House’s DHS funding bill makes enforcement a priority
Want funding for E-Verify? Done.
In last year’s budget battle, Rep. Tom Price, incoming House Budget Committee Chairman, proposed funding the Department of Homeland Security through the end of February. (DHS oversees immigration by way of United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS).)
The idea was that if funding for DHS and subsequent entities were held until the Republicans had a majority in both houses, Republicans would be in a strategically advantageous position to enact substantive reforms and direct more resources to our national borders.
Today, the House Appropriations Committee released the DHS appropriations bill. Next week, the bill will be considered on the House floor, making it the last of the annual appropriations bills for this fiscal year.
Overall, DHS is slated to receive an increase of $400 million from last fiscal year, giving the agency a budget of $39.7 billion. As the bill currently reads, the surge in funding and substantial reallocations will be poured into enforcement agencies like Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) who are responsible for border protection and confiscating contraband, and Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) who are the “round ’em up and detain ’em while they await trial” folks.
CBP will receive an extra $118 million with the aim of providing more support than the agency has ever received since it’s creation in 2003. Almost $400 million is allocated to border security fencing, infrastructure, and technology. Funding has been allocated to add more than 2,000 additional CBP officers to it’s current force of 21,370. CBP’s total budget in this bill clocks in at $10.7 billion.
Getting a raise of almost $700 million, ICE will receive a total of $5.96 billion. More than half of ICE’s total budget is allocated to detention centers. E-verify will be funded, as will efforts to curb human trafficking, drug smuggling, and visa vetting processes. $1.6 billion is devoted specifically to “identify[ing] aliens convicted of a crime who may be deportable, and [removing] them from the United States once they are judged deportable.” The bill also instructs the DHS Secretary to, “prioritize the identification and removal of aliens convicted of a crime by the severity of that crime.”
Funds have been allocated across the board to beef up technology, which will ultimately allow DHS to keep better track of those entering and exiting the country (an issue that’s long been problematic).
Meanwhile, the Transportation Security Administration (TSA)’s budget is being cut by a whopping $94 million.
There’s no mention of USCIS in the bill for a simple reason — it’s supported by immigration application fees. These fees are paid predominantly by those maintaining legal status when they extend work authorization, change visa types, or apply for naturalization, etc. Even green cards must be extended in some cases.
As a means of squashing Obama’s immigration overreach, House Republicans are expected to submit amendments to the appropriations bill (likely this weekend) to further restrict where and how DHS funds can be spent. Congressmen like Representative Alderholt (R-AL) have offered legislation that seeks to remove Presidential discretion from immigration matters. Sources on the Hill indicate these ideas and other will be incorporated into amendments to the appropriations bill, culminating in a unified immigration response from Hill Republicans.
We will continue to bring you developments on the immigration battle as they happen.
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Comments
This informative and well-written post should be uplifting, and it is to some extent. I will be pleasantly surprised if the Republicans come up with a way to impose their spending will on obama.
1) who here believes that the Republicans will leave any increased enforcement in the bill?
2) who here believes that Buraq Hussein will sign a bill with increased enforcement?
3) who here believes that if the bill is passed over his veto that Buraq Hussein will not either continue to refuse to enforce our immigration laws by decree, or use the money to bring in more illegal invaders, or both?
Until I see the Republicans actually [series of expletives deleted] do something, I have to assume that they are lying again.
The GOPe leadership’s modus-operandi is “Embrace, Extend , Execute”
1. Embrace your opposition’s (in this case, the teaparty’s) position as your own.
2. Extend your position citing extenuating circumstances–“next year, focus on sequester, only 1/2 of 1/3, we cannot shut down the government…”
3. Execute your oppositions position with what you want–open borders and cheap labor amnesty.
“1.Embrace” has just happened.
You, correctly are anticipating “2. Extend”
Brietbart had a leaked description of the plan here: http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2014/12/29/rain-dance-gop-leadership-may-be-developing-plan-to-solidify-obamas-executive-amnesty/
From the above link is this relevant part:
““Here’s the architecture of the coming sellout: there will be a show vote on defunding exec amnesty—either as a stand alone or part of the DHS bill,” a congressional GOP aide told Breitbart News:
But once they’ve let members vote on it, it will fall away. Instead, they’ll attach the McCaul “border securit”‘ bill—what we’ll call free rides for illegal aliens to a city near you. The McCaul bill will follow the Pete Sessions’ rule: no illegal aliens will be deported. No e-verify, no welfare stoppage, a free pass for the 12 million here to stay here. It will just be more money for King Obama to use to help illegals enter the country and get a free education. The White House will play along, pretend it’s a tough bill, and then eagerly sign it—locking in the amnesty and taking real enforcement off the table (they’ll say it’s all done now). Then will come the gifts for the corporate sponsors.”
Great start, that is until Boehnor folds like cheap wet cardboard, which will happen.
Allocating money for increased border security is 10,000 miles from actually securing the border while Obama is in the White House.
The border security stuff is to get the bill passed, but that part of it goes out the window the minute it is passed.
In essence, they’re going to give even more money for the various federal agencies to not enforce the law.
e-Verify is huge. It will essentially eliminate the current trick of falsified SSNs. Believe it or not, there is no current system to deal with false numbers. SSA knows when a number is not valid at all, but even then all they do is keep the money turned in. Even for those using other people’s SSNs, it isn’t caught unless the citizen notices. Apparently it is okay to work 40 hour weeks in LA & Boston simultaneously.
e-Verify ends the complacence on compliance. If your SSN doesn’t match up to the account in your name, or if there are duplicate payments to an account, it is flagged and stopped. Employers risk heavy fines to continue to employ those flagged.
Along with border security and visa tracking, this is one of the major legs of a sound enforcement policy.