Congress can expect the Biden administration to submit an emergency funding request for “billions” of dollars to cover costs incurred by the crisis at the U.S.-Mexico border, according to a senior House Democrat.
“Sometime this summer, very soon, [Health and Human Services] and [Homeland Security] are going to be asking us for billions of dollars. Billions of dollars for a supplemental,” Texas Democrat Henry Cuellar, the vice chairman of the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Homeland Security, said in a virtual briefing with reporters Monday afternoon.
During the 2019 humanitarian crisis, when 473,000 people who were part of a family group were taken into federal custody for attempting to come across the border from Mexico illegally, Congress passed $4.5 billion in emergency funding to detain and care for people in its custody. HHS received $2.9 billion, while $1.3 billion went to DHS.
Cuellar announced in the same call that nongovernmental organizations that have been assisting migrant families after they have been released from the custody of the Border Patrol or Immigration and Customs Enforcement can begin applying for reimbursement of related costs starting today.
More than $113 million have been made available through the Federal Emergency Management Agency to cover food, shelter, clothes, transportation, and other costs. In previous years, such as 2014 and 2019, nonprofit organizations and religious groups that helped care for people were either not reimbursed or waited a year to submit those costs. Now, humanitarian organizations can seek funds quarterly.
Local and state governments can also submit expenses to the federal agency for costs incurred between Jan. 1 and March 31.
The Holding Institute nonprofit group in Laredo, Texas, is spending an average of $4,200 every three weeks to feed migrant families in its care, according to its executive director, Pastor Mike Smith.
"We've been having to float, you know, for the, for the past few months, and most NGOs and those shelters are not able to float that long," said Smith. "We've been saving our receipts, and we've actually been putting our stuff together and ready to go, so as soon as we have the documents filled out, we're going to submit."
Cuellar said funding requests will not resolve the rising tide of people at the border. In March, 172,000 people were encountered illegally coming into the United States from Mexico, the highest number in 15 years.
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"The reality is we have an input and output problem. There's so many people coming in. Until you show some consequences, they're going to be coming in," said Cuellar.
