Analysis
of the Supplemental Budget Request
A peek at
what's behind the White House’s border "surge"
By Dan
Cadman, July 2014
On July 8,
the White House submitted its emergency budget request to the House of
Representatives (which holds the "power of the purse" under our
Constitution) to deal with the "humanitarian crisis" on our southern
border.
The budget
request, which totals $3.7 billion, immediately drew flack from many
representatives who called it a blank check. Responding in the media, White
House Director of the Domestic Policy Council Cecilia Munoz said that Congress
cannot have it both ways: criticizing the administration while withholding the
funding to effectively handle the crisis.
Having
studied the request, it seems clear to me that it is the White House that wants
it both ways.
In this
regard, it is noteworthy that Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary
Jeh Johnson, when interviewed July 6 on NBC's "Meet the Press",
repeatedly demurred when pressed by frustrated host David Gregory to say
whether or not all — or indeed any — of the unaccompanied alien children (UACs)
would ever be returned.
Johnson
did say that, "With regards to adults who are bringing their children,
we're bringing on additional detention capacity. We're turning that population
of people around quicker." But nothing in either the specifics of the
budget request, or what fragmentary statistical information the government has
released about adults who have arrived as a part of the surge, shows even that
statement to be true.
While
administration leaders publicly claim they are working to effectively stem the
tide of arrivals and ensure their speedy removal, everything about the budget
request suggests this is more about resettlement, prolonging removal
proceedings into infinity, and then quietly letting the tens of thousands of
most recent arrivals recede into the woodwork of society to join the more than
840,000 aliens who are already fugitives from immigration courts around the
country.
Reciting
the entire litany of questionable items that pop out at me when I read the
request is beyond the boundaries of a blog. But here are a few of the things
that garnered my attention and concern:
Of the
$3.7 billion being requested, fully $1.8 billion (about 49 percent of the
total) is for resettlement costs to be appropriated to the Department of Health
and Human Services (HHS) — not just for the UACs, but for entire family units,
including adult men and women. There is no reason to think that the
accommodations will be temporary, insofar as the funds include authorization
"for acquisition, construction, improvement, repair, operation, and
maintenance of real property and facilities."
There is a
"general provision" in the request which, under the guise of limiting
reprogramming or reallocating of funds once appropriated, in fact gives the
administration the right to move as much as 30 percent of the monies around as
they choose. (Past history suggests that such reprogramming is usually limited
to 10 percent of appropriated funds, unless specifically approved by Congress.)
The
Department of Justice (DOJ) would be given $15 million to hire attorneys to
defend the UACs against deportation in removal proceedings before an
immigration judge. An additional $1.1 million would be given to DOJ for
"immigration litigation attorneys" who, presumably, would assist
alien adults in their proceedings. It is clear that such litigation attorneys
are not prosecutors, who are called "trial attorneys" and work for
DHS, not DOJ. In essence, Congress is being asked to approve the executive
branch's violation of the law. Section 292 of the Immigration and Nationality
Act specifically prohibits representation of aliens in immigration proceedings
at government expense.
Much of
the so-called "enforcement" portion of the budget is not truly geared
toward removal; rather, it is a recouping of costs for temporary detention and
subsequent transporting of aliens (including adults) to facilitate their
resettlement and relocation by HHS. (It is noteworthy that, according to a leaked
Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Office of Intelligence document,
fully 47 percent of the arrivals are adults, who should be subjected to
expedited removal, not to relocation and resettlement.)
A meager
$109 million is being requested to facilitate anti-smuggling investigative
efforts, which, according to Secretary Johnson's statements and testimony in
other venues, are supposed to be one of the crown-jewels in his 14-point plan
to stem the surge. In any case, such efforts are destined to limited success.
This is because the United States has very little influence over
ineffectual or corrupt police and military services in the source and transit
countries, to ensure that they root out criminal gangs responsible for the smuggling.
On the U.S. side, the ones responsible for predicating the effort through
contact with, and payment to, the gangs are often the parents or other
relatives of those being smuggled and, rather than investigate and prosecute
such individuals to the full extent of the law, the government instead acts as
the ultimate delivery agent, passing along the smuggled-but-apprehended alien
to the people who paid to have him or her smuggled. And at the border proper,
the ones who act as the guides for groups being smuggled are low-level
nothings; the equivalent of mules. They are easily replaceable and their
capture disrupts nothing.
So the
government takes a hands-off approach to the UACs being smuggled, and after a
few days of detention and make-work processing, passes them over to the ones
who initiated the venture; it then takes a hands-off approach to the people who
want to take possession of the ready-for-release smuggled UACs and families
(even if those people are themselves illegal aliens). It's a closed circle of
illogic. Little will come of any anti-smuggling program, except to permit the
secretary to say he's fulfilling his 14-point plan. Perhaps that is why the
administration isn't spending much more than chump change on the effort.
It's no
wonder that many in Congress are balking at being asked to go along with such a
Potemkin village approach to the problem, one that the White House saddled
itself with by reason of its fecklessness where respect for the rule of
immigration law is concerned.
Reprinted
from www.cis.com
Dan Cadman is a former colleague
and a good friend. He retired from INS / ICE with thirty years of
government experience. Dan served as a senior supervisor and manager at
headquarters, as well as at field offices both domestically and abroad.
Within the immigration law
enforcement field, Dan’s knowledge and experience encompass, among other
things, criminal aliens, employer sanctions, and national security and
terrorism matters. see An Introduction To Dan Cadman
Ben Ferro
benferro@insideins.com