Texas Gov. Rick Perry and President Barack Obama will meet in Texas on Wednesday to discuss the crisis along the U.S.-Mexico border, a governor’s spokeswoman said Tuesday.

“Gov. Perry is pleased that President Obama has accepted his invitation to discuss the humanitarian and national security crises along our southern border, and he looks forward to meeting with the president tomorrow,” spokeswoman Lucy Nashed wrote in an email to POLITICO. Nashed said that the meeting will be in Dallas…

“The president would welcome a meeting with you while he is in Texas,” Jarrett wrote in a letter to Perry. She also reiterated the Obama administration’s commitment to addressing the “urgent humanitarian situation” along the border.

Glenn Beck on Tuesday announced that he will be bringing tractor-trailers full of food, water, teddy bears and soccer balls to McAllen, Texas on July 19 as a way to help care for some of the roughly 60,000 underage refugees who have crossed into America illegally in 2014…

“Visiting the border, I don’t think that would hurt. It would certainly signal his concern,” Hoyer (D-Md.) said.

But Hoyer added that the trip would be merely a photo-op to show Obama visited.

“But he is very concerned. He’s indicated that. Going to the border, I don’t want to sound too cynical, [would be] a photo-op. The president has been spending a lot of time and effort,” Hoyer said. “Jeh Johnson, [the Homeland Security] secretary, has gone down there, the vice president went down to Central America. It’s clear the administration is very, very engaged.”

It’s certainly in part a political decision, one meant to avoid taking ownership of a difficult issue on which the White House would prefer to share blame. But it’s also one that will inflame Obama’s critics on both the right and left who say the administration has been too passive in response to the thousands of young border-crossers swamping U.S. detention facilities.

In other words, if Obama goes to the border, he owns the problem. If he doesn’t, he’s blasted for a lack of leadership…

If Obama goes, his presence there would give both liberal and conservative critics further ammunition as they argue Obama’s policies are to blame for the influx. It might even make it more difficult for Obama to marshal public support for any executive actions he may soon take to reform current federal immigration rules. At the same time, being seen at a detention facility among children that face deportation could make him appear uncaring.

Rep. Henry Cuellar, D-Texas, is worried President Obama’s decision to not visit the U.S-Mexico border while he’s in Texas this week will become his “Katrina moment.”

“I’m sure that President Bush thought the same thing, that he could just look at everything from up in the sky, and then he owned it after a long time,” Cuellar said Monday in a Fox News interview with Neil Cavuto. “So I hope this doesn’t become the Katrina moment for President Obama, saying that he doesn’t need to come to the border. He should come down.”

Today President Obama says he needs $3.7 billion from Congress to handle the crisis his lawless policies are creating. Amazingly, the funding request further advertises his administration’s amnesty efforts and our fraud-riddled asylum programs, while explicitly omitting any request for expedited deportation authority. The request is also not paid for. The administration wants to borrow every penny.

President Obama has yielded to the demands of open borders groups, to whom he pledged amnesty in 2008. He has dramatically abandoned his lawful duty to the American people. Immigration enforcement for the world’s most powerful nation is now held hostage by a small band of radical immigration activists. That is why the administration still refuses to deliver the crucial message necessary to halt this flow: if you attempt to cross our border illegally, you will be apprehended and deported.

Most egregiously, the president has announced his intention to yet again bypass Congress in order to expand his far-reaching non-enforcement directives. His unlawful actions guarantee that the $3.7 billion will be only the beginning, and that the deluge of illegal immigration — and the huge costs — will only grow.

Via the Corner.

“Through no fault of their own, they are caught in political crossfire,” Beck said of the children. “And while we continue to put pressure on Washington and change its course of lawlessness, we must also help. It is not either, or. It is both. We have to be active in the political game, and we must open our hearts.”…

“Everybody is telling me I’m seeing subscriptions down; I’m seeing Mercury One donations down,” Beck said, growing emotional. “I’m getting violent emails from people who say I’ve ‘betrayed the Republic.’ Whatever. I’ve never taken a position more deadly to my career than this — and I have never, ever taken a position that is more right than this.”