WASHINGTON (AP) — Obama administration officials defended their response to the immigration crisis on the Southwest border Wednesday and pledged to get control of the flood of unaccompanied children arriving from Central America.

“We believe we will stem this tide,” the officials said in a joint statement prepared for a Senate hearing.

Federal Emergency Management Agency administrator Craig Fugate, Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Gil Kerlikowske, and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary Thomas Winkowski appeared before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee a day after President Barack Obama asked Congress for $3.7 billion in emergency spending to deal with the crisis.

The officials were expected to face questions on the request, which is encountering some resistance from Republicans who believe more wholesale changes are needed. Democrats seem generally receptive to the spending, which would go for more immigration judges, detention facilities, and deterrence efforts, though some say it should focus more on helping the kids than on enforcement.

For President Barack Obama, the humanitarian crisis at the U.S.-Mexico border is increasingly becoming a political liability, giving Republicans a fresh opportunity to question his administration’s competence and complicating the debate over the nation’s fractured immigration laws.

But the president has resisted calls to visit the border during his fundraising trip to Texas on Wednesday. Instead, Obama plans to meet in Dallas with faith leaders and Texas officials, including Republican Gov. Rick Perry. Obama’s decision to skip a border visit is likely to provide more fodder for the Republicans and the handful of Democrats who say the president hasn’t responded quickly and forcefully enough to the mounting crisis.

Perry, a possible GOP presidential candidate in 2016, has been scathing in his criticism of Obama, saying the White House has failed to respond to his repeated warnings about a flood of minors at the border. But Obama spokesman Josh Earnest said the White House wasn’t worried about the optics of the president traveling to Texas without visiting the border. Officials also pointed to Obama’s request to Congress on Tuesday for additional resources at the border as a sign of the president’s engagement in the crisis.

The officials testifying at Wednesday’s congressional hearing didn’t address the spending request in prepared testimony but outlined steps the administration already is taking to get a handle on the crisis, from aiming to increase detention space to working with governments in the region.

The children are coming mostly from El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala, many fleeing cartel violence but also hearing rumors, sometimes from smugglers, that once they arrive in the U.S. they would be allowed to stay. More than 50,000 have arrived already since fall, a number that’s expected to rise to 90,000 by the end of this fiscal year. Thousands of families also are coming.

The unexpected immigration spike is overwhelming immigration courts and holding facilities in the Southwest and turning into a major political crisis for the Obama administration.

• Politics & Government
• Executive Branch
• Barack Obama

BERNE (Reuters) – More immigrants from the European Union entered Switzerland than ever before in 2013, the year before Swiss voters put their country at odds with Brussels by backing a cap on immigration from the bloc.

A net 66,200 EU citizens emigrated to Switzerland last year, the highest number since a free movement of people pact came into force in 2002, the State Secretariat for Economics (SECO) said in its annual report which examines the effect of the agreement on the Swiss economy.

The SECO figures pre-date February’s surprise vote in favour of imposing tighter immigration controls following a campaign which tapped into fears that Swiss culture is being eroded by foreigners, who account for nearly a quarter of the population.

Switzerland said last month it would introduce immigration quotas for EU citizens from 2017, sparking a sharp reaction from the European Union which dismissed the plans as incompatible with the pact that guarantees the free movement of workers.

The SECO report said limits on immigration, given Switzerland’s current economic and demographic conditions, could have negative repercussions on the country’s growth potential and labour market, while the department’s director praised the impact of the free-movement pact.

“Whatever its fate may be, the current free movement of people agreement has strengthened the competitiveness of businesses in Switzerland and has enabled the Swiss economy to post above-average growth in recent years,” SECO Director Marie-Gabrielle Ineichen-Fleisch told journalists in Berne.

More than 60 percent of the European immigrants came to Switzerland to work, the SECO said. When immigration from non-EU countries is included the net figure stood at 88,000 people, it said.

Since the financial crisis in 2008 the number of workers coming from southern and eastern European member states has increased, the report also found. In the early years of the free-movement pact, the immigration balance was characterised by Germans coming into the country.

The immigration initiative, which passed by fewer than 20,000 votes, has deeply unsettled the Swiss business establishment and the SECO report found net immigration is closely linked to Switzerland’s economic growth.

Georg Lutz, political science professor at the University of Lausanne, said Switzerland’s need for workers from abroad was nothing new and would continue for the foreseeable future.

“Switzerland has been an immigration country for the last 50 years roughly,” Lutz said. “If you look at the demographics, Switzerland will need immigrants to keep the economy going.”

The EU intake in 2013 represented around 0.8 percent of Switzerland’s roughly 8.1 million population.

According to figure from the Federal Department for Statistics, the number of foreign residents has risen by just over 30 percent since 2002. The increase in Swiss residents over the same period is a little more than 6 percent.

Lutz said he was convinced the government would find a solution to the immigration question that would not do too much harm to the Swiss economy and that women could be a solution to any resulting skills shortage.

He said: “There is still a huge drop-out rate, compared to other countries, for women from the work force when they have children.”

(Reporting by Alice Baghdjian and Joshua Franklin in Zurich; Editing by Toby Chopra)

• Immigration Issues
• Politics & Government
• Switzerland
• European Union

My pick for quote of the month: “I’m going to keep doing everything I can do to keep making our immigration system smarter and more efficient.” Thus spoke President Obama at a Fourth of July event celebrating several naturalized citizens.  

Seriously, as thousands of unaccompanied children swarm our border, lured by the promise of Obama’s Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals Program, aka the “Dream Act,” the president thinks he has made our immigration mess smarter – and more efficient.  

It sure doesn’t seem smarter to have an expected influx this year of 60,000 to 80,000 children alarming the nation about our porous border and deportation process – especially if you’re hoping to reform our immigration laws. GOP hardliners have long insisted that a secure border is step number one to any long-term fix. 

Related: Obama Attacked By Both Sides on Border Crisis 

It doesn’t seem efficient to have exactly one facility in the entire country set up to house families – a detention center in Pennsylvania that can accommodate about 100 people. It doesn’t seem smart or efficient that most of the youngsters, and the adults traveling with them, will recede into the shadows as their court dates are postponed year after year. 

This is a mess, and President Obama is to blame. Don’t take my word for it – Joe Biden blew his boss’ cover on his recent trip to Central America. He tried to turn around the prevailing narrative by emphasizing, “Children and adults arriving with their children (in the U.S.) are not eligible to benefit from the passage of immigration reform legislation or from the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) process.”

That’s not how The New York Times sees it. The paper is in full defense mode, blaming the William Wilburforce Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act of 2008 for the sudden surge in illegal minors. Most Americans have never heard of Mr. Wilburforce, much less his bill. It was passed with almost no notice in the final year of the George W. Bush presidency, but The Times imagines that this obscure bit of legalese has lit up the blogosphere in Central America.

The paper envisions parents south of our border studying the legislation for six years, consulting their lawyers and then deciding yes, this particular bill will protect my child as I send him alone into a foreign land. What a truly ludicrous idea.

Related: A Long Wait at the Back of the Immigration Line

The Times is carrying on their stalwart tradition of absolving President Obama from the many disasters growing up like weeds around the White House (and blaming Bush). For the record, it should be noted that the 2008 bill was a re-authorization of a bill originally passed in 2000, before GWB took office.

That bill was meant mainly to protect women and children who were victims of sex trafficking, but it began the process of giving asylum to illegals under 18 years of age. It directed the federal government to extend benefits to trafficking victims – and specifically to minors – “without regard to the immigration status” of such unfortunates. Thus, the process began.

The accelerant on this raging fire came from Obama’s “Dream Act,” initiated just months before the 2012 election, in response to his sinking popularity with Hispanics. Obama’s executive action temporarily suspended the deportation of illegal minors who had been brought to the United States as children, and who had met certain other requirements.

The young people who qualified were granted a two-year renewable reprieve from deportation; in effect, they were free to stay in the U.S. Because it was an election-year gambit, and because it might affect 1.4 million people, the move attracted significant notice. Here — and south of the border. 

Related: Obama Tries to Reform Immigration on His Own, Bypassing Congress 

That was good news for Obama, whose approval ratings from the Hispanic community had sunk to 53 percent in 2011, threatening the turnout of a core voting block. Because of the Dream effort, and energetic courting (and a pitiful wooing effort on the part of Mitt Romney), Obama regained his footing, capturing 71 percent of the Hispanic vote in 2012, compared to 27 percent for Mr. Romney. 

President Obama’s standing with Hispanics has again tanked; it is now at 44 percent – below those 2011 lows. It can’t help that the White House looks completely flummoxed by the turmoil at the border as it lurches from one policy fix to the next. Most recently, the Obama administration backed off a proposed law change that could have permitted swifter deportation of the children coming across the U.S. border – a plan launched only last week. The initiative, meant to deter those seeking a safe haven for their children, was slammed by immigrants-rights groups. A new plan, requesting $3.7 billion, of which $1.8 will go to new detention centers, is unlikely to win much favor either. 

The president is now in a pickle. As he heads to Texas for yet another fund-raising tour, critics are encouraging him to visit the border, to get a first-hand look at what he has called an “urgent humanitarian challenge.” The White House has refused this request (issued by Texas Governor Perry, among others), rightly imagining that Obama surrounded by hundreds of desperate and pleading youngsters — or locals incensed by the tumult — might not be the perfect photo-op just months before yet another election. 

At the last minute, he has agreed to a meeting with “faith leaders” in Dallas; lest you think otherwise, a White House spokesperson has affirmed that Mr. Obama is “very aware of the situation that exists on the southwest border.”  What small comfort – to our border communities and to the children lost in our immigration maze. And, to those who actually hope for immigration reform, which is being dealt a heavy, if not fatal, blow. 

Top Reads from The Fiscal Times:

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• Politics & Government
• Immigration Issues
• President Obama

Last week, Congressional Republicans forced an exasperated President Obama to acknowledge the death—or at least the needless delay—of yet another policy reform in the national interest. One striking feature of the immigration debate has been lost in the lamentations and finger pointing: religious leaders’s near-unanimous support for comprehensive immigration reform.

The politics of America’s faith leaders are as diverse as the manifold sects and theological orientations they represent, making widespread political agreement among them rare. Most social movements of the past found faith leaders on both sides of contentious issues. Churches split over slavery. Protestants fought Catholics over Prohibition. Some Christians opposed the Civil Rights movement while others marched and advocated for racial equality.

Today, religious arguments abound for and against cultural changes concerning gender roles and sexuality. Though enthusiasm for capital punishment is declining and religious opposition is strong, many prominent faith leaders continue to defend the death penalty. Since Vietnam, religious groups have been sharply divided over the United States’ military campaigns.

Most faith traditions have lobbies in Washington advocating for their priorities in the public square. In our current configuration of religious interest groups, we find significant overlap with party politics. Mainline Protestant elites are overwhelmingly liberal, and join ethnic minority faith groups in supporting the Democrats on most issues. White evangelicals and Latter-Day Saints are uniformly in the GOP camp. The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops and a smaller group of moderate evangelicals are the most legitimately nonpartisan, supporting conservative policies on human sexuality and siding with liberals on most everything else.

It’s significant, then, that religious leaders are nearly unanimous in their support of immigration reform. Mainline and black Protestants rarely regard Southern Baptists and Mormons as political allies. Yet leaders from all these faith traditions and many more supported the bipartisan bill that the Senate passed 68-32 in June 2013.

Perhaps some of this unanimity arises out of practical concerns. Immigrants play a vital and growing role in American congregations. This trend will only accelerate as whites lapse at higher rates than nonwhites. In recognition of the family cohesion and human dignity issues at stake, however, faith leaders of all stripes joined hands with each other and with law enforcement and business groups to seek House action on the Senate-passed bill.

Faith-based advocacy organizations in D.C. tend to cluster into like-minded groups. Evangelicals work together on life and marriage issues, Mainliners work together on peace and justice issues, etc. Each side teams up with the Catholic bishops when they can. Coalitions frequently emerge within, but not always between, these categories.

The National Immigration Forum connected religious advocates to the broader reform coalition. The Forum’s breadth is reflected in its board, which draws from diverse immigrant, business, and religious groups. Ali Noorani, the Forum’s executive director, helped bring the faith community into partnership with advocates like the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and media mogul Steve Case. An ad hoc network, Bibles, Badges & Business, represents the diversity of the pro-reform lobby.

If not for the involvement of conservative evangelicals, the religious coalition on immigration reform would have looked like it does on most other issues of economic justice: mainline and ethnic minority Protestant groups joining Jewish and Catholic organizations in supporting policies to protect the poor and vulnerable in the face of silence—and, not infrequently, opposition—from the Christian right. Though the political and theological distance between conservative and moderate evangelicals has grown considerably over the past generation, prominent leaders and groups from both camps formed another ad hoc organization, the Evangelical Immigration Table, to underscore their shared commitment to honor the Bible’s clarion call to welcome the stranger.

This near-unanimous coalition included, of course, Hispanic evangelicals, a group growing in size and influence, and one which naturally has the most visceral personal connections to the immigration issue. The Rev. Gabriel Salguero and the Rev. Samuel Rodriguez, both well known among Hispanic evangelicals as pastors and activists, have broadened their national prominence as faith leaders urgently advocating for immigration reform.

In spite of this dynamic coalition, nativist House Republicans hamstrung their impotent Speaker into notifying the president that immigration reform is dead. How can this be?

That the House GOP would defy not only business interests, but also their core constituency (white evangelicals) and a growing demographic (Hispanics) for whose votes they should aspire to compete shows how far the ruling Tea Party wing of the party has strayed from sane politics and practical, Main Street conservatism.

Immigration’s failure adds credence to Thomas Mann and Norm Ornstein’s argument that the rightward shift of the Republican Party has hampered effective governance. These longtime D.C. analysts argue that extremist influences cause the GOP to refuse even modest compromises and prevent majorities of the people and their representatives from enacting sensible policies and reforms.

To the chagrin of my friends who have labored so tirelessly on immigration reform, I agree with others who argue that, at least among white evangelicals, it has been more of a top-down effort than a grassroots movement. Some rank-and-file evangelicals may have switched their position or even advocated for reform. But in the aggregate, immigration reform is not a salient issue for white evangelicals. Obviously, few Republican congressmen fear losing voters over opposing it.

Republicans are having a vigorous debate about whether or not to make serious appeals to the growing Hispanic electorate. Some argue that the idea that Hispanics are a swing constituency is an illusion. In that case, the best plan is to maximize the white vote and to avoid naturalizing immigrants. This line of thinking may have merit in the very short term, but is perilous for the GOP’s future. Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) and others argue that if the GOP blocks immigration reform, it hurts its electoral prospects in 2016 and beyond.

The truth is that, for all religious advocates’ work on immigration reform, electoral considerations and ideological preferences are paramount for Members of Congress. Even so, faith leaders deserve our thanks for their commendable advocacy on behalf of a mostly voiceless, often invisible constituency. As broken as our politics have become, it may be a good idea to keep these leaders around. Maybe they know someone who can help us.

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• Religion & Beliefs
• Society & Culture
• immigration reform
• GOP

MURRIETA, Calif. (AP) — Rumors had swirled among anti-immigration activists near a U.S. Border Patrol station in Southern California that the agency would try again to bus in some of the immigrants who have flooded across the U.S.-Mexico border.

Instead, they got dueling anti- and pro-immigration rallies Friday.

The crowd of 200 outside the station in Murrieta waved signs and sometimes shouted at each other. One banner read: “Proud LEGAL American. It doesn’t work any other way.” Another countered: “Against illegal immigration? Great! Go back to Europe!”

Law enforcement officers separated the two sides and contained them on one approach to the station, leaving open an approach from the opposite direction.

It was not certain, however, that any buses would arrive on Friday. Because of security concerns, federal authorities have said they will not publicize immigrant transfers among border patrol facilities. By late afternoon many demonstrators were leaving.

Six people were arrested, five for interfering with police who were investigating a fight and one for disorderly conduct, police said. One of the five was a woman who jumped on an officer’s back, but police did not give details on the actions of the rest.

Earlier this week, the city became the latest flashpoint in the intensifying immigration debate when a crowd of protesters waving American flags blocked buses carrying women and children who were flown from overwhelmed Texas facilities.

Federal authorities had hoped to process them at the station in Murrieta, about 55 miles north of downtown San Diego.

“This is a way of making our voices heard,” said Steve Prime, a resident of nearby Lake Elsinore. “The government’s main job is to secure our borders and protect us — and they’re doing neither.”

Immigration supporters said the immigrants need to be treated as humans and that migrating to survive is not a crime.

“We’re celebrating the 4th of July and what a melting pot America is,” said Raquel Alvarado, a high school history teacher and Murrieta resident who chalked up the fear of migrants in the city of roughly 106,000 to discrimination.

“They don’t want to have their kids share the same classroom,” she said.

The city’s mayor, Alan Long, became a hero to those seeking stronger immigration policies with his criticism of the federal government’s efforts to handle the influx of thousands of immigrants, many of them mothers and children.

However, Murrieta’s top administrative official tried to clarify Long’s comments, saying he was only asserting the Border Patrol station was not an appropriate location to process the migrants and was encouraging residents to contact their federal representatives.

The July 3 statement by City Manager Rick Dudley, suggesting that protesters had come from elsewhere in Southern California, expressed regret that the busloads of women and children had been forced to turn around.

Long said by telephone Friday that there was talk of a protest up to two weeks before Tuesday’s confrontation and the intent of his press conference Monday “was to squelch people’s rumors and to put people’s nerves at ease.”

He said forcing the buses to turn around was neither planned nor called for. “It’s not reflective of our city. This controversial topic has turned us upside down,” Long said. “It just happened to land on our doorstep, and we want to be part of a solution.”

Some local leaders said the outrage among some area residents was justified, given the already stressed social services infrastructure and the stagnant regional economy.

Riverside County Supervisor Jeff Stone said they weren’t concerned about the people on the buses. “It’s the thousands more that will follow that will strain our resources and take away the resources we need to care for our own citizens,” he said.

In recent months, thousands of children and families have fled violence, murders and extortion from criminal gangs in Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras. Since October, more than 52,000 unaccompanied children have been detained.

The crunch on the border in Texas’ Rio Grande Valley prompted U.S. authorities to fly immigrant families to other Texas cities and to Southern California for processing.

The Border Patrol is coping with excess capacity across the Southwest, and cities’ responses to the arriving immigrants have ranged from welcoming to indifferent.

In the border town of El Centro, California, a flight arrived Wednesday without protest.

In Nogales, Arizona, the mayor has said he welcomes the hundreds of children who are being dropped off daily at a large Border Patrol warehouse. Residents have donated clothing and other items for them.

In New Mexico, however, residents have been less enthusiastic.

At a town hall meeting this week, residents in Artesia spoke out against a detention center that recently started housing immigrants. They said they were afraid the immigrants would take jobs and resources from U.S. citizens.

___

Associated Press writers Astrid Galvan in Tucson, Arizona, and Amy Taxin in Tustin, California, contributed to this report.

• Immigration Issues
• Politics & Government
• Southern California
• illegal immigration