WASHINGTON -- A Fox panel on Sunday strongly criticized Republicans for resisting immigration reform and calling to quickly deport thousands of children who are currently in U.S. custody after fleeing violence in Central America.
During a segment on "Fox News Sunday," host Chris Wallace pressed the panel, made up of USA Today columnist Kirsten Powers, Conservative Washington Post columnist George Will and Fox News' Brit Hume and Juan Williams, about who should take the blame for the current border crisis and what could be done to resolve it. Powers said that Obama had changed his position on whether a 2008 law offering immigration hearings to undocumented children should be altered, but she had scathing words for the GOP.
"The Republicans don't really seem to want to work on immigration until it comes to deporting children," Powers said. "This is the only thing they really have been willing to do at this point, is just to say, 'We'll pass the bill to deport children, but we won't talk about any sort of broader comprehensive immigration issue.'"
Will agreed.
"I think Kirsten is largely right. My view is that we have to say to the children, 'Welcome to America. You're going to go to school and get a job and become Americans.' We have 3,141 counties in this country. That would be 20 per county. The idea that we can't assimilate these 8-year-old criminals with their teddy bears is preposterous. "
"These young people are a social group of people who are being threatened by the gangs and whose lives are at stake," Fox contributor Juan Williams added. "Even young evangelicals this week, in writing to Congress, said, 'You must consider these children as children and give them due process.'"
