Texas Gov. Rick Perry will testify today before the House Homeland Security Committee on the surge of unaccompanied minors flooding Southwest borders.
The field hearing, to be held in the south Texas border town of McAllen, is titled
"Crisis on the Texas Border: Surge of Unaccompanied Minors" and is intended to flesh out the impact of and response to the unprecedented number of unaccompanied children coming into the United States illegally.
More than 50,000 unaccompanied minors have entered the United States this year, the majority coming from Central America and Mexico, according to
The Washington Post.
That figure is predicted to rise to 60,000 or beyond by the end of the fiscal year, which ends Sept. 30. Last fiscal year, the U.S. government apprehended just under 25,000 unaccompanied minors.
Two-thirds of the children have come through the Rio Grande Valley in Texas, according to the Post.
Perry, a Republican, has been highly critical of President Barack Obama for failing to make a trip to the border to see the situation firsthand or to even call the governor. Perry is especially upset since the president will be in Texas for Democratic fundraisers, according to
Politico.
"If he doesn't come to the border, I think it's a real reflection of his lack of concern of what's really going on there," Perry said Wednesday on Fox News. "If the president of the United States is really serious about securing that border, we can show him how to do that. But I haven't even had a phone call from this president."
Also testifying at the field hearing, led by Committee Chairman Michael McCaul, a Texas Republican, will be Hidalgo County Interim Sheriff J.E. "Eddie" Guerra; Ramon Garcia, a Hidalgo County judge; Bishop Mark Seitz of the Archdiocese of El Paso; as well as top officials from the Customs and Border Patrol and the Texas Department of Public Safety.
The Department of Homeland Security "is not adequately prepared to address this crisis, which has left state and local officials to fill a void left by the federal government," McCaul said in a statement. "We will receive firsthand accounts from Gov. Perry and other witnesses, which will be incorporated into the findings of the congressional working group established to address this problem."
Dr. Marc Siegel, a Fox News contributor and an internist, reports that the surge of undocumented people flooding the United States has resulted in a public health crisis manifested in cases of dengue fever, measles, chicken pox, swine flu, scabies, and drug-resistant tuberculosis spreading throughout the largely unvaccinated population.