The doomsday clock ticked for cities struggling to handle the influx of migrants and federal agencies bracing for a new surge at the border after the Senate removed border security provisions from the national security supplement bill last week over Republican opposition. and began to move forward.
The Department of Homeland Security was supposed to raise more than $15 billion for efforts called for by Republicans, including deporting more immigrants and stopping fentanyl smuggling.
Without new funding, the agency will not only be unprepared to handle the surge in migrants crossing the border, but will also be unable to maintain the status quo, two DHS officials told NBC News. Officials said DHS agencies will soon have to shift resources from other areas to make do.
Cities such as Chicago, New York, Denver, Los Angeles and Boston, which have experienced an explosion in the number of new migrant arrivals, were scheduled to receive $1.4 billion from the bill to help with their response.
Democratic mayors of these cities are asking the Biden administration to provide housing, education, health care and jobs to tens of thousands of new immigrants arriving after summer 2022, some of whom were sent north by Republicans. They have repeatedly asked for further support, including obtaining permits. Governors. The aid was part of a bipartisan border security agreement that Republicans and Democrats negotiated over several months, but Republicans ended last week.
The federal government has provided $370 million to cities, but they have not received any federal aid since last fall, and with no additional funding from Congress, a DHS spokesperson said, The failure of Congress to pass additional legislation would “put DHS' current removal efforts at risk.” If CBP, ICE, and USCIS do not have sufficient funding, the departments will “Plans may need to change or resources may need to be drawn from other efforts,” a DHS spokesperson said.
ICE is Immigration and Customs Enforcement and USCIS is United States Citizenship and Immigration Services.
ICE and CBP shortages
Meanwhile, at the Southwest border, federal agencies will not have enough money to make needed new hires and there will be fewer arrests, detentions, and deportations of immigrants.
The bill includes $7.6 billion for ICE, which would dramatically expand immigration detention space.
Not only is ICE unable to increase detention space, it also has to reduce the number of deportations compared to last year, when the number of deportations nearly doubled to 142,580. Many immigrants who already have final deportation orders may not be able to be deported.
“Reducing ICE operations would have a significant negative impact on border security, national security, and public safety,” a Department of Homeland Security spokesperson said.
Estimates of the exact amount DHS will need to continue operating and maintain the status quo vary depending on different projections of how rapidly border crossings will surge.
ICE has warned that the number of immigrants per day could rise to 14,000 in spring 2023, and funding could run out as early as July. That number would not be reached in the spring of 2023, but in December it reached a record of more than 12,000 people per day, straining the resources of not only ICE but also Customs and Border Protection, and border patrol agents. is responsible for arresting and processing immigrants. .
CBP has long faced challenges recruiting new agents and officers. The bill calls for approximately $6.8 billion for CBP, of which $723 million would be earmarked for new jobs. Instead, CBP will now need to “recycle funds while reducing operations in non-essential areas,” a DHS spokesperson said.
According to DHS, the diversion will likely include divestment from technology to better detect migrants along the border and to detect fentanyl entering vehicles across ports of entry. That's what it means.
Immigrants who enter the United States through legal means will also feel the effects of the DHS drain.
Without the necessary funding, Citizenship and Immigration Services would have to redeploy staff to screen immigrants who cross the border, while depriving immigrants from reviewing green card applications, a DHS spokesperson said. the person in charge said.
