The Biden administration is privately soliciting $3 billion from Congress to cover the anticipated rising cost of responding to illegal immigration at the U.S.-Mexico border, according to a new report.
Senior Homeland Security officials recently asked the White House Office of Management and Budget for the emergency money just weeks before the Biden administration must stop expelling illegal immigrants back to Mexico, according to an NBC News report Friday. The White House signed off on the ask and sent it to lawmakers on Capitol Hill for approval.
But Republicans could prevent the DHS from getting the money that it wants — despite Democrats saying it would go to responding to the border crisis. Historically, Republicans have traded improvements in physical border security infrastructure or tightening of immigration policies with Democrats.
The U.S. government has spent an unknown amount of money over the past two years reimbursing nonprofit organizations up and down the southern border for costs accrued while caring for the more than 1.5 million people who were released by Border Patrol and Immigration and Customs Enforcement rather than being expelled at the border.
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Nonprofit groups also pay for illegal immigrants to fly or take buses to family or friends across the country, costs that the government helps cover. The Heritage Foundation stated in a report released this week that illegal immigrants helped by nonprofit organizations at the border traveled to 434 of the country’s 435 congressional districts.
“The investigation confirmed that a host of NGOs are actively facilitating the Biden border crisis,” the Heritage Foundation’s Oversight Project wrote in a statement. “Overflow from Customs and Border Protection is being transferred to these organizations so that Border Patrol avoids overcrowded facilities. These organizations apply for, and receive, taxpayer money to provide processing and transportation services and infrastructure to facilitate the migration of illegal aliens into the interior of the country.”
It is these types of costs that Republicans would likely protest on the basis that they entice more immigrants to cross the border illegally.
The Biden administration defended the request and blasted Republicans ahead of the potential pushback.
“If Republicans in Congress are serious about border security, they would ensure that the men and women of the Department of Homeland Security have the resources they need to secure our border and build a safe, orderly, and humane immigration system,” a White House official told NBC.
Back in May, when the DHS had planned to end the Title 42 public health protocol more than two years after it was implemented, it anticipated needing $2 billion to cover the policy change.
However, the DHS is forecasting fewer illegal immigration attempts when Title 42 is slated to end on Dec. 20 than in May, yet its ask this time around is greater than the spring.
In May, the DHS was planning for up to 18,000 arrests of illegal immigrants per day. That termination was blocked in federal court, but the same judge ordered this fall that DHS end Title 42 this month.
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DHS now anticipates up to 10,000 arrests per day.
During the 2019 crisis at the border, when far fewer immigrants were encountered illegally entering the country than each month in the past 20 months, the Trump administration asked Congress for more than $4 billion.
