Senate panel OKs make it easier to ease migrant surge at southern border

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The Senate Appropriations Committee on Wednesday approved $4.6 billion in largely humanitarian make it easier to address an outburst of migrants from the southern U.S. border with Mexico, using a vote expected in the full Senate the second next week.

The legislation will not contain money for Republican President Donald Trump’s border wall construction, and Democrats stated it included provisions which would keep the Trump administration from raiding the funds for use for the wall.

The Trump administration had sought the bucks last month for programs that house, feed, transport and oversee record quantities of Central American families seeking asylum and straining capacity at migrant shelters in border cities.

Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Richard Shelby, a Republican, said on Wednesday which more than 675,000 illegal immigrants had entered the united states so far this season, citing Department of Homeland Security numbers.

Democratic Senator Patrick Leahy said lawmakers should take action, noting the “deplorable” conditions for migrant families on the border, a few of whom are going to be forced to sleep under bridges or have been placed in outdoor pens without shelter.

Leahy emphasized the package definitely would not fund “the administration’s ineffective detention-first policies,” yet provides useful alternatives to detention to help keep families together.

“And then we do not fund President’s Trump’s border wall, which would do nothing to pay this crisis,” Leahy added.

The bill includes $2.9 billion to the U.S. Department of Health insurance and Human Services to assist care for unaccompanied children make them in suitable homes, Shelby said. What’s more, it includes $1.3 billion for any Department of Homeland Security to supply food, shelter and medical treatment to adult migrants who are detained.

There is $145 million for ones Defense Department, and that has mobilized to help improve with the crisis, and $220 million for any Justice Department that will process immigration cases and “detain dangerous individuals,” Shelby noted.

The committee vote was 30-1 on your bill, a bipartisan agreement between Shelby and Leahy, the panel’s top Democrat. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, a Republican, welcomed into your market on the Senate floor.

The Democratic-majority House isn’t a party into the agreement, and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Wednesday she weren’t sure the details yet. But bipartisan refers to border aid are also underway in the House, a Democratic aide said.

House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer said House lawmakers was going to act soon to email humanitarian resources for the border. “You should move on it as being quickly as they can be,” he said.