Thread: Border crossings top 100K while White House pushes emergency immigration budget

Border crossings top 100K while White House pushes emergency immigration budget

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by Leandra Bernstein
Thursday, May 9th 2019

WASHINGTON (Sinclair Broadcast Group) — The White House is pressing Congress to move on a $4.5 billion supplemental budget request sent last week as the Departments of Homeland Security and Health and Human Services struggle to manage the humanitarian and security situation at the southwest border.


While lawmakers consider the request, U.S. Customs and Border Patrol published new figures Wednesday showing the number of migrants apprehended or deemed inadmissible at the southern border hit 109,144 in April, the second month in a row that figure has been higher than 100,000.


Families and unaccompanied children made up more than two-thirds of the 98,977 individuals apprehended at the border. According to frontline agencies, they don't have the resources to meet their needs and are quickly running out of money.


"Our nation is experiencing an unprecedented border security and humanitarian crisis along our southwest border," CBP Chief Carla Provost stated in written testimony submitted to lawmakers this week. Put simply, "[W]e are overwhelmed."

According to Provost, immigration processing and detention facilities at the border are "dangerously over capacity." In March, Border Patrol saw an average of more than 3,000 apprehensions each day and officials anticipate the numbers will continue to rise heading into the summer months.


Immigration officials have responded by erecting tents in El Paso, Texas, Yuma, Arizona and the Rio Grande Valley, but they say more is needed to address the surge in families and children crossing the border daily.
In the past, the agency considered 6,000 detainees to be a crisis. CBP has reached a point where it has had more than 14,000 detainees in a single day. As a result of the strain, Border Patrol began releasing tens of thousands of migrants directly into communities in mid-March.


Communities like El Paso have responded with city officials spending about $36,000 on the influx of migrants since late December. In Yuma, Mayor Doug Nicholls declared an emergency last month, saying the city does not have the resources to sustain the number of migrants being released into the community.


Part of the strain on local communities and federal agencies is due to the number of large groups of migrants crossing the border between ports of entry. In the first months of FY 2019, Border Patrol apprehended 111 large groups of 100 or more individuals compared to only 13 large groups in all of 2018 and two in 2017.


The dramatic increase in children and families trying to enter the United States has posed unique challenges to immigration officers. "I could never have envisioned that today, agents would spend at least 40% of their time as child care professionals, medical caregivers, bus drivers and food service workers," Provost said in testimony Wednesday to the Senate Judiciary Committee.


In April, the Department of Homeland Security announced it was surging 750 officers to the southwest border, redeploying them from their posts at coastal and northern ports of entry.


The newly appointed Director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement Mark Morgan said he is concerned about the effects of straining immigration enforcement resources and diverting personnel from their primary mission of border security to processing people arriving at the border.


"The border is even more wide open than it’s ever been," Morgan told Sinclair Broadcast Group investigative reporter Lara Logan. "The amount of bad people and drugs coming through in between the ports of entry....we have no idea what’s getting through. But we know a lot is."


The $4.5 billion the White House requested would primarily be spent on humanitarian assistance. According to the notice to Congress, $2.8 billion would be spent on the Department of Health and Human Services Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR), the agency tasked with providing food, shelter and child welfare services to migrants. ORR, the agency at the center of the Trump administration's family separations, projected it will run out of money by June.
Another $1.1 billion would be spent on the Department of Homeland Security for the construction of temporary and permanent migrant processing facilities and resources to ensure families and children arriving in the country receive medical attention, food and temporary shelter.


The remainder of the funds would be spent on border operations, including the cost of surging personnel to the southwest border.


On Capitol Hill, lawmakers are looking to the top appropriators for guidance. "Hopefully people recognize the majority of that [budget request] is for humanitarian aid," said Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C.


He said there are some discussions about the supplemental budget among Republican leaders, but they will likely have difficulty bringing Democrats on board in the Senate or passing it through the Democrat-controlled House.
According to reports, top White House officials have been pushing Senate Republicans to attach the $4.5 billion border security supplemental to a massive disaster relief bill. The White House has been in regular contact with lawmakers stressing the urgency. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., has given some signals that he could deliver on the supplemental budget request before Memorial Day.


In the House, the two top Republicans on the Judiciary and Homeland Security Committees introduced an amendment to the House disaster relief bill calling to fully fund the White House supplemental budget request.


"Our system is not equipped to handle the influx of children and families arriving at our border by the day," said Rep. Mike Rogers, R-Ala. "The administration has told Congress what it needs to address the crisis at the border. Now, it’s on us to do our job and make sure that it has adequate resources to confront a situation that has become increasingly dangerous to national security and human life."


House Budget Committee Chairman John Yarmuth, D-Ky., reacted to the proposal saying of disaster relief and border resources, "We're definitely trying to keep those separate right now."


In the Senate, where the disaster relief bill has been stuck for weeks, Republicans are struggling to reach a bipartisan consensus on the roughly $17 billion disaster relief bill. With Democrats skeptical about providing additional funds for border security and detention space, it will be difficult to pass the provision.


As lawmakers fight over resources, the humanitarian crisis was further underscored last week when a 16-year-old Guatemalan boy died in U.S. custody after arriving at the border unaccompanied. His cause of death is still being investigated, but initial reports from Guatemalan authorities indicate he had a severe infection in his brain. The boy was the third child to die in U.S. custody since December.
Courtesy: Sinclair Broadcast Group

https://abcstlouis.com/news/connect-...-budget-stalls

Originally Posted by stoptheinvaders

Border crossings top 100K while White House pushes emergency immigration budget

100K invaders in a month and what does Trump's WH do?

Ask for 4.5 Billion to assist the invaders, not STOP them

food, shelter and child welfare services

medical attention, and temporary shelter for the invaders.

NO MONEY!

GIVE THEM A BUS TICKET BACK HOME INCLUDING THEIR UAC'S!