Arizona Lawmaker Aims to Send Border-Crossing Children Home Faster

More than 52,000 unaccompanied children and 39,000 women with children have been apprehended at the South Texas border so far this year.

Legislation proposed by an Arizona congressman would give federal officials authority to quickly screen and deport unaccompanied children from Central America who have crossed the Mexican border into the United States.

The bill from Rep. Matt Salmon, R-Ariz., would change a provision in a 2008 human-trafficking law that requires U.S. Border Patrol agents to turn over the children to the federal Department of Health and Human Services and guarantees those minors hearings in immigration court — a process that can take years.

Salmon, chairman of the House Foreign Affairs subcommittee on the Western Hemisphere, is part of a group assembled by Speaker John Boehner to address the border crisis.

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