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Obama under pressure to visit US-Mexico border

FILE - This June 30, 2014 file photo shows President Barack Obama, accompanied by Vice President Joe Biden, pausing while making a statement about immigration reform, in the Rose Garden of the White House in Washington. A planned fundraising trip to Texas next week is complicating President Barack Obama’s stance on immigration amid a brewing border crisis. The president finds himself caught between his call to speed up the deportations of unaccompanied children arriving at the U.S. border, and his search for ways to let other immigrants -- already in the U.S. illegally -- stay on. Texas’ Republican governor is pressing the president to take a firsthand look at the crisis on the border during next week’s trip. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin, File) FILE - This June 30, 2014 file photo shows President Barack Obama, accompanied by Vice President Joe Biden, pausing while making a statement about immigration reform, in the Rose Garden of the White House in Washington. A planned fundraising trip to Texas next week is complicating President Barack Obama’s stance on immigration amid a brewing border crisis. The president finds himself caught between his call to speed up the deportations of unaccompanied children arriving at the U.S. border, and his search for ways to let other immigrants -- already in the U.S. illegally -- stay on. Texas’ Republican governor is pressing the president to take a firsthand look at the crisis on the border during next week’s trip. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin, File)

By Associated Press July 3, 2014 1 min read

WASHINGTON (AP) – President Barack Obama is facing mounting calls from Republicans to take a firsthand look at an immigration emergency at the U.S.-Mexico border. But that could put him in an awkward spot, appearing alongside what he has called a “humanitarian crisis” sparked by the flood of tens of thousands of unaccompanied children from Central America.

The White House says Obama currently has no plans to visit the border when he travels to Texas next week. Administration officials say Republicans are merely focused on scoring political points.

Obama is in the difficult position of asking Congress for more money and authority to send the children back home at the same time he’s seeking ways to allow many other people already in the U.S. illegally to stay.