While the Democrats and Hollywood stomp their feet to claim Republicans are heartless, they are forgetting the past history of Republican efforts to close loopholes that Democrats REFUSED to close. It’s pretty shocking that The New York Times actually reported on this because the media has been so biased against Republicans.

NOTE: When Obama was president, the media freely acknowledged that the migrant crisis was driven by a 2008 law known as the Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act (TVPRA), a “catch-and-release” loophole that Congressional Democrats refuse to close, which essentially requires the swift release of illegal alien minors from countries other than Mexico into the interior of the United States. Following the 2014 child migrant crisis, Republicans sought repeatedly to close “catch-and-release” loopholes that incentivize child smuggling and endangerment. As early as October of last year, President Trump sent a letter to Congressional leadership in which he specifically asked lawmakers to “amend the William Wilberforce Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act of 2008 (TVRPA)”. Yet Congressional Democrats continue to oppose the Trump Administration’s efforts to close loopholes that would put criminal child smuggling organizations out of business.

New York Times in 2014: ‘Immigrant Surge Rooted in Law to Curb Child Trafficking’
By Carl Hulse
July 7, 2014

WASHINGTON — It was one of the final pieces of legislation signed into law by President George W. Bush, a measure that passed without controversy, along with a pension bill and another one calling for national parks to be commemorated on quarters.

“This is a piece of legislation we’re very proud to sign,” a White House spokesman, Tony Fratto, told reporters on Dec. 23, 2008, as the president put his pen to the William Wilberforce Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act of 2008, named for a 19th-century British abolitionist. “This program has been very effective around the world in trying to stop trafficking in persons.”

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Now the legislation, enacted quietly during the transition to the Obama administration, is at the root of the potentially calamitous flow of unaccompanied minors to the nation’s southern border.

Originally pushed by a bipartisan coalition of lawmakers as well as by evangelical groups to combat sex trafficking, the bill gave substantial new protections to children entering the country alone who were not from Mexico or Canada by prohibiting them from being quickly sent back to their country of origin.

Instead, it required that they be given an opportunity to appear at an immigration hearing and consult with an advocate, and it recommended that they have access to counsel. It also required that they be turned over to the care of the Department of Health and Human Services, and the agency was directed to place the minor “in the least restrictive setting that is in the best interest of the child” and to explore reuniting those children with family members.

The Obama administration says the law is partly responsible for tying its hands in dealing with the current influx of children. Officials have suggested that the White House might seek flexibility in the law’s requirements when it asks Congress to provide emergency funds to contend with the latest immigration crisis, a request that could come as early as Tuesday. About 52,000 minors without their parents have been caught at the Southwest border since October. […]

What many can agree on is that the Wilberforce law was not enacted with the idea of dealing with the current flow of tens of thousands of unaccompanied minors or providing an incentive for children to reach the border.

“It is classic unintended consequences,” said Marc R. Rosenblum, deputy director of the U.S. Immigration Policy Program at the Migration Policy Institute. “This was certainly not what was envisioned.”

[Read the full article here]

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