U.S. Houses Passes $4.5 Billion Border Aid Bill Amid Mounting Concern For Detained Migrant Children

"There is an urgency, at least on my part, to get it out the door as quickly as possible," U.S. Rep. Veronica Escobar, D-El Paso, says of the border aid bill.Image REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst.

By Adam Willis. First published in The Texas Tribune.

As reports of migrant children being held in squalid conditions at federal facilities near the border continue to draw outrage, Democrats successfully pushed a $4.5 billion humanitarian aid package through the U.S. House late Tuesday evening with a vote of 230 to 195.

The passage of the bill marks a narrow victory for Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, who managed to coalesce a unified front after several days of uncertainty and division within the party. Ultimately, only four Democrats broke rank, none of them Texans. Among the Republicans from the state, U.S. Rep. Will Hurd, R-Helotes, was the only member to buck his party, voting in favor of the bill. Hurd's districts covers much of the state's border with Mexico.

In the days leading up to the vote, opposition on the Democratic side was concentrated primarily among members of the House Progressive and Congressional Hispanic caucuses who voiced concerns that the Trump administration would twist the bill’s intent to put some of the money toward border enforcement rather than migrant aid.

On a Sunday conference call, more than 15 members of the Hispanic Caucus and 30 members of the Progressive Caucus expressed their reservations about supporting the bill, according to The New York Times. And at a tense meeting in Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi’s office Monday evening, prominent members of both groups spoke against the bill.

Before the bill reached the House floor for a vote Tuesday evening, a notice from the U.S. House Appropriations Committee revealed that amendments to the bill would add several provisions aimed at funneling allocations directly into humanitarian aid. They established a 90-day limit on the retention of unaccompanied children at detention facilities, require higher standards of medical care and hygiene for unaccompanied children, and guarantee access to translation services and legal support funds for all detained migrants. The new version of the bill will also include an accountability clause that threatens to end contracts with detention centers that fail to meet a certain standard of upkeep.

Democrats found themselves under heightened pressure to expedite border relief funding after inflammatory reports last week about the conditions within migrant detention centers. The Associated Press and other outlets exposed overcrowding, poor hygiene, and a lack of soap, diapers and toothpaste at a detention center in the West Texas town of Clint, citing lawyers who are monitoring conditions there under the terms of the Flores agreement, a 1993 settlement that dictates how children and families should be held in detention. More than a dozen children at the Clint facility were reportedly sick, and some were being quarantined, the AP reported.

U.S. Rep. Veronica Escobar, an El Paso Democrat with membership in both the House Progressive and House Hispanic caucuses, was playing a central role in shoring up support for the bill among the Democrats' left wing.

As the vote on the bill, originally expected earlier Tuesday, was pushed later into the evening, Escobar expressed her exasperation outside of afternoon votes.

"Oh my God! I am all for improving this bill and would never oppose efforts to make improvements, but this is a supplemental appropriations bill," Escobar said. "It's not an immigration bill, and there is an urgency, at least on my part, to get it out the door as quickly as possible."

Escobar and much of the Democratic leadership feel that the funding needs to reach the president's desk as soon as possible to address dire circumstances at many border detention facilities.

Still, for U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and the rest of the Democratic leadership, the bill presented a double bind. Pushing the bill through creates the risk that some of the funds will be used by the Trump administration to further his immigration agenda. But by blocking the bill, Democrats would have ensured further delays in addressing the poor detention center conditions at the border and provide Trump with potential fodder to shift the blame toward them.

The House bill will need to be reconciled with a version proposed in the Republican-led Senate.

At a press conference Tuesday morning, Escobar acknowledged "legitimate concerns" about how the Trump administration could implement the funding. "We should be cautious. And we should be careful," she said. "Because we have seen this administration declare a needless emergency, we have seen this administration manipulate agencies for nefarious purposes."

But Escobar and other proponents of the bill argued that the urgency of the conditions in migrant detention centers left Democrats with no choice but to move the bill forward. Escobar and her colleagues also assured wavering fellow Democrats that the final version of the House’s bill included ample "safeguards" to prevent any unintended use of the funding. Escobar said that the new legislation has "been crafted very carefully" with an eye towards closing loopholes that the Trump administration might use to direct the funding toward enforcement or deportation.

"Those appropriators have guaranteed that this money cannot be transferred," Escobar said. "So it cannot be used for mass deportations. It cannot be used for an ICE deportation force."

Escobar also urged the Senate to act quickly with the bill after its passage in the House.

“The sooner that they take up the bill that we pass today and the sooner the president signs that bill, the sooner that that funding will get where it needs to go,” she said.

: The Texas Tribune is a nonpartisan, nonprofit media organization that informs Texans — and engages with them – about public policy, politics, government and statewide issues.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and other top Democrats stressed the importance of passing their emergency funding package before lawmakers leave town for the weeklong recess. | Mark Wilson/Getty Images via Politico

Related: Pelosi steers House to passage of border spending package Politico

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi achieved a hard-fought victory after several days spent battling with her left flank, writes Politico. All but four Democrats voted for the bill — the four freshman women who have often battled publicly with Pelosi: Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.), Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) and Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass.).