'Why aren't we putting them on a bus?': Congressional committee questions Homeland Security chief over agency's slow repatriation of illegal immigrant children

• More than 250 children are illegally immigrating to the U.S. every day and 100,000 are expected to arrive by the end of the fiscal year
• Many of them are unaccompanied minors coming from Central America by way of Mexico
• Smugglers have convinced Central American children and their parents that they will get amnesty through U.S. President Barack Obama's relaxed deportation policies if they hurry up and immigrate to America
• The Departments of Homeland Security and Health and Human Services have been overwhelmed by the mass migration and have been unable to come up with enough beds for children to sleep on
  
• At a Homeland Security Committee hearing today one Republican Congressman asked the Obama administration why it couldn't just send the kids back to their home countries on buses back to their home countries
  
• 'What are we doin' other than takin' 'em and puttin' 'em in a facility here that's gonna make it more likely we will keep them here for months if not years?' he said
• Members of Congress were generally concerned that the administration was not doing enough to correct the record about the president's immigration policies

By Francesca Chambers

Published: 13:54 EDT, 24 June 2014 | Updated: 16:46 EDT, 24 June 2014

The United States ought to just take the Central American children pouring into the country through its border with Mexico, stick them on a bus and send them back home as soon as they arrive, Alabama congressman Mike Rogers said at a Homeland Security hearing this morning.

That's what the U.S. does with adults who illegally enter the country, the Republican congressman said, 'Why aren't we putting them on a bus like we normally do and send them back down to Guatemala?'

'I don't know why these children are being treated any differently,' he said.

'What are we doin' other than takin' 'em and puttin' 'em in a facility here that's gonna make it more likely we will keep them here for months if not years?' he said.

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Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson told members of the Homeland Security committee today that the Obama administration would direct 150 more border patrol agents to the area where Central American children are primarily crossing into the U.S. from Mexico

Rogers was one of several members of Congress at the hearing, featuring testimony from Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson, who called DHS to expedite its process for returning unaccompanied minors back to their home countries instead of investing additional resources into improving detention facilities along the border to make kids coming to the U.S. illegally more comfortable.

Members also expressed concern over what the Obama administration was doing to correct the record about U.S. immigration policy and what steps it was taking to deter parents in Central American countries from putting their children's lives at risk by handing them over to smugglers.

Coyotes are promulgating rumors that children who make it across the U.S. border will receive amnesty through President Barack Obama's 2011 Deferred Access for Childhood Arrivals program or his immigration reform legislation that's stalled in the Senate.

Neither would apply to new immigrants crossing the border, but criminal networks have successfully convinced thousands of children from Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador to illegally immigrate to the U.S. since Obama's DACA program was announced two years ago.

On the trip many children are mentally and physically abused at the hands of the smugglers.

'I think the saddest thing about this whole story is the exploitation of the children,' committee chair Mike McCaul said, noting that he never thought he'd see detention centers at the border turn into 'refugee camps.' 

Shoes for children that have been donated for immigrants sit on a table at Sacred Heart Catholic Church

Sister Rency Moonjely helps sort a donation of shoes in a warehouse at the Mother Teresa Shelter in Corpus Christi, Texas. Over the weekend 10 tons of donations were received to help the Diocese of Brownsville in its response to an influx of women and children immigrants from Central America

The Diocese of Corpus Christi and Catholic Charities of Corpus Christi are working together to collect and deliver the items to detention facilities

A 2008 law requires the Department of Homeland Security to turn over all unaccompanied minors to the Department of Health and Human Services within 72 hours.

That is not happening most of the time, Federal Emergency Management Agency administrator Craig Fugate admitted during today's hearing, and the children are piling up at detention facilities.

The federal agency, which was tasked by President Obama to coordinate the humanitarian relief to the children, has worked increase its in-take capacity, but the number of unaccompanied minors crossing the border is rising at a faster rate than  either DHS or HHS is able to keep up with.

McCaul noted during his opening statements that 52,000 children had illegally immigrated to the U.S. since last October, and the Customs and Border Protection agency expects approximately 100,000 to arrive before the end of the fiscal year. More than 250 are apprehended every day, he said.

House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Michael McCaul said 52,000 unaccompanied minors had illegally immigrated to the U.S. since last October and 100,000 are expected to arrive by the end of the fiscal year

'I'm very concerned that this recent surge is weakening our border security efforts here at home,' McCaul said, because border enforcement officers are being diverted away from their main duty, which is to stop drug smugglers.

'Cartels will no doubt take advantage of this situation,' he said.

McCaul called on President Barack Obama to send the national guard down to the border to help ease the burden being placed on border patrol.

HHS does not have enough space to licensed professionals on hand to take care of the children, Fugate said, or space to put them in, which is why HHS isn't fulfilling the requirements its legally bound to.

As a stop-gap solution to the humanitarian crisis, Fugate said in testimony, FEMA is working toward getting the kids beds within the CBP detention facilities so they at least won't be sleeping on the cold, hard concrete.

But the more 'proper humanitarian measures' the U.S. takes, the more the government makes being held in a U.S. detention facility something that encourages children to make the unsafe journey from their home countries to the U.S., New York Congressman Peter King said during the hearing.

Rogers concurred during his testimony.

'Right now we have a crisis, and I don't see this administration doing anything about it other than trying to house the children,' he said.

'And I understand the humanitarian basis for that, but we need send a signal to these other countries that it's not gonna work. You can't send your children up here and let 'em stay. We're gonna turn 'em right back and give 'em right back to you.'

Johnson said during his testimony that the federal government was in fact doing addressing the situation outside of humanitarian concerns about the way the illegal immigrant children are being treated inside of the detention facilities, which has become a major focus of the border crisis in recent weeks.

The U.S. is sending 150 additional border patrol agents down to the Rio Grande river area, where most of the children are crossing he said.

The government is also in talks with the leaders of Mexico, Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras about how the countries can work together to provide a better life for the children in their home countries and get the word out that children who make it across the U.S. border alive don't get a 'free pass' into the country, Johnson said.

'I think whatcha need to do is ask the Guatemalan government where they want these kids dropped off when the bus is bringin' em back down there,' Rogers said, rather than asking how the U.S. could be helping the third world countries more.

The White House announced on Friday, that the U.S. is giving Central American countries $250 million of new aid. A large chunk of that money will go to gang prevention programs in the region, Only a small part, $9.6 million, will go toward expanding repatriation centers in the countries.

Johnson said today that DHS would be leaning on other agencies, including the Coast Guard, to try to get the children returned to their home countries more quickly.

The most 'critical'  step that the U.S. can take at this time in resolving the crisis, Johnson said, is to correct the record about U.S. immigration laws.