President Obama’s latest budget predicts some 75,000 unaccompanied illegal immigrant children will sneak into the U.S. and have to be captured and cared for next year, suggesting the surge that began in 2014 will outlast this administration.
Mr. Obama included $319 million in his 2017 blueprint to handle the children and warned that Homeland Security may request additional money if the surge is larger than predicted.
At 75,000, the total for 2017 would be a record, eclipsing the nearly 69,000 who crossed the border in fiscal 2014 and the nearly 40,000 last year. This fiscal year, which began Oct. 1, is already off to a record pace.
The children are chiefly from El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala.
When interviewed by Border Patrol agents, they say they are coming because of lax enforcement policies in the U.S. They believe they can disappear into the shadows with other illegal immigrants.
Humanitarian groups say the children also describe horrific violence or neglect at home that pushed their parents to send them north, often in the hands of smugglers who rape or otherwise abuse them.
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• Stephen Dinan can be reached at sdinan@washingtontimes.com.
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