Rep. Rick Larsen, WA-02, today voted against a bill that provides insufficient funding to care for thousands of children crossing the southern U.S. border and creates arbitrary and unworkable timelines for processing these children’s cases. The House of Representatives passed H.R. 5230, a piecemeal and counterproductive response to this border crisis.

“The situation at the border requires sufficient funding for humanitarian care, resources for our immigration system to process the increased number of children, and support for border security and law enforcement. The border crisis underscores once again the urgent need to pass comprehensive immigration reform to create a clear, legal pathway for those who wish to come here and contribute to our nation.

“This bill offers scant funding to address a serious humanitarian crisis and strips legal protections from children seeking help. It provides minimal funding to hire the judges needed to fairly decide these children’s cases, and it neglects resources like counsel for the children that would help the system work more efficiently.

“Many of the children crossing our border from Central America say they left their home countries to escape violence, but this bill provides no funding to combat criminal gangs or support law enforcement in those countries. 

“The Trafficking Victims Protection Act is a Bush-era law to give people seeking protection in our country fair and humane treatment. Today’s bill changes the Bush-era trafficking law to reduce protections for these vulnerable children. Just because more children are seeking protection does not mean we should weaken their rights,” Larsen said.

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