House Democrats have called for small cuts to funding for the Department of Homeland Security’s immigration enforcement mission in a new spending bill released earlier this week, but House Dems also pressed to revoke more than $2 billion in money already in place for border barriers.
The bill, which covers FY2022, would cut the number of ICE detention beds to 28,500 and rejects calls for more Border Patrol agents, instead pumping hundreds of millions of dollars into the legal immigration branch, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), to try to get through the current immigration backlogs.
Traditionally, USCIS is funded by fees paid by aliens and immigrants themselves, but Democrats appear to be wary of the prices they would have to charge to complete what they expect USCIS to do; so instead, the House has decided to flip the cost onto the taxpayers.
The bill also requires Homeland Security to provide illegal aliens with access to lawyers, imposes stricter standards on which aliens can be detained while awaiting their court cases or deportations, and bans Homeland Security investigators at ICE from doing immigration enforcement work unless it involves a criminal offense not related to immigration, reports the Washington Times.
House Appropriations Committee Chairwoman Rosa DeLauro, a Connecticut Democrat, stated:
We must do more to protect immigrants, especially children and their families. I am proud that this bill respects their dignity by improving conditions in CPB short-term holding facilities, investing in alternatives to detention, making processing quicker and more efficient, and reducing backlogs of immigration, refugee and asylum applications.
The $2.26 billion Congressional Dems hope to take away from critical border infrastructure is cash Congress allocated over the last four years, but which the Trump Administration had not yet spent it by January.
President Biden has paused wall construction, but, according to the Washington Times, “Congress’s chief watchdog has said that pause, while legal for now, cannot go on indefinitely and at some point, the new administration will have to spend the money Congress has authorized.”
Under the House proposal, DHS funding would be $52.8 billion in base funding, up $934 million over 2021, one of the most modest increases in department spending under President Biden. The bill also includes $18.8 billion in disaster response money. If passed by the House, the proposal would then have to be married to a corresponding Senate bill.
For the full story, please visit the Washington Times.
