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Perry To Meet With Obama About Border Crisis

ABC News
Gov. Rick Perry, who appeared Sunday on ABC, will meet with President Obama when he's in Dallas on Wednesday.

Gov. Rick Perry has accepted President Barack Obama's offer to discuss the immigration crisis with faith leaders and local officials in Dallas.

The governor's office says Perry is pleased to meet with the president, who will be in Dallas on Wednesday and Austin on Thursday.

On Monday, Perry said he'd declined a previous offer to greet Obama at the Austin airport. Instead the governor suggested a "substantive meeting" on immigration.

Obama senior adviser Valerie Jarrett responded by inviting Perry to a Wednesday border meeting in Dallas involving faith and local leaders.

The White House has resisted the repeated calls by Perry and Republicans to take a firsthand look at the tens of thousands of children arriving from Central America. 

Earlier this week, KERA reported:

Gov. Rick Perry is standing by his claim that the Obama administration could be part of a conspiracy behind the influx of unaccompanied minors coming into the United States. Perry recently implied that during a Fox News interview.

He didn’t back away from that claim on Sunday during an interview on ABC’s “This Week.” Perry says the Obama administration members “either are inept or don’t care” about what’s happening along the U.S.-Mexico border. He added: “You are either inept, or you have some ulterior motive of which you are functioning from.”

Perry says he’s been bringing the immigration issue to the president’s attention since 2010. Perry told ABC he doesn’t think Obama cares whether the border is secure. (U.S. Customs and Border Protection have launched a new advertising campaign to try to slow the number of immigrants crossing the U.S. border.)

More than 50,000 children have entered the country illegally in recent months – many of them from Central America who are trying to escape violence and drug cartels. Dallas County has announced three potential sites that could shelter 2,000 immigrant children. Perry testified last weekthat those who cross the border must be sent back. Read more from KERA here and here.