Two refugee contractors awarded taxpayer $$$ to supply lawyers to the “children”

Eight regions of the US will be getting taxpayer funded lawyers.

The Obama Administration has come up with $9 million of your tax dollars so two of the big nine refugee resettlement contractors*** can get lawyers for some of the ‘Unaccompanied alien children’ who broke into America this summer.

Surely what the immigration lawyers will be trying to prove is that the kids are legitimate asylum seekers who can be declared refugees in the full sense of the word making them eligible for all forms of welfare and putting them on the fast track to citizenship.  Of course once the kids are declared “refugees” they will be able to bring in the extended family as well!

Who says Obama isn’t creating jobs!

He is creating more jobs at the US Conference of Catholic Bishops special lawyers’ service and at the US Committee for Refugees and Immigrants (USCRI is already funded 99% by you!).

And, he is putting to work potentially hundreds of immigration lawyers who are pouring out of US law schools and looking for work (there is a glut of lawyers these days as any new law school grad will tell you).

From the Washington Times (hat tip: Erich).

Will the gutless wonders in Congress do anything about it?

The Obama administration will pay $9 million over the next two years to give taxpayer-funded attorneys to some of the illegal immigrant children who have surged across the U.S. border this year, the Health and Human Services Department said Tuesday.

About 2,600 immigrants will be able to be represented by lawyers thanks to the funds, which were awarded in two grants to the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops and the U.S. Committee for Refugees and Immigrants, according to a notice to be published in the Federal Register on Thursday.

Advocates cheered the decision, which they’d been demanding for months, saying it will not only help the children get a fair hearing on asylum claims, but it will also make the court proceedings go faster, which will end up saving the government money.

But administration critics in Congress said the move could violate federal law and will most likely prolong illegal immigrants’ time in the U.S., encouraging more children to make the dangerous crossing.

To end the surge at the border, the Obama administration should instead focus its efforts on deterring future border crossers and enforcing the laws against illegal entry into the United States,” said House Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte, Virginia Republican. “Without such actions, the flood of people attempting to cross the border illegally will only continue.”  [Blah, blah, blah, but will he do anything?—ed]

The administration’s move marks another effort to circumvent Congress.

Mr. Obama had requested $15 million to provide lawyers for the children in his emergency spending request earlier this summer, but Congress left town without approving the money.

The contractors will decide which children will be served, but there will be eight targeted areas in the US.

The Washington metropolitan region, with its high population of Central American immigrants, has taken an outsize number of the children, so it’s not surprising the Baltimore/Arlington region is one of eight areas that will get the money for lawyers.

The other seven are: Los Angeles, Houston, Miami, Dallas, Memphis, Tennessee, New Orleans and Phoenix.