How Congress allocates billions to fund the border crisis nationwide

As Americans struggle with high inflationary costs, paying record high grocery costs and energy bills, Congress continues to allocate billions of dollars of taxpayer money to fund services for illegal border crossers living in U.S. cities.

Prior to the last budget funding showdown in March, House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-Louisiana, said in January that “any bill that does not secure the border is not acceptable.”

He also identified 64 examples of ways he says the Biden-Harris administration “worked to systematically undermine America’s border security.”

In February, House Republicans impeached Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas arguing he was derelict in his duty and violated the public trust by creating a border crisis. One month later, the majority of Republicans who voted to impeach him, passed a spending bill that funded programs he created they maintain are illegal.

While Americans complain about escalating crime caused by illegal border crossers who’ve inundated their communities, Congress funded the programs that brought them there – and are keeping them there – including DHS’ Shelter and Services Program grants funneling billions to primarily Democratic states, counties, cities as well as nonprofits.

Likewise, the U.S. Senate’s “strongest border security bill in history” the White House, Senate and House Democrats keep touting, co-authored by U.S. Sen. James Lankford, R-OK, allocated “an additional $1.4 billion in SSP funds, and provide additional needed tools and resources to respond to historic global migration,” DHS says – to fund caring for illegal border crossers released into the US.

DHS recently announced the latest round of SSP funding of $380 million—a drop in the bucket to overall spending authorized by Congress. This round “augments the $259.13 million in SSP grants that DHS distributed in April 2024 … which was authorized by Congress to support communities that are providing services to migrants,” DHS says.

The April DHS grant money was distributed after Congress in March passed a $1.2 trillion spending package to avoid a so-called government shutdown, despite Johnson’s and others’ claims, about requiring border security as a condition for passing it.

More than $780 million worth of SSP and the Emergency Food and Shelter Program – Humanitarian Awards grants were awarded in fiscal 2023 “which went to organizations and cities across the country,” DHS says. That’s after DHS awarded $640.9 million in fiscal 2024 “to enable non-federal entities to off-set allowable costs incurred for services associated with noncitizen migrant arrivals in their communities,” also authorized by Congress.

Here are examples of fiscal 2023 and fiscal 2024 grant recipients and the amounts they received.

The SSP grants are awarded in phases. One round in fiscal 2024, totaling $40.8 million, was awarded to:

City/County of Denver, $5.9 million;
District of Columbia, $2.7 million;
City of Chicago, $3.8 million;
Commonwealth of Massachusetts, nearly $4.9 million;
NYC Office of Management and Budget, $20.4 million;
City of Philadelphia over $3 million.
That’s after $275 million was awarded to 55 recipients in the attached spreadsheet. Top recipients in one round of funding include:
New York City’s Office of Management and Budget, $38.8 million;
Pima County, Ariz., $21.8 million;
Catholic Charities, Diocese of San Diego of $19.5 million;
Maricopa County, $11.6 million, among others.

Democratic-led cities also received large payouts in one round of funding:

Atlanta, $10.8 million;
Chicago, $9.6 million;
Denver, $5.8 million.

The Commonwealth of Massachusetts also cashed in, receiving nearly $7 million; the District of Columbia received $8.7 million; Illinois, $9.6 million, all in one round of funding.

Democratic controlled El Paso County has long received federal money to coordinate transporting illegal foreign nationals north to New York City, Chicago and Denver, The Center Square reported; Austin and San Antonio followed suit flying north “guests coming from the border,” to “proactively manage the flow of people” out of their cities.

These grants exclude others awarded through numerous other federal agencies, including FEMA, U.S. Health and Human Services and others.

Gov. Ron DeSantis, R-FL, U.S. Rep. Thomas Massie, R-KY, and several House Freedom Caucus members argue Congress has a constitutional requirement to stop funding the border crisis. DeSantis, a Freedom Caucus member when he served in Congress, has asked, “How many congressmen rail against Biden’s transgressions yet still vote to fund them?”

Massie said in January that “in March, when funding expires, we can put a rider in the next bill that says none of the money hereby appropriated can be used to countermand border security measures of the states.”

This didn’t happen. The majority of Republicans voted to keep spending taxpayer money on these programs. By July, a U.S. House Judiciary Committee report highlighted examples of how Congress was still funding the border crisis.

Download PDF

Related Topics:#BethanyBlankley #BorderCrisis #BorderSecurity #IllegalImmigration #TheCenterSquare FundingIllegalMigrants

Up Next

Texas DPS sounds alarm on ‘special interest aliens’ illegally entering from Mexico

Don't Miss

U.S. Secret Service report finds multiple failures before first Trump assassination attempt

Todayville

Todayville is a digital media and technology company. We profile unique stories and events in our community. Register and promote your community event for free.

Follow Author

Trump Moves To Reverse Biden’s Green New Deal Agenda — With A Special Focus On Wind

illegal immigration / 2 hours ago

Trump directs feds to target cartels that threaten homeland security

Business / 3 hours ago

Debunking the myth of the ‘new economy’

illegal immigration

Trump directs feds to target cartels that threaten homeland security

Published on January 22, 2025

Todayville

ICE agents remove Mexican drug kingpin and leader of the Arriola Marquez Cartel, Oscar Arturo Arriola Marquez, from Texas to Mexico. US Immigration & Customs Enforcement

From The Center Square

By Bethany Blankley

President Donald Trump is directing federal agencies to target Mexican cartels and other foreign groups that are a threat to American citizens and national security.

Trump’s executive order designates Mexican cartels, the Venezuelan prison gang Tren de Aragua, Salvadoran La Mara Salvatrucha (MS-13), and other organizations as foreign terrorist organizations (FTOs) and specially designated global terrorists (SDGTs) under the U.S. Constitution, Immigration and Nationality Act and International Emergency Economic Powers Act.

“International cartels constitute a national-security threat beyond that posed by traditional organized crime, with activities encompassing convergence between themselves and a range of extra-hemispheric actors, from designated foreign-terror organizations to antagonistic foreign governments; complex adaptive systems, characteristic of entities engaged in insurgency and asymmetric warfare; an infiltration into foreign governments across the Western Hemisphere,” the order states.

“The Cartels have engaged in a campaign of violence and terror throughout the Western Hemisphere that has not only destabilized countries with significant importance for our national interests but also flooded the United States with deadly drugs, violent criminals, and vicious gangs,” Trump’s order states. “They functionally control, through a campaign of assassination, terror, rape, and brute force nearly all illegal traffic across the southern border of the United States. In certain portions of Mexico, they function as quasi-governmental entities, controlling nearly all aspects of society.”

TdA and MS13 gang members also pose similar threats, engaging in “campaigns of violence and terror in the United States and internationally are extraordinarily violent, vicious, and similarly threaten the stability of the international order in the Western Hemisphere,” presenting “an unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security, foreign policy, and economy of the United States.”

In response, Trump said, “I hereby declare a national emergency, under IEEPA, to deal with those threats.

“It is the policy of the United States to ensure the total elimination of these organizations’ presence in the United States and their ability to threaten the territory, safety, and security of the United States through their extraterritorial command-and-control structures” to protect Americans and the territorial integrity of the U.S.

He directed the secretary of State, secretary of the Treasury, attorney general, secretary of Homeland Security, and director of National Intelligence to take all appropriate action to implement his order.

He also instructed them to “make operational preparations regarding the implementation of any decision I make to invoke the Alien Enemies Act … in relation to the existence of any qualifying invasion or predatory incursion against the territory of the United States by a qualifying actor, and to prepare such facilities as necessary to expedite the removal of those who may be designated under this order.”

Trump’s order comes after Texas Gov. Greg Abbott and 21 Republican attorneys general for years called on the Biden administration to do so.

In September 2022, Abbott designated Mexican cartels as FTOs, issuing an executive order designating the Sinaloa Cartel, the Jalisco New Generation Cartel as foreign terrorist organizations,” The Center Square reported. He twice asked former President Joe Biden to do so and received no response.

Roughly one year ago, a coalition of 21 Republican attorneys general led by Virginia AG Jason Miyares also made the same request, argued an FTO designation was imperative because cartels are “assassinating rivals and government officials, ambushing, and killing Americans at the border, and engaging in an armed insurgency against the Mexican government,” The Center Square reported. “This dangerous terrorist activity occurring at our border will not abate unless we escalate our response.”

They also received no response – until Jan. 20, 2025.

The Center Square first reported on cartels using asymmetrical and nontraditional warfare targeting Americans as a reason for Texas to declare an invasion in 2022. No official state declaration was issued and the Texas AG’s office refused to issue a legal opinion on the matter despite numerous requests to do so. South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem was the only one to declare an invasion before a state legislature and 55 Texas counties declared an invasion, The Center Square exclusively reported.

On Trump’s first day in office, he declared an invasion at the southern border, the first president in modern history to do so.

illegal immigration

Trump to declare national emergency on border, issue executive orders

Published on January 20, 2025

Todayville

From The Center Square

By Bethany Blankley

After being sworn in as the 47th president of the United States, President Donald Trump said he will sign “a series of historic executive orders … to begin the complete restoration of America and the ‘Revolution of Common Sense.’”

The first action he will take will be to declare a national emergency at the U.S. southern border, he said. Trump did not mention the northern border, which saw an unprecedented number of illegal crossings, record number of terrorists entering the U.S., and increased national security threats under the Biden administration, The Center Square reported.

“All illegal entry will immediately be halted, and we will begin the process of returning millions and millions of criminal aliens back to the places from which they came,” Trump said. “We will reinstate my ‘Remain in Mexico’ policy. I will end the practice of catch and release. I will send troops to the southern border to repel the disastrous invasion of our country.”

Trump said he will designate Mexican cartels as Foreign Terrorist Organizations. The designation will also apply to violent transnational criminal organizations including the violent Venezuelan prison gang Tren de Aragua, which is now operating in at least 22 states, The Center Square reported.

By invoking the Alien Enemies Act of 1798, Trump will direct the federal government “to use the full and immense power of federal and state law enforcement to eliminate the presence of all foreign gangs and criminal networks bringing devastating crime to U.S. soil, including our cities and inner cities,” he said.

The act will be used to remove all cartel and gang members in the country illegally.

“As Commander in Chief, I have no higher responsibility than to defend our country from threats and invasions and that is exactly what I am going to do. We will do it at a level that nobody’s ever seen before,” he said.

Trump is expected to issue 10 executive orders Monday to implement border security measures. They include ending the Obama-era catch-and-release policy Trump ended in his first term, which former President Joe Biden reinstated. The policy led to more than 14 million foreign nationals illegally entering the country, including more than two million who evaded capture known as gotaways under the Biden administration, The Center Square exclusively reported.

Trump will reinstate a policy he created in his first term, Remain in Mexico, or “Migrant Protection Protocols” (MPP). It requires asylum seekers to wait outside the U.S. while their claims are processed. After the Biden administration sought to end it, Texas and Missouri sued. A federal judge ruled that ending the MPP was unlawful, The Center Square reported.

Trump will also direct federal agencies to finish building the border wall along the southwest border, completing a project he began in his first term. Biden halted border wall construction on his first day in office. Texas and Missouri again sued and won that lawsuit as well, The Center Square reported.policy

Another executive order will end parole programs for illegal border crossers created by former Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, who was impeached in part for creating them. Multiple attorneys general sued to stop them, arguing they were illegal.

The parole programs, including using a phone app, facilitated illegal entry into the U.S. for millions, including those with criminal records. Many released through the parole programs were later found to commit violent crimes against Americans, The Center Square reported.

Another will direct federal efforts to “crack down on criminal sanctuaries,” referring to so-called sanctuary jurisdictions. More than 200 were identified and already given notice to comply with federal law or face prosecution. Sanctuary cities expected to be targeted first include Boston, Chicago, Miami and New York.

Trump’s massive deportation efforts will be led by his Border Czar Tom Homan, who has said the priority is to find and locate the most violent criminals to process for removal.

Another executive order will suspend the federal so-called refugee resettlement program through which local communities nationwide “were forced to house large and unsustainable populations of migrants, straining community safety and resources,” Trump’s transition team said.

Trump will also direct members of the U.S. military, including the National Guard, to engage in border security operations, deploying them to the border to assist existing law enforcement personnel. According to a poll ahead of the election last year, the majority of Americans support U.S. troops being sent to the border, The Center Squarereported.

Another order will direct the Department of Justice to seek the death penalty for illegal border crossers who kill U.S. citizens, including law enforcement officers.

Last year, criminal illegal border crossers made international headlines after brutally assaulting and murdering American women and girls, The Center Square reported. Their mothers and family members endorsed Trump for president.

Another order will direct the Department of Homeland Security and other federal agencies to enhance vetting and screening processes after national security concerns were raised about the Biden administration flying illegal border crossers into the country who weren’t vetted, The Center Square reported.