Federal Official Issues Major Warning After Border Bill Fails

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An official with the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) warned Wednesday that the failure of the recent Senate border bill would reduce operations on the border due to a lack of funding.

The border bill that Republican lawmakers opposed last week would have provided $6 billion in supplemental funding to Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE), an arm of the DHS. GOP lawmakers warned that the bill would lead to mass immigration, would likely tie the hands of a future president in enacting more border controls, and was unnecessarily tied to funding to Ukraine and other countries.

After the failure, reports citing anonymous agency officials surfaced this week that ICE is circulating a proposal to release thousands of individuals who were detained after illegally crossing the border. They said that the agency currently faces a $700 million budget shortfall, while the border bill had included $7.6 billion for ICE, including $2.6 billion to carry out deportation flights and another $3.2 billion to fund detentions.

In response to those reports, DHS official Erin Heeter told The Washington Post that “most recently, Congress rejected the bipartisan national security bill out of hand, which will put at risk DHS’s current removal operations,” although she did not appear to confirm whether mass releases were on the table. “A reduction in ICE operations would significantly harm border security, national security, and public safety.”

The official also claimed that Congress has “chronically underfunded” the DHS’s “vital missions on the southwest border,” without elaborating.

As the border bill was being discussed in the Senate, Republican lawmakers said that President Joe Biden has significant power to control the border and have long pointed to his administration’s ending of numerous Trump-era immigration rules, including suspending the construction of the U.S.–Mexico border wall. “Biden has the power to end the border crisis without Congress. He just doesn’t want to,” Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.) wrote on X this month.

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Rep. Mark Green (R-Tenn.) said Wednesday that claims DHS or the White House would blame Republicans for the agency’s funding problems are troubling, noting that the Biden administration has tried to cut ICE’s budget. He also suggested that the claims ICE will have to release more illegal immigrants is blackmail.

“Secretary Mayorkas has consistently requested fewer ICE beds year after year,” Mr. Green said in a statement, referring to DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas. “Instead of treating enforcement as a hostage negotiation—‘give us more money or else’—Secretary Mayorkas should just do his job and follow the law.”

Democrats and President Biden have now said they will make the Republican efforts to kill the bill a major theme of his reelection campaign, although it could be risky as many polls show Americans give President Biden low grades for his handling of border security and immigration.

The Democratic president’s approval rating sank to 38 percent in January as concerns over immigration flared, the latest Reuters-Ipsos poll showed. A recent Gallup poll found that about 20 percent of people who disapprove of President Biden’s job performance cited “illegal immigration” and “open borders” as their top concern, while nine percent said that his handling of the U.S. economy was their main gripe.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) on Tuesday also took aim at the former president over the mounting opposition to the border security deal. “Donald Trump would rather keep the chaos at the border so he can exploit it on the campaign trail instead of letting the Senate do the right thing and fix it,” he said.

Republican presidential candidate and former President Donald J. Trump speaks at a rally in Manchester, N.H., on Jan. 20, 2024. (Madalina Vasiliu/The Epoch Times)
Republican presidential candidate and former President Donald J. Trump speaks at a rally in Manchester, N.H., on Jan. 20, 2024. (Madalina Vasiliu/The Epoch Times)

But President Trump said the bill doesn’t go far enough and would allow millions of illegal immigrants into the United States. House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) and other Republicans have said that the measure would allow for 5,000 illegal immigrants and asylum seekers to enter the country every day before restrictions are imposed, which was disputed by one of the bill’s sponsors, Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (I-Ariz.), before it failed.

As part of his 2024 campaign, the former president has vowed to launch the largest deportation effort in U.S. history.

“On day one, I will terminate every open border of the Biden administration, and we will begin the largest domestic deportation operation in American history,” he said during an event in South Carolina. “We crushed Crooked Joe’s disastrous open border bill,” he added.

His proposals on handling illegal immigration have drawn pushback from Democrats, including those representing areas in Texas.

“We would push back in every way that we can, through the courts, through organizing … every single way that we could to protect the communities that we represent,” Rep. Joaquin Castro (D-Texas) told Axios. And Rep. Sylvia Garcia (D-Texas) said she would join any lawsuit to stop the former president’s plans for mass deportations.

Reuters contributed to this report.

Original News Source Link – Epoch Times

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