Obama aides were warned of brewing border crisis

Nearly a year before President Obama declared a humanitarian crisis on the border, a team of experts arrived at the Fort Brown patrol station in Brownsville, Tex., and discovered a makeshift transportation depot for a deluge of foreign children. Thirty Border Patrol agents were assigned in August 2013 to drive the children to off-site showers, wash their clothes and make them sandwiches. As soon as those children were placed in temporary shelters, more arrived. An average of 66 were apprehended each day on the border and more than 24,000 cycled through Texas patrol stations in 2013. In a 41-page report to the Department of Homeland Security, the team from the University of Texas at El Paso (UTEP) raised alarms about the federal government’s capacity to manage a situation that was expected to grow worse. The researchers’ observations were among the warning signs conveyed to the Obama administration over the past two years as a surge of Central American minors has crossed into south Texas illegally. More than 57,000 have entered the United States this year, swamping federal resources and catching the government unprepared. The administration did too little to heed those warnings, according to interviews with former government officials, outside experts and immigrant advocates, leading to an inadequate response that contributed to this summer’s escalating crisis...more

So was this mere incompetence, legitimate policy disagreement or pure politics dealing with immigration reform and Obama's re-election?

Writing at Breitbart, John Sexton says it was pure politics:

The White House was warned repeatedly that there was a growing crisis of unaccompanied minors on the border but chose not to address the issue for fear it would ruin the President's push for comprehensive immigration reform. A story in the Washington Post highlights a number of times the Obama administration was warned of the growing crisis on the border. For instance, a 2012 report by the Women's Refugee Commission spelled out the growing number of unaccompanied minors at the border which started in the fall of 2011...The Post story makes it clear that the administration didn't just fumble its response to the situation. The crisis was ignored for two years because of political considerations including the President's re-election and his push for comprehensive immigration reform. An unnamed source with knowledge of the situation tells the Post it came down to an internal disagreement between White House national security staffers worried about the border and "domestic policy advisers" focused on the politics. The individual tells the Post, "Was the White House told there were huge flows of Central Americans coming? Of course they were told. A lot of times. Was there a general lack of interest and a focus on the legislation? Yes, that’s where the focus was." In other words, the White House put its political goals over dealing with the crisis when it would have been more manageable.