Erin Kelly

Republic Washington Bureau

WASHINGTON — The Obama Administration has announced new actions as part of an effort to more quickly deport the unaccompanied children from Central America flowing into the United States.

The children are crossing the Southwest border in droves partly because their families know they will be able to remain with relatives in the U.S. for years before facing a deportation hearing, analysts said Monday.

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President Barack Obama is asking Congress for the authority to expedite the deportation process — a request that is already drawing fire from immigrant rights groups. Obama also announced Monday that he is asking Attorney General Eric Holder and Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson to redirect federal law enforcement efforts on immigration from interior enforcement to the Southwest border.

More than 50 percent of the unaccompanied children who cross the U.S. border say they have parents or other relatives living in the United States, said Marc Rosenblum, deputy director of the U.S. Immigration Policy Program at the Migration Policy Institute, a non-partisan think tank.

Under a U.S. law passed in 2008, those children must be placed with family members or with foster families while waiting for deportation hearings that can take two or three years to occur, Rosenblum said. He called the recent influx of Central American children "an unintended consequence" of that law.

"It probably is encouraging these children to come," Rosenblum said. He spoke during a conference call of immigration experts organized by The Wilson Center, a non-partisan research group.

About 52,000 unaccompanied minors primarily from Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador have entered the United States illegally through the Rio Grande Valley of Texas since Oct. 1, federal officials say. That's up from 10,000 Central American children who came in fiscal 2012.

Poverty and high murder rates tied to gangs and drug trafficking are pushing families to send their children to the United States, Obama administration officials have said.

The word is spreading through social media that children who enter the United States alone will be able to stay for quite some time, said an expert on El Salvador.

"Salvadorans know that kids who make it to the U.S. can stick around for awhile with their families," said Nick Phillips, who is based in El Salvador and serves a consultant for the Latin American Program at The Wilson Center. "It doesn't matter what (Vice President) Joe Biden or (Homeland Security Secretary) Jeh Johnson say. It's what the families say that matters."

On Monday, Obama sent a letter to congressional leaders saying his administration is eager to work with Congress to ensure that federal officials have the legal authority they need to expedite removal of the children from the United States.

"Initially, we believe this may include providing the DHS secretary additional authority to exercise discretion in processing the return and removal of unaccompanied minor children from non-contiguous countries like Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador; and increasing penalties for those who smuggle vulnerable migrants, like children," the president wrote.

In addition, Obama wrote, the administration will seek congressional action on an emergency spending bill to pay for "an aggressive deterrence strategy focused on the removal and repatriation of recent border crossers." Part of the estimated $2 billion in funding would pay for more immigration judges to handle deportation cases. There is currently a backlog of more than 360,000 cases.

Obama wrote that he will submit a detailed request to Congress when lawmakers return from their Fourth of July recess.

The administration is currently operating under the William Wilberforce Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act, a law passed by Congress in 2008 and signed by former President George W. Bush to try to prevent the trafficking of children into forced prostitution and slave labor.

The law provides increased protection to undocumented immigrants under 18 who cross the border illegally. It requires that minors "be promptly placed in the least restrictive setting that is in the best interest of the child."

Johnson testified before a House panel last week that the law requires DHS to turn the children over to the Department of Health and Human Services' Office of Refugee Resettlement within 72 hours to be housed before being released to family members in the United States or placed into foster homes. DHS barely has time to begin the process of setting up a deportation hearing before turning the children over to HHS, Johnson said.

He said the law prohibits U.S. officials from simply busing children back to countries that aren't adjacent to the United States. The requirements are different for children from Mexico or Canada, who can be returned across the border within days and released to an official in their home countries.

Immigrant rights groups on Monday condemned the Obama administration's efforts to change the law to allow quicker deportations of children from Central America.

"The president is mishandling a humanitarian crisis by proposing an inadequate speedy removal process that only further jeopardizes vulnerable children fleeing violence and persecution in Central America," said Laura Murphy of the American Civil Liberties Union. "It is imperative that these children receive a fair process to ensure that they are not being returned to life-threatening situations."

Obama, in a speech from the White House Rose Garden Monday, said the current border crisis underscores the need for the House to pass a comprehensive immigration reform bill such as the one approved by the Senate in June 2013.

Since House leaders do not intend to pass legislation this year, Obama said he has asked Holder and Johnson to come up with recommendations about executive actions he can take to deal with some aspects of immigration reform. He said he expects to get those recommendations by the end of the summer and will act on them immediately. He did not specify what type of action he expects to take.

"The only thing I can't do is stand by and do nothing while waiting for them (House leaders) to get their act together," Obama said.

Contact Erin Kelly at ekelly@gannett.com.