White House Promises Painful Spending Cuts if Democrats Oppose Border Bailout

Two agencies must soon cut spending on airport security, border inspections, and child care centers unless Democrats approve $4.5 billion to manage Central American migration across the southern border, say the agency chiefs.

“We cannot stress enough the urgency of immediate passage of emergency supplemental funding,” says the four-page, June 12 letter from top appointees at the Department of Health and Human Security and the Department of Homeland Security. The letter warns:

If DHS does not receive additional funding, it will be forced to take drastic measures in August that will impact other critical programs … All DHS components, including the Transportation Security Administration, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, the Coast Guard, and portions of CBP supporting legal trade and travel, will be required to redirect manpower and funding to support measures to address the crisis.

The promised budget cuts, if implemented, would cause an uproar from business groups worried about cross-border trade and from upper-income Americans angry at airport delays. The cuts would also anger the establishment media because they would hit the companies and progressive groups that provide temporary shelter for young “Unaccompanied Alien Children” (UAC) before they are handed over to their illegal immigrant parents in the United States.

The promised cuts may deter Democrats from trying to insert pro-migrant demands into the funding bill. The demands are likely to be dubbed “poison pills” by the GOP.

President Donald Trump asked for funding on May 1 because record numbers of economic migrants and so-called “UACs” are rushing through the catch and release loopholes created and protected by Congress and the courts.

Up to one million migrants will push through the border by early October, estimates say. That flood of people is equal to one Central American migrant for every four children born in the United States this year.

So far, Democrats have been blocking the funds in the hope of extracting more pro-migration concessions from Trump and the GOP before the 2020 election. “We’re willing to put [up] the money,” Vermont Democratic Sen. Patrick Leahy said at the June 11 hearing at the Senate’s judiciary committee. However, he added:

Now whether a supplemental gets done is up to the administration. If they continue to block bipartisan legislation, nothing happens. I hope the Republicans will finally realize we have to do this, Republicans and Democrats, together … We want long term solutions.

For example, Democrat senators want taxpayers to provide free lawyers to illegal immigrants. The legal aid would make it very difficult for enforcement agencies to send illegal migrants back to their homes.

The Democratic leaders in the House have been delayed by demands from progressives and the Congressional Hispanic Caucus for spending curbs that would reduce the border agencies’ ability to reduce the migration.

Overall, Democrat progressives welcome the migration — regardless of the impact on Americans’ workplaces, schools, and neighborhoods — because of their ideological favoritism towards non-American outsiders. Democrats also support the inflow because it is an economic stimulant for cities run by Democratic mayors and also for the workplaces, groceries, and apartments owned by Democrat donors and investors.

Trump’s Remain in Mexico deal with Mexico is expected to markedly reduce the migration flow. But the gains will not save much money as migrants need to be identified and processed for eventual court hearings before they are sent back to Mexico.

In the letter to Congress, DHS acting secretary Kevin McAleenan described his agency’s funding problems:

It has been six weeks since the Administration requested emergency supplemental funding and Congress has yet to act. Since May 1, the day the Administration submitted this request, over 144,000 migrants have crossed our southern border illegally. While the Department is doing everything we can to maximize our resources and personnel in a Department-wide emergency response, the surge of families and unaccompanied children migration has created an unsustainable strain on DHS personnel working to protect our borders.

A White House statement said:

• $3.3 billion of this request will fund humanitarian assistance, including funds to increase shelter capacity, to feed and care for migrants in custody, and for transportation.
  • More than $2.8 billion will go to increase Health and Human Services (HHS) shelter capacity for Unaccompanied Alien Children (UAC) to approximately 23,600 beds.
  • Department of Homeland Security will receive $273 million to stand up, operate, and secure processing centers at the southern border, increasing its capacity by 3,500 beds.
• $1.1 billion will go to border operations, including personnel expenses, additional detention beds, and operations combating human smuggling and trafficking.
• $178 million will be used to fund mission support, including $10 million to improve migrant processing by upgrading information technology systems.

Most of the requested money is needed to care for and feed the huge number of foreign children — dubbed UACs — who are being carefully delivered by government agencies to their illegal immigrant parents who are living in the United States.

The parents are paying the cartel-linked coyotes to accompany their children to the border and then hand them over to the border agencies. In turn, the border agencies relay the UAC children to HHS shelters, which then complete the coyotes’ contract by handing the children over to the illegal immigrant parents.

“Most children are being released to parents, but parents are here unlawfully,” McAleenan said in the June 11 hearing.

Pro-migration advocates say a 2008 law requires the agencies to deliver the foreign children to so-called “sponsors,” nearly all of whom are either parents or close relatives.

The letter to Congress by McAleenan and HHS secretary Alex Azar said:

While Congress has been considering the request, the average daily number of UAC in U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) [temporary] custody has grown from nearly 870 on May 1 to more than 2,300 today. This is because the number of arriving children greatly exceeds existing HHS capacity. As of June 10, 1,900 processed UAC were in CBP custody awaiting placement in HHS care. However, HHS had fewer than 700 open beds in which to place them. HHS has significantly increased the rates at which we are discharging children to sponsors, but UAC are waiting too long in CBP facilities that are not designed to care for children.

This is a direct result of the unprecedented number of arriving children. As of June 10, DHS has referred over 52,000 UAC to HHS this fiscal year (FY), an increase of over 60 percent from FY 2018. Preliminary information shows nearly 10,000 referrals in May- one of the highest monthly totals in the history of the program. If these numbers continue, this fiscal year HHS will care for the largest number of UAC in the program’s history. HHS continues to operate near capacity, despite placing UAC with sponsors at historically high rates. HHS is working diligently to expand its bed capacity to ensure that it can keep pace, and based on the anticipated growth, HHS expects its need for additional bed capacity to continue.

The number of UACs in the pipeline is expected to grow as more Central Americans accept Congress’s tacit invitation to settle in the United States and summon their children from home.

Immigration Numbers:

Each year, roughly four million young Americans join the workforce after graduating from high school or university.

But the federal government then imports about 1.1 million legal immigrants and refreshes a resident population of roughly 1.5 million white-collar visa workers — including approximately one million H-1B workers — and approximately 500,000 blue-collar visa workers.

The government also prints out more than one million work permits for foreigners, tolerates about eight million illegal workers, and does not punish companies for employing the hundreds of thousands of illegal migrants who sneak across the border or overstay their legal visas each year.

This policy of inflating the labor supply boosts economic growth for investors because it ensures that employers do not have to compete for American workers by offering higher wages and better working conditions.

This policy of flooding the market with cheap, foreign, white-collar graduates and blue-collar labor also shifts enormous wealth from young employees towards older investors, even as it also widens wealth gaps, reduces high-tech investment, increases state and local tax burdens, and hurts children’s schools and college educations.

It also pushes Americans away from high-tech careers and sidelines millions of marginalized Americans, including many who are now struggling with fentanyl addictions. The labor policy also moves business investment and personal savings from the heartland to the coastal cities, explodes rents and housing costs, shrivels real estate values in the Midwest, and rewards investors for creating low-tech, labor-intensive workplaces.