In announcing his 2023 budget last month, President Joe Biden declared:
“Don’t tell me what you value. Show me your budget, and I’ll tell you what you value.”
Indeed. Biden’s spending plan lays bare for all to see the diminished value he gives to border security and enforcement of immigration law.
At a time of historically high illegal migration into this country, the White House is reducing allocations for deterrence and detention. For Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), the administration is asking for 25,000 beds, down from the current 34,000, and terminated a contract with an Alabama facility.
Meantime, Biden wants an additional $12 billion to welcome and process even more migrants into the U.S. Many, many more is precisely what the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is anticipating when the president’s decision to cancel Title 42 takes effect on May 23. A report highlights some of the dubious spending choices:
- $69 million for illegal alien processing and care through contracted medical support of migrants at 63 locations.
- $32 million to administer migrant medical claims and $29 million to fund a new Office of the Chief Medical Officer at DHS.
- $97 million to transport illegal aliens around the country.
- $375 million for a new fast-track system to expedite (rubber-stamp) asylum claims – a move that openly invites fraud and abuse.
Bear in mind that all of the above are increases in current spending, which already runs well into the billions. Add them all up and the 2023 budget amounts to a blank check to facilitate more mass migration.
For all of its illusory “efficiencies,” Biden’s spending plan pays little attention to deportations and removals, which have plummeted under this president. Instead, he is pumping up a bloated bureaucracy expressly designed to entice an endless influx of illegal aliens. That is what Joe Biden values.
After the budget unveiling, a CBS News poll found that 52 percent of Americans want more – not less — border security. It was the latest survey to show that Biden is underwater on immigration issues. In exercising its power of the purse, and for the good of the country, Congress must right the ship and move in the opposite direction.