Obama will 'Reach Out' to Perry, Nearly Doubles Request for Border Crisis Funding

The snub is off. CBS reports that though President Obama still refuses to visit the Texas-Mexico border during his fundraising trip to the state, he will “reach out” to Gov. Rick Perry. Perry had requested a meeting with the president. The president offered a handshake at the airport instead, and Perry turned that down. Now we’re at “reach out” status.

The Obama administration has also nearly doubled its request for emergency border funding. It had sought $2 billion to deal with the flood of illegal aliens. Now it wants nearly $4 billion.

The funds include $1.1 billion for Immigration and Customs Enforcement, $433 million to Customs and Border Protection, $64 million for the Department of Justice, $300 million to the State Department and $1.8 billion to the Department of Health and Human Services.

The administration previously indicated that it would request about $2 billion but would wait to release the details until Congress returned from a week-long break.

The White House says the money is necessary to cover costs like increased man-hours for border patrol agents and aerial surveillance teams, legal services for children in immigration proceedings, the hiring of 40 additional teams of immigration judges, and care for unaccompanied children while they are in the country. Almost $300 million would go towards efforts to “repatriate and reintegrate migrants to Central America” and address the underlying economic and security causes of the spike in child migrants.

Some local governments are running up tabs to pay for the influx of illegal aliens. San Juan, TX, says the flood is draining its police department’s budget as it answers calls related to the border crisis. Residents of Brownsville say that brazen smugglers are threatening them constantly.