Biden Wants to Spend Billions More to Do Less at the Border
As Border Patrol officers cut wire for migrants and bump fists with them, the Biden administration wants an additional $13.6 billion to spend on illegal aliens. Make no mistake: The president’s funding request is not about immigration enforcement, but about processing more migrants into the U.S., and providing them with additional financial support.
The White House’s “urgent budget request,” with only a couple of exceptions, would direct more money to process and release illegal aliens, to speed up the process of delivering immigration benefits (such as work authorizations), and to use taxpayer dollars to support sanctuary cities that encourage illegal immigration. The package furthers this administration’s two primary goals: big spending and open borders.
The largest part of the president’s border proposal – $4.47 billion – is earmarked for Customs and Border Protection (CBP) to help process and transport illegal aliens along the southern border. There is no mention, or intention, of changing course to reduce encounters, or to end catch and release.
In short, the president’s budget request is not a serious one. It is not designed to stop the tidal wave of migrants. It is not designed to give agents more authority to carry out their mission. It is not designed to improve their ability to detain criminal aliens and take them off the streets. Rather, it facilitates and promotes the status quo of historically high levels of illegal immigration.
In its most recent tally, FAIR estimated that illegal aliens cost this country $150.7 billion annually. Continuing record flows of migrants will add to the burden shouldered by federal, state, and local taxpayers.
The illegal influx also makes this nation less safe. According to government data, 736 individuals on the terror watchlist were encountered at America’s northern and southern borders in fiscal year 2023 – a 54 percent increase over 2022. These must be considered conservative numbers, as “gotaways” who elude authorities at the southern border are running at the rate of 1,000 a day – and those are only the ones officials know about.
Moreover, not every person who poses a threat to the United States is on the terror watchlist. The volume of migrants CBP is dealing with precludes any meaningful vetting that might identify other people who might be dangerous.
Biden’s proposals do nothing about any of this. In fact, they make it worse by increasing spending on the care and comfort of illegal aliens, inviting ever more to come.
Now that the ball is in Congress’ court, FAIR President Dan Stein says that any spending package for the next fiscal year “must include ironclad language that ensures that the administration uses these funds to halt the unprecedented flow of people entering our country illegally.”