U.S. President Barack Obama is talking Wednesday about the country’s contentious immigration policies in Texas, the state where thousands of unaccompanied children from Central America are illegally flooding into the United States.

Obama plans to meet with local officials and faith leaders in Dallas about the influx of children, which he has described as a “humanitarian crisis.”

But he has no plans to visit the Texas border with Mexico 700 kilometers away where many of the children, mostly from Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador, have entered the U.S. and overwhelmed American immigration authorities.

One of Obama’s fiercest political critics, Texas Governor Rick Perry, is among those expected to meet with him. Perry says that if Obama does not visit the border “it’s a real reflection of his lack of concern of what’s really going on there.”

Obama is seeking to deport more than 50,000 children back to their home countries, where many of them fled impoverished and crime-ridden communities but also were drawn to the U.S. by rumors that they could stay in the U.S. if they got into the country. The U.S. says they are unlikely to qualify for humanitarian relief to remain in the country.

The U.S. Justice Department says it plans to hire more judges to consider the children’s cases, attempt to curb Central American violence and prosecute smugglers transporting the children to the U.S.  

Obama’s trip to Texas comes a day after he asked Congress for $3.7 billion in emergency funding to deal with the immigration surge.

The U.S. Senate a year ago approved comprehensive immigration reforms that would have allowed the 11 million immigrants already in the country illegally to eventually obtain U.S. citizenship. But the Republican-controlled House of Representatives is opposed and says it will not vote on the issue this year.

Obama says that within weeks he will take what executive actions he can without congressional assent to change the country’s immigration rules.

  immigration, National, obama, Texas