House Spending Bill Rubber-stamps Trump Deportation Machine

WASHINGTON – The United States House of Representatives Appropriations Subcommittee on Homeland Security is scheduled to consider legislation today funding key elements of President Donald Trump’s immigration budget. The bill provides $1.6 billion for Trump’s border wall, as well as $185 million to hire additional Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials, staffing up the president’s “deportation force.” It also provides $4.4 billion for detention and removal programs, including funding to expand by more than 4,600 the capacity of detention camps that house children and families.

This provides a substantial down payment on the president’s proposal to increase immigration enforcement funding by $23.5 billion. That budget also proposes hundreds of billions of dollars in cuts over ten years to health care, nutrition, anti-poverty initiatives, housing, clean water programs, energy conservation, the arts, and other priorities.

Responding to the Subcommittee’s draft spending bill, the National Immigration Law Center released the following statement from its executive director, Marielena Hincapié:

“President Trump is out of control, and his immigration enforcement budget is yet another example of how radical his administration is if left unchecked. It uses billions of our tax dollars to rip families apart, and to fund his deportation machine, Trump slashes funding for priorities such as education, environmental protection, and health care.

“The $1.6 billion this bill wastes on Trump’s wall could provide health care for more than a million uninsured children. The $185 million it spends to build Trump’s deportation force could triple the highly effective Energy Star program, which helps consumers save money, helps protect children and families from power plant pollution, and improves the reliability of America’s power grid. The $4.4 billion it spends to jail kids and families could provide nutritious meals to nearly 5 million children under the National School Lunch Program.

“Americans are facing real, serious problems. Rather than solve them, President Trump wants to create new ones with a deportation machine designed to tear families apart. The subcommittee bill rubber-stamps that radical, anti-immigrant agenda, and we urge lawmakers to reject it. If the subcommittee do not reject it, it’s up to the full appropriations committee and its chairman, Congressman Rodney Frelinghuysen, to build a budget that funds families, not fear.”

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