Obama requests $3.7bn to fix border crisis

President Obama
| credits: File copy

President Barack Obama has asked Congress for $3.7bn (£2.2bn) in extra funding to tackle an immigration crisis at the southern border, BBC reports.

More than 50,000 unaccompanied children – most from Central America – have been caught trying to cross illegally between October and 15 June.

The move comes amid Congressional gridlock over a wide-reaching bill to overhaul the immigration system.

Mr Obama is set to meet local leaders in Texas over the issue on Wednesday.

But he has been criticised by members of both parties about not visiting the border personally during a primarily political fundraising trip to the southern state, which shares a lengthy border with Mexico.

Among those invited to attend the meeting is Texas Governor Rick Perry, who has opposed Mr Obama on the immigration issue and refused to greet him at the airport.

Perry’s spokeswoman Lucy Nashed confirmed the president and governor will meet, saying Perry is “is pleased that President Obama has accepted his invitation to discuss the humanitarian and national security crisis along our southern border”.

The emergency funding would include money for the hiring of 40 extra immigration judge teams, drone surveillance of the border, medical services and transportation costs, expanding a border security task force in Central America and overtime for border patrol workers.

“Without supplemental funding, absent undertaking extraordinary measures, agencies will not have sufficient resources to adequately address this situation,” the White House said in a statement.

US media report that the White House is pursuing a separate legislative action to speed up the deportation processes.

The administration has told Congress it was seeking “additional authority” to allow the Homeland Security secretary to more quickly return the minors back home.

But immigration advocates fear this means children would lose the automatic right to a hearing before an immigration judge, and instead would have to go through an initial screening with US Border Patrol.

More than 200 groups signed a letter last week calling on Obama to reconsider.