Virginia Sen. Tim Kaine said Thursday that the United States could help stem the surge immigrant children trying to come into the United States illegally by providing more security assistance to Central American nations.
Mr. Kaine, a Democrat, said children are fleeing these nation’s because of the violence in their home countries, which is tied to them becoming transport points for drugs being consumed by Americans.
“We have some responsibility here,” Mr. Kaine said on “The John Fredericks Show.” “I think if we spent a little bit more in these nation’s to help them with their security challenges, and I think if we were a little bit more creative in trying to deal with some of the drug demand issues in the United States, we would see a dramatic tail off in these detainees coming over the border.”
Mr. Kaine said the federal government has budgeted $850 million to deal with the immigrants detained at the border, but that could rise to $2 billion because of the recent increase in people trying to come into the country illegally.
But he said the government only budgeted $140 million for security assistance.
Mr. Kaine said the nation could reduce the costs associated with the detainees by investing more in security assistance.
“If we just put a fraction of the money that we are using to kind of try to take care of the detainees when they come to the border into better security assistance in Central America, the numbers will slow down,” he said.
• Seth McLaughlin can be reached at smclaughlin@washingtontimes.com.
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