Vice President Joe Biden is scheduled to travel Friday to Guatemala, where he plans to meet with President Otto Perez Molina and other regional leaders about the surge of immigrant children who are illegally crossing the U.S. border.
A prepared statement issued by the White House says Biden will “ask for support to more quickly process and safely return immigrants to their home countries.”
“The vice president,” the statement continues, “will also explore ways to help our partners in Central America discourage and, whenever possible, stem the flow by addressing the root causes of violence and lack of opportunity that drive this migration.”
The federal government has been grappling with an influx of thousands of immigrant children who are fleeing poverty and violence in Central America. Some are ending up in Georgia. The federal Immigration Court in Atlanta is now holding two hearings a month for children facing deportation, up from just a half a day of hearings last year.
Meanwhile, U.S. Rep. Bob Goodlatte, the Republican chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, is planning to hold a committee hearing June 25 titled: “An Administration-made Disaster: The South Texas Border Surge of Unaccompanied Alien Minors.”
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