President Joe Biden wants billions of dollars to house migrant children, speed up U.S. citizenship petitions and process asylum seekers. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas applauded the “smart [plan]… to better manage the border.” Others call it more smoke and mirrors.
The spending proposal allocates $52 billion for DHS, roughly the same as this year. Notably, it earmarks $84 million to investigate complaints of alleged white supremacy at two DHS agencies – Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Protection (CBP) – while leaving Border Patrol funding flat in the face of historic migrant flows.
Down on the chaotic and overwhelmed southern border, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott says reinstating the Remain in Mexico policy and completing the wall would be the most cost-effective moves.
The Remain in Mexico program (formally titled Migrant Protection Protocols) regulated the influx of border crossers prior to Biden entering office. In scrapping that program, halting wall construction and reverting to the catch-and-release policies of the Obama administration, Biden eviscerated immigration and border enforcement and, in effect, encouraged more illegal aliens to head north.
“[This is] why there are so many people coming here,” Abbott asserted. “Every single one of the Democrat candidates [in 2020]said if they are elected, they will have open borders and they will be giving things for free to anybody coming across.” Biden is making good on his pledge, at taxpayer expense.
While expending $60 million a week housing migrant minors, the administration proposes bringing on new immigration court judges to tackle a growing backlog of more than 1.1 million asylum cases. Yet adding staff and courtrooms at the border will merely facilitate faster rubber stamping of claims as Biden seeks to open up asylum eligibility.
The New York Times reported, apparently without irony, that the White House funding request “shows an increasing sense of urgency in the Biden administration to deter migration to the southwestern border.”
The only urgency we’re seeing from Biden’s team is a desire to get as many migrants into this country as quickly as possible.