The flood of young children pouring across the southwestern border is worse than the administration has previously acknowledged, and efforts to deal with unaccompanied minors are overwhelming the Border Patrol, distracting it from going after smugglers and other illegal immigrants, according to an internal draft memo from the agency.

The four-page memo, authored by Deputy Border Patrol Chief Ronald D. Vitiello and dated May 30, contradicts the administration’s argument that the border is secure enough to begin legalizing current illegal aliens already in the U.S…

According to the draft memo’s estimates, agents and officers will apprehend more than 90,000 unaccompanied children on the border this year, rising to 142,000 in 2015. By contrast, there were fewer than 40,000 caught last year.

On Friday, Arizona had to reopen a detention center to warehouse illegal immigrants from Central America that the federal government sent from Texas.

Arizona Governor Jan Brewer said more than 1,000 illegal immigrant children will be dropped off in Arizona this weekend, continuing what she said is the Obama administration’s “dangerous policy” of dumping illegal immigrants from Central American countries into Arizona, something that will continue into the foreseeable future. Officials in Arizona said that though the illegal immigrants have been told to report to an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) center within 15 days, they have no idea where the illegal immigrants are going…

“If the Obama administration put half the effort into securing our border as it has invested to institute this operation, our state and nation would not be facing this situation,” she said.

“A lot of the agents are pissed just beyond belief because we realize these people, there’s no way they’re going back, they’re going to be let go eventually. They’re just trying to figure out how to do it right now. The problem is with President Obama’s deferred deportation program, they’re not deporting any juveniles so they’re not going to deport these people back to their home country, which would be the common sense thing to do,” one source said. “They’re unaccompanied juveniles, meaning they didn’t come with a parent or a relative so you can’t just let them go on the street because they’re a juvenile so now they’re in a bind going, ‘What the hell do we do with all of these people?'”

According to sources on the ground in Nogales, who have asked to remain anonymous for fear of losing their jobs, 1000 OTM (other than Mexican) unaccompanied juveniles from Central America are already being sheltered in a warehouse and Border Patrol agents are expecting 2000 children by the end of next week. Estimates show overall 60,000 unaccompanied juveniles will illegally cross into the United States this year…

“We have all of these juveniles so they’re pulling agents out of the field to come in and babysit them basically,” a source said. “They’re cancelling some of our specialty details for our crews who go out and work the mountains, calling them back in and telling them they have to work the processing center because there are so many people in there.”

Word has apparently spread in Central and South America that U.S. Border Patrol agents are releasing thousands of illegal immigrants, as federal resources and facilities are strained from a spike in crossers. News reports and word-of-mouth has allegedly prompted more hopeful immigrants to make the journey into the U.S. illegally…

Nora Griselda Bercian Diaz, a mother from Guatemala who crossed into the U.S. illegally with her 6-year-old daughter, told local media outlet KRGV that the message being spread in her home country is, “Go to America with your child, you won’t be turned away.”

Bercian Diaz said she thought the U.S. border was open to all families. She added that news reports are circulating in her country which state that mothers and children are obtaining bus tickets.

Officials in Central America and Mexico have noticed a recent increase in women and children crossing the border. Father Heyman Vazquez, the director of a migrant shelter in Huixtla in the southern Mexico state of Chiapas, said he and others advise children that it’s too dangerous.

Yet Vazquez is seeing more and more youths heading north.

“I remember a little boy of 9 years old and I asked if he was going to go meet someone and he told me ‘No, I’m just going hand myself over because I hear they help kids,'” Vazquez said.

In a statement, Goodlatte accused Obama administration officials of having “quietly made several changes” to the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, which President Barack Obama created through executive order in June 2012 to halt the removals of immigrants brought into the country illegally by their parents — referred to as “DREAMers.”Goodlatte claimed that the officials “have loosened the educational requirements to allow those who are enrolled in an ‘alternative program’ (without defining what this means) to benefit from the program.” He also took issue with language that would not explicitly require the administration to verify “documentary evidence” that an applicant submits to prove that he or she meets the standards for a stay of deportation.

“President Obama’s extension of his unilaterally-created immigration program not only violates his constitutional duty to enforce the law, but the changes he made to it proactively invite fraud and abuse,” Goodlatte said.

“We need a president who is willing to uphold the law,” [Ted] Cruz said. “On issue after issue the Obama Administration has openly ignored, defied, and unilaterally tried to change the law. With respect to securing the border, the Obama Administration has handcuffed the courageous men and women who serve in Border Patrol. Morale in ICE is at an all-time low because the political operatives leading this Administration are preventing them from doing their job and upholding the law.”

He continued, “Just a few months before the last election the president illegally and unconstitutionally granted amnesty to some 800,000 people illegally. If the president wants to change federal immigration laws, the Constitution lays out a way to do so–you go and make your case to Congress and you convince Congress to change the laws…unfortunately for President Obama, following the Constitutional structure is apparently too cumbersome. One of the consequences were seeing on the border is a humanitarian crisis that is a direct consequence of Obama’s lawlessness.”

If I were Marco Rubio, I would hang my head down in shame for helping engender this new wave of illegal immigration. At the very least, I would have issued the following statement:

“Although I have previously expressed support for amnesty, it is now abundantly clear that calls for amnesty before the enforcement measures are implemented will always spawn endless cycles of illegal immigration. The approach I pursued last year was deeply flawed and I am now committed to shaming and embarrassing this administration into following the laws and preserving our sovereignty. I still wish to deal with some other immigration-related issues, but none of that can be addressed until the lawlessness ends and this country is shielded from the harmful effects of illegal immigration.”

Days before what has turned into a contentious June 10 primary against Dave Brat, who has been surging in the polls after centering his campaign on countering amnesty, CBS6 anchor Bill Fitzgerald asked [Eric] Cantor what the country could do about its illegal immigrants and the children “coming across the border now.”…

“But I have told the President there are some things that we can work on together,” Cantor said. “We can work on the border security bill together. We can work on things like the Kids.”

Cantor was referring to what has commonly been referred to as his “Kids Act,” which, as Breitbart News reported, would grant amnesty to illegal immigrants who were brought to America through “no fault of their own”–like many of the illegal immigrant children who have been pouring into the country in recent weeks.

Mitt Romney said in Iowa today that he would very much like to see an immigration bill passed into law before this fall’s elections.

“But I think time is running out for that to happen,” Romney, the GOP’s 2012 presidential candidate, told reporters after a campaign rally for Republican U.S. Senate candidate Joni Ernst in Cedar Rapids.

“I do believe it’s important for us, before the presidential contest in 2016, to finally have immigration reform in place,” he said. “I just don’t think it’s healthy for the country to continue to have this issue open and unresolved, particularly with so many families that are waiting for the answers.”

Thousands of fired-up Republican delegates jettisoned the state party’s endorsement of a temporary guest-worker program Saturday, returning the Texas GOP to a hard-line immigration stance that also calls for banning sanctuary cities and ending in-state tuition for undocumented immigrants.

A raucous vote capped an afternoon filled with high drama on the final day of the Texas Republican Party’s biannual convention, in which a faction of the far-right succeeded in gutting language approved at the party’s convention two years ago that embraced a guest-worker program for undocumented immigrants…

“What kind of message is that for Hispanic voters?” Norm Adams, a Houston-based immigration advocate who pushed for the guest worker plank, asked immediately following the vote. “As far as I’m concerned, we’ve moved the party back 10 years.”

Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart says momentum is growing in the House for action on immigration — despite some tough election-year rhetoric recently from fellow Republicans and what the Florida congressman considers ill-advised threats of unilateral action by President Barack Obama.

Diaz-Balart, a major player in the effort on Capitol Hill to produce a bipartisan overhaul of the nation’s immigration system, told CQ Roll Call Tuesday he has more supporters now than a month ago and still expects the Republican-controlled House to act before leaving town in August.

“Every day I’m getting more and more Republicans — conservatives — who are frankly approaching me saying, ‘How do we move forward?’ I feel very very confident that a majority — a strong majority — of Republicans want to finally tackle this system that everyone understands is broken — with some caveats,” he said in a phone interview. “Republicans are insisting that we take this step-by-step.”

The White House held off any action on deportations because it wants to give House Republicans time to act on immigration reform.

That’s not going to happen – at least in the month of June.

In a memo dated Friday, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) released legislative priorities for the GOP-led House in June. It includes items such as tax extenders, legislation aimed at improving jobs skills and government funding bills, but no immigration reform.

“As we return for our summer stretch into the swampy heat of Washington, D.C., we will continue to work on our agenda to ensure that every American has the opportunity to pursue happiness by building an America that Works,” Cantor wrote in the document.