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Daily Signal
Less Than 1% of
Obama’s ‘Emergency’ Border Funds Would Be Spent This Year
David Inserra
July 22, 2014
Romina Boccia focuses on federal spending and the national debt as the
Grover M. Hermann fellow in federal budgetary affairs in the Roe
Institute for Economic Policy Studies at The Heritage Foundation.
The Congressional Budget Office has released its score on how President
Barack Obama’s $4.3 billion emergency request on immigration will be
spent. The big news? The CBO score confirms that the president’s $4.3
billion emergency request is not warranted. CBO reports that only $25
million of the president’s request would be spent in fiscal year 2014
and the remaining funds would not be spent until the next fiscal year
or in the out-years.
Congress is currently debating how to allocate the nearly half-trillion
dollars ($492.4 billion) in non-defense discretionary spending that
lawmakers authorized in the Ryan–Murray budget deal for fiscal year
(FY) 2015. If Congress chose to support the Obama Administration’s
approach to dealing with the surge in unaccompanied minors, there is no
reason why Congress could not do so within the current Budget Control
Act (BCA)cap. Congress has already lifted the cap by $9.2 billion from
its original FY 2015 level established by the BCA and could allocate
some of the spending increase toward the administration’s border
efforts.
Congress should use the appropriations process to properly prioritize
spending needs, including for border security. Obama is instead asking
Congress to circumvent its already inflated spending cap by exploiting
the “emergency” loophole. But this is an “emergency” that White House
officials reportedly knew about for years now, but decided to ignore.
More important than funding that will not be spent until next year are
policy changes that will address the heart of the current crisis.
Without clear and concise enforcement of U.S. immigration law, the
current crisis will only grow worse. Instead of more funding, the first
steps to solving this crisis are rescinding or defunding administrative
amnesty programs like the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA)
and clarifying existing law to allow Obama to remove these minors in an
expedited manner. Such changes will restore integrity to the
immigration system and send a clear message that coming to the U.S.
illegally will not be tolerated.
Obama claims that because of a 2008 anti-human trafficking law, his
hands are tied. First of all, the president already has the authority
to remove these children in rapid fashion. Second, even if he didn’t,
Obama has not requested this authority and House minority leader Nancy
Pelosi, D-Calif., and other congressional Democrats don’t want to
provide this authority either.
If more resources are truly needed on the border at this moment, then
the National Guard should be considered as a way to quickly and
temporarily support DHS’s efforts. Ultimately though, stopping the
flood of children at our borders requires better immigration
enforcement policies and a president that is willing to enforce the law.
Read this and other articles at The Daily Signal
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