Immigrants who entered the U.S. illegally stand in line in June for tickets at the bus station after they were released from a U.S. Customs and Border Protection processing facility in McAllen, Texas.

WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama is preparing to ask Congress for emergency spending of more than $2 billion to deal with the crisis of unaccompanied kids at the Southern border, but for now he won’t seek legal changes to send the children back home more quickly.

That decision comes after immigration advocates objected strongly to administration proposals to speed thousands of unaccompanied minors back home to El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala, where many face violence.

The White House insists the kids must be returned. Administration officials say they are still working on ways to do it faster, but say that the request for specific legislative changes will move on a separate track than the emergency spending request Obama is sending to Congress today.

Decoupling the spending request from the contentious policy changes, which faced pushback from Obama’s own political party, may give the emergency money a better chance of getting through Congress.

The decision to submit the spending request apart from the policy changes was confirmed Monday by two Capitol Hill aides.

An administration official said the White House has already advised the congressional leadership that it wants expanded authority and said it is still seeking those policy changes.

The official said the administration always intended to send the request for money separately.

The developments underscore the delicate position the administration finds itself in as it risks alienating allies by pursuing changes to turn the migrant kids around more quickly. More than 50,000 have arrived since October, in many cases fleeing violence at home, but also drawn by rumors that they can stay in the U.S.

Congressional Republicans blame Obama policies for the confusion; Obama administration officials dispute that.

The money Obama is seeking would be for immigration judges, detention facilities, and other items that could address the situation, which the administration has termed a humanitarian crisis.

As lawmakers return to Washington this week from a weeklong July 4th recess, Obama’s spending request is set to be a focus, with the Senate Appropriations Committee scheduling a hearing to examine it. It’s not yet clear how lawmakers will react to the request, although aides seem optimistic it will get through the Democratic-controlled Senate in the coming weeks.

The issue has become a political problem for Obama that looks likely to follow him this week to Texas, where he is traveling primarily to raise money for congressional Democrats. White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest reiterated Monday that Obama had no plans to visit the border, but Obama faced renewed criticism from Republicans over that decision.