The surge of unaccompanied children at the U.S. border, primarily coming from Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador, has overwhelmed the ability of the United States to handle their legal cases.
A law passed under President George W. Bush and aimed at curbing human trafficking requires that minors from Central America who reach the border must be heard in court before they can be deported.
Currently, children wait an average of 578 days before a hearing - delays that are sure to lengthen if the flow of children continues unabated. A substantial chunk of the $3.7 billion President Barack Obama is requesting in a supplemental spending bill for the border would be for increasing the courts' ability to handle the caseload of newly arrived children.
Sen. Jeff Flake, R-Ariz. said, ". the record shows is that they're told to appear later in court, where their case will be adjudicated. But 90 percent of them, 90 percent, do not then show up in court later."
The Bipartisan policy Center-- a think tank founded by former congressional leaders of both parties -- cited figures far smaller than 90 percent. Between 2003 and 2012, the percentage of all immigrants who failed to appear in court after being released has bounced between 20 percent and 40 percent, settling in at about 30 percent at the end of that time span.
No data for children specifically is available from this long-running data set. A more recent estimate for children specifically, made by the director of the office responsible for handling such cases, is that the current no-show rate for children is 46 percent. That's still quite high, but it's only half what Flake said.
Politifact rates the claim False.
Undocumented immigrants
Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer, "The DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals) Program, the decision to not enforce federal law, has directly led to the massive influx of illegal crossings and the crisis we are witnessing today."
Obama's administration announced in June 2012 his deferred-action program to grant short-term legal status to undocumented immigrants age 30 and younger who were brought to the U.S. as minors before June 15, 2007.
Children who arrive in the U.S. on their own do not qualify for DACA. The Center for American Progress on July 8 published an analysis that found violence is behind the surge of crossings. According to the analysis, there is no evidence that DACA or lax border enforcement caused the increase in children fleeing Central American countries. The analysis used statistical data to examine the relationship between violence and children migrants, including information from the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime, homicide data and homicide rates by country, coupled with the number of children arriving to the U.S. each year.
Obama said, "The challenge we have that has really caused a spike is the significant security challenges in these Central American countries."
Contraception access
Nancy Pelosi falsely said the Supreme Court is "five guys who start determining what contraceptions are legal."
"She misspoke," spokesman Drew Hammill acknowledged. "Obviously the impact of the court's decision is not to make these four contraceptive methods illegal - i.e., no longer allowed to be sold."
Hammill went on to explain that Pelosi's "overriding point" was that the decision "does in fact limit access . which is the key point Pelosi made."
He pointed to portions of Justice Ginsburg dissent, in which Ginsburg notes that IUDs are expensive and that removing company support for them could leave some female employees without the "most effective" medical option for their needs.
Chip Tuthill lives in Mancos. Website used: www.politifact.com