By Stephen Dinan - The Washington Times -
Top Senate Democrats announced legislation Thursday to grant government-funded lawyers to tens of thousands of illegal immigrant children and mothers who surged into the U.S. from Central America over the last few years, opening another front in the thorny immigration battle.
Arguing the Obama administration has been unfair to illegal immigrants by shunting them through a complex legal system without proper attention to their rights, Sen. Harry Reid, the top Democrat in the upper chamber, led colleagues in demanding lawyers and other protections, such as allowing migrants to delay their trials until they get access to their entire government file.
Currently, migrants are able to hire their own lawyers, but the government cannot pay for them.
Though unlikely to advance in the GOP-controlled Congress, the legislation is an important marker for both the presidential campaign and for the ongoing debate over how the U.S. treats the illegal immigrants — and, particularly, the unaccompanied children — that have skyrocketed in recent years.
“Look, deportation means death for some of these people,” Mr. Reid said. “Given the life-and-death consequences of deportation to this region, we must ensure that we are not putting asylum-seeking women and children in harm’s way. We can do this by making sure that these desperate women and children have a lawyer.”
The move by Democrats, including the lone Hispanic Democratic, Sen. Robert Menendez, puts pressure on a White House that has struggled to walk a middle line on immigration, trying to find a lenient policy for those already in the U.S. while still attempting to enforce laws against newcomers.
On Thursday Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson, delivering a “state of homeland security” address, said they’re still trying to manage the tricky situation on the border, which has seen about 300,000 illegal immigrant families and children traveling alone stream into the U.S. over the last two and a half years.
Mr. Johnson had thought he had the problem licked in the summer of 2014, only to see a new, unexpected surge in the last half of 2015. Mr. Johnson said so far in 2016, the numbers are down again, by more than 50 percent compared to December.
