Illegal Border Crossings Today:

Biden Budget Proposal Takes Aim at Immigration Enforcement

March 10, 2023
White House emblem American flag in the backgroiund

FAIR Take | March 2023

President Biden released his fiscal year 2024 budget proposal yesterday to the tune of $6.8 trillion.  That budget includes billions to support his open borders agenda, including everything from funds to advance Biden’s illegal parole program to hiring hundreds more personnel to process and release illegal aliens into the country.

This budget is simply the latest politically motivated attempt to undermine our immigration laws.

Not content with the $151 billion that American taxpayers are already on the hook for to illegal aliens every year, President Biden’s budget cuts the Department of Homeland Security’s budget by one percent to a level of $60.4 billion. Other provisions include:

  • $7.3 billion to the Office of Refugee Resettlement to support a goal of admitting 125,000 refugees while asylum seekers flood the southern border.
  • $4.7 billion to a contingency fund to be released to CBP, ICE, and FEMA accounts without any clear oversight.
  • More than $1.5 billion to the Executive Office for Immigration Review for 150 new immigration judge teams.
  • $865 million to United States Citizenship and Immigration Services –a highly unusual proposal of direct funding to the agency – to fund additional processing of asylum applications, immigration benefit requests, the Citizenship and Integration Grant Program, and refugee processing.
  • $430 million to the Department of State to promote the radical Los Angeles Declaration on Migration and Protection.
  • $150 million to bolster the efforts of legal advocacy organizations and make immigration proceedings “more equitable.”
  • Funding to hire an additional 460 “processing assistants” at CBP and ICE to more efficiently welcome in illegal aliens.

When viewing President Biden’s budget as a whole, what is most notable is that, with respect to immigration, it does not change course.  Instead, it doubles down and further advances the same policies and programs that caused the border crisis in the first place. In maintaining this course, the Biden administration is once again proving that it is more concerned with appeasing open borders activists than protecting American citizens, throwing the border open for any and all to come, leading to dozens of suspects on the terror watchlist and tons of illegal narcotics flowing across.

Even as this proposal encourages more illegal immigration and does nothing to secure the border, it is important to note too that the figures above are topline numbers.  FAIR will follow up with more detailed analysis as the full package is released in the coming weeks.