Politics

State Dept Official: ‘These Kids Are Boomerangs, It Doesn’t Matter How Far You Throw Them’ [VIDEO]

Tristyn Bloom Contributor
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Speaking at a congressional hearing about the border crisis on Thursday, one State Department official said “The migration has to be addressed in the home countries because these kids are boomerangs, it doesn’t matter how far you throw them.”

State Department Counselor Thomas Shannon was testifying at the Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing on the Central American crisis, encouraging support for the White House’s supplemental budget request of $3.7 billion. The additional funding “is necessary to ensure that these children … are treated in a humane and dignified fashion as we protect our border, enforce our laws, and meet our international obligations.” (RELATED: Hobby Lobby, Immigration Supplemental At Top Of Reid’s July Agenda)

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“These children have abandoned their homes for a complex set of motives that combine a desire to be with their parents and pursue a life of greater opportunity and wider possibility,” he said. “Underlying some of this migration is a fear of violence in their home communities, and a fear that criminal gangs will either forcibly recruit or harm them.” (RELATED: GOP Congressman Says Obama’s Rhetoric Created Immigration Crisis)

$295 million — less than 1% of the requested $3.7 billion — would go toward initiatives promoting economic opportunity, governance, and security in Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador. The bulk of the requested money –$1.8 billion — would pay for “additional capacity to care for unaccompanied children including through more stable, cost-effective arrangements, while maintaining services for refugees; and the necessary medical response to the arrival of these children.”

According to a statement released by the House Judiciary Committee on Friday, “65% of unaccompanied alien minors’ asylum applications have been immediately approved by asylum officers in Fiscal Year 2014… Approval rates by asylum officers have increased from 28% in 2007 to 46% in 2013 and approval rates by immigration judges in affirmative cases have increased from 51% in 2007 to 74% in 2013.”

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