WH Moves On Child Immigrant Influx
Mixed reception for Obama's $3.7B proposal to address child immigrant influx. The Hill: "Senate Democrats on Tuesday moved to quickly pass a $3.7 billion package that provides funding to care for but also more quickly deport the thousands of children illegally flooding into the country at the southwest border ... Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) said his goal was to finish a bill by Congress’s August recess ... Republicans argued the plan did not do enough to secure the border, and several repeated their calls for Obama to send National Guard troops to the border to protect it ... Many Republicans agreed that increased resources were needed to deal with the issue but said they would push for a larger share of the package to go to border security ... There were also some concerns expressed by Senate Democrats, who hedged at the White House’s call for Congress to make it easier to quickly deport children by changing a 2008 law that grants an asylum hearing to any minor from a country that does not border the United States before deportation."
Courts ordered to re-prioritize. NYT: "...the nation’s immigration courts will make a major shift in priorities to place unaccompanied minors and families with children first in line to go before immigration judges ... those migrants could have their cases resolved and be deported within months, instead of the two or three years those cases often take in the overburdened courts. But the shift will have a broad impact on the system, the officials said, because at least half of about 375,000 cases already languishing in backlogs will be delayed significantly longer."
Obama to meet with TX officials. AP: "...Obama will hold a meeting hundreds of miles away in Dallas to discuss the crisis with faith leaders and Texas officials, including Republican Gov. Rick Perry ... Perry, a possible GOP presidential candidate in 2016, has been scathing in his criticism of Obama, saying ... 'I have to believe that when you do not respond in any way, that you are either inept, or you have some ulterior motive of which you are functioning from.'"
WH deliberates over how far it can go on executive action. Politico: "There are two major areas that the president is expected to address. The first is enforcement reforms ... Options include further refining the government’s enforcement priorities, overhauling or ending a local enforcement program known as Secure Communities, and limiting deportations without hearings. The second area is known as 'affirmative relief,' which means allowing certain undocumented immigrants to receive a temporary legal status that could include protection from deportation and a work permit. The president will need to decide how big he wants to go: provide relief to every immigrant who would’ve qualified under last year’s Senate bill, or protect only smaller subsets of the undocumented population based on family ties, longevity in the country or employment background ... According to some in the White House and advocate community, Obama should be able to make a strong political argument for people who are working, paying their taxes and have no criminal record beyond immigration violations."
House Moves On Highway Trust Fund
House GOP proposes Highway Trust Fund extension. The Hill: "A sense of urgency took hold in the Capitol on Tuesday, as lawmakers ramped up work on legislation to prevent states from suffering a 28 percent cut in transportation funding next month. But even with the burst of activity, top tax writers in both the House and the Senate stopped short of saying they had a deal ... House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Dave Camp (R-Mich.) ... said his committee would consider a measure on Thursday that would finance projects through next May ... Camp noted that his proposals to pay for that extension — including 'pension smoothing' and boosting customs user fees — had historically won bipartisan support ... Senate Finance Committee Chairman Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) ... didn’t rush to embrace the plan from Camp, even as he said Tuesday that he hoped to announce more concrete plans about the Senate’s approach to replenishing the Highway Trust Fund.
Bloomberg adds: "The House Republican plan would keep the trust fund solvent into early next year -- a move opponents say will take too much pressure off for a longer measure backed by groups like the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the AFL-CIO."
Senate negotiators stuck on revenues. Bloomberg: "Senate Finance Committee Chairman Ron Wyden, an Oregon Democrat, said ... yesterday that he’s still pursuing a bipartisan agreement with Republicans on his panel. Senator Orrin Hatch of Utah, the top Republican on the Finance panel, said after a meeting with Camp yesterday that Wyden is clearly pursuing revenue increases that can’t win approval in the House and that he hasn’t yet decided whether he will agree with Wyden on a Senate approach. 'Right now, I think it’s uphill,' Hatch said in an interview.
Breakfast Sides
"Citigroup Said to Near Settlement of U.S. Mortgage Probe" reports Bloomberg: "Citigroup Inc. may reach an agreement with federal prosecutors as early as next week to resolve a probe into sales of mortgage-backed bonds before the 2008 financial crisis, a person familiar with the negotiations said. The nation’s third-biggest bank by assets would pay at least $4 billion under an agreement with the U.S. Justice Department, according to the person, who asked not to be named because the talks are private."
Republican Senate candidates squeezed on Ex-Im bank. The Hill: "The fight has left GOP candidates with two bad options: alienate the Tea Party or risk losing support of business groups that will be spending millions of dollars this fall on campaign ads."
