President Joe Biden’s proposed budget for 2025 includes a $4.7 billion emergency fund aimed at bolstering border security, as revealed in a segment of the budget reviewed by NBC News.
The emergency fund is designed to empower the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to enhance its operations in response to potential surges in migrant arrivals. It enables DHS to access funds as needed, particularly when the number of undocumented migrants crossing the southern border surpasses a certain threshold, although the specific threshold is not detailed in the budget. In the event that the funds are not utilized to address a surge, they would be reallocated to the general funds of agencies such as Customs and Border Protection (CBP), Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), and the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA).
However, the likelihood of gaining support for this request from congressional Republicans seems slim, given their previous refusal to approve the $13.6 billion emergency supplemental request made by the Biden administration to address the record high number of migrants crossing the border.
The proposed emergency fund comes at a time when both CBP and ICE are grappling with significant budget shortfalls. NBC News initially reported that ICE could face the necessity of cutting crucial operations by May if Congress fails to assist in covering a $500 million budget gap.
Acting CBP Commissioner Troy Miller expressed concerns about the impact of Republican opposition to border provisions in the national security supplemental bill earlier this year. Miller emphasized that such opposition could weaken CBP’s position if migrant numbers increase as the weather becomes warmer. He stressed the importance of having additional authorities and resources to efficiently manage migrants without valid asylum claims.
President Biden’s budget proposal also includes requests for additional funding to address various border-related issues. This includes $405 million to recruit 1,300 more Border Patrol agents, funding to maintain ICE’s 34,000 existing detention beds, $1 billion in aid to Central America to tackle migration root causes, and nearly $1 billion to tackle the backlog of over 2.4 million pending cases in U.S. immigration courts.
To combat fentanyl smuggling, the budget seeks funding to hire an additional 1,000 CBP officers capable of intercepting the illicit drug at the U.S.-Mexico border, along with $849 million for technology to detect fentanyl.
Following an NBC News report highlighting Republican opposition preventing the deployment of some fentanyl detection scanners, Sen. Jon Tester of Montana urged Congress to fund the technology.
Additionally, the budget requests funds from Congress to expedite the placement of unaccompanied migrant children with relatives and sponsors upon crossing the border.
In a statement, Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas underscored the importance of the President’s Budget, emphasizing its role alongside bipartisan border security legislation in meeting workforce needs and addressing homeland security challenges. Mayorkas stressed the administration’s commitment to safeguarding the security of the American people in the face of diverse and complex threats.
