Catamount, if $765 a day is not enougg, how much more would be appropriate? What should that money pay for?
the price tag/day isn't the [most immediate] issue. the coffer out of which they pay the $765 is empty. The appropriations bill refills the HHS bucket that funds ORR which is tasked with taking care of the kids.
No, the funding bill isn't a solution to the humanitarian crisis at the border. But it's necessary to care for the kids and keep infrastructure in place until a more comprehensive solution can be reached. The zero tolerance policy needs to go. Instead of detention and separation, minors and/or families seeking asylum would be released to the care of family members with a case worker. This program had over a 97% success rate in families showing up for their asylum hearing and only cost $35/family/day.
Trump nixed that program in favor of detention for all as a deterrent. However, as we've seen by talking to people on the border, there it's not much of a deterrent because of several factors: bad information, some non-profits acting in bad faith promising asylum and encouraging the migration to justify their presence, fear of staying where they are (potential detention is better than having your family killed), among others.
To lessen the impact of the border issue, you need to reinstate the case worker program, fund asylum judges to clear out the backlog, get rid of the zero tolerance policy, and stop the slowdown at POE creating desperate and dangerous conditions on the Mexican side of the border.
For those kids that are detained - we need to adhere to the Flores agreement and fund HHS/ORR so they can care for unaccompanied minors (through placement in facilities designed for the care of children and provide case workers for minors released into custody of family members, not slightly less inhumane prisons).