Democrats Offer Plan to Release All Child Traffickers at Border into U.S.

The House Democrats’ first offer to President Trump in negotiations to fund his proposed United States-Mexico border wall includes a provision that would end all immigration enforcement for migrants trafficking children across the southern border.

The draft budget provides the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency with $7.4 billion, nearly $850 million less than requested by the Trump administration, and funds only 1,250 beds for adults and migrant children coming across the border this year, a decrease in detention space.

Attached to that funding, though, is an immigration enforcement ban first introduced by Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) and supported by every Senate Democrat. The Democrats’ offer demands that all immigration enforcement end for any adult crossing the border with a child by the end of Fiscal Year 2019.

Rather than being held in detention for a period of time, those adults and the migrant children they trafficked across the U.S.-Mexico border would be released immediately into the interior of the country.

Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) previously called the plan the “Child Trafficking Encouragement Act” as it ensures that adults bringing children to the southern border would gain immediate access into the U.S. without fear of being deported or turned away.

More