The Obama administration plans to roll out a new plan to screen Central American refugees in partnership with the U.N., reports The New York Times.
Due to a sudden wave of ICE raids and deportations of asylum seekers fleeing violence in Central America, the White House has faced anger from numerous Democrats in Congress, who drafted a letter denouncing the raids. This new refugee plan to be announced Jan. 13, which sets up screening facilities in Central America, aims to reduce human smuggling as well to slow the flow of undocumented immigration.
According to The New York Times:
Administration officials insisted that planning for the refugee program had been in the works for many weeks, with negotiations proceeding with the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees and with several countries in the region, and that the initiative was not a response to the outcry over the raids.
…Representative Raúl Grijalva, Democrat of Arizona and a member of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, said lawmakers objected to the wave of deportations in particular because they had received no notice about the arrests that the Obama administration was preparing. Some Democrats and advocates have asked the administration to offer a special protected status to Central American asylum-seekers already in this country, he said. Administration officials said this week that they had rejected this approach.
But Representative Zoe Lofgren, Democrat of California, who is another leader in drafting the letter to the president, said she had urged the administration to broaden refugee screening and resettlement in the region, a proposal much closer to the administration’s plan. “Deportation is not going to deter you if your dad was just murdered, your husband was just murdered, your brother was just murdered, and now they are coming for you,” she said.
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