White House asks Congress for $4.5 billion in emergency spending
WASHINGTON >> The White House sent Congress a $4.5 billion emergency spending request on Wednesday, citing an unfolding “humanitarian and security crisis” at the United States-Mexico border as record numbers of Central American families and children seek entrance to the U.S.
The request includes $3.3 billion for humanitarian assistance and $1.1 billion for border operations, and it represents a dramatic escalation of the administration’s efforts to address the situation at the border.
The money would be added to the more than $8 billion that President Donald Trump asked for in his 2020 budget request to build border barriers, as well as some $6 billion in funding he sought as he declared a national emergency at the border earlier this year.
“The situation becomes more dire each day,” White House acting Budget Director Russell Vought wrote in the request to congressional leaders. “The migration flow and the resulting humanitarian crisis is rapidly overwhelming the ability of the Federal Government to respond.”
An accompanying fact
sheet described the situation at the border in even more dire terms. “This crisis is threatening lives on both sides of the border and is unlike anything we’ve ever seen,” it says.
Democrats responded with skepticism to the request, which comes as Trump prepares to run for reelection on a hard-line immigration agenda. It also arrives as Congress is in the midst of a fight over a different emergency spending bill, for disaster aid.
Vought said the Health and Human Services Department is likely to run out of money to provide child welfare services at the border in June. If that happens, the agency will have to divert critical resources
from other programs, will cancel or scale back any services not necessary for protection of human life and will be forced to leave children in Department of Homeland Security detention facilities where they are not supposed to stay for longer than 72 hours.
“In the worst-case scenario, thousands of children might remain for lengthy periods of time in facilities that were never intended to be long-term shelters,” Vought wrote.
The request also includes $377 million for the Pentagon and National Guard for their operations along the border.
In related news, a 16-year-old unaccompanied Guatemalan migrant died
in a Texas hospital while in the custody of the U.S. government, officials said Wednesday.
The boy died on Tuesday after “several days of intensive care” at a children’s hospital, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services said in a statement without disclosing the hospital or its location.
The boy’s death follows those of two other Guatemalan migrant children in December and warnings from U.S. officials that more tragedies were likely given the surge in migrants crossing the border, and serious illnesses encountered among them.