”

“I can’t go to work because I can’t take my eyes off my boys,” a Honduran mother said. “They want to rob our kids so they can cross into the United States.”

Although Congressional Democrats continue to block any legislation addressing these long-term drivers of dangerous illegal immigration, signs of progress are beginning to break through. As of today, nearly three-quarters of Americans say the situation at the southern border with Mexico is a crisis, according to a new CNN poll. “Back in January, just 23% of Democrats called it a crisis as President Donald Trump took that line,” Jennifer Agiesta reports.

“Now, 70% of Democrats see the situation at the border as a crisis.”

In photos: Border Patrol agents save a 13-year-old who was drowning in the Rio Grande.

Better late than never: Top Democrats Declared Border Crisis ‘Fake’ Over Past Year

Photo of the Day

Official White House Photo by Joyce N. Boghosian

President Donald J. Trump signs H.R. 3401, the Emergency Supplemental Appropriations for Humanitarian Assistance and Security at the Southern Border Act of 2019, in the Oval Office | July 1, 2019