WASHINGTON (AP) – The Obama administration is openly stepping up efforts to find and deport immigrants who were part of the 2014 surge of illegal crossings by unaccompanied children and families.
The politically fraught endeavor is a follow-through on a nearly 2-year-old warning that those immigrants who don’t win permission to stay in the United States would be sent packing. It comes at a time when Republican presidential candidates are pushing for tougher immigration action.
Homeland Security officials are keeping a wary eye on the border since more than 68,000 unaccompanied children and roughly as many people traveling as families were caught crossing the border illegally in 2014. The effort to step up enforcement against families and young immigrants is starting in the midst of a new flood of such immigrants.