A group of House Democrats on Friday requested an additional $50 million for FEMA’s Emergency Food and Shelter Program (EFSP) as Washington, New York City, and Chicago to cope with an influx of illegal immigrants.
In a letter signed by 23 House Democrats, Reps. Jesús García (Ill.), Adriano Espaillat (N.Y.), and D.C. Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton said that nearly 60 percent of the $150 million EFSP budget remains amid the request for the funding increase.
Norton said that the Democrats wrote to the heads of the Homeland Security Appropriations subcommittee requesting an additional $50 million be included in FEMA’s 2023 budget for EFSP.
“The EFSP provides federal funding for food, shelter, and other necessities. In FY 2022, Congress provided $150 million to this program for humanitarian assistance for migrants,” they wrote in the letter (pdf).
“As of July 21, 2022, approximately $85 million of this funding remained available. However, the busing of migrants to D.C., New York City, and Chicago and resettlement in cities like Boston has increased funding requests across the Northeast and the Midwest. Without additional funding, the EFSP may exhaust its funding.”
The Democrats took aim at Texas and Arizona’s Republican governors, Gregg Abbott and Doug Ducey, for their programs to bus apprehended illegal immigrants who claim asylum to Democrat-run cities with so-called sanctuary policies.
“Since mid-April, the governors of Texas and Arizona have exploited and harmed approximately 10,000 vulnerable people fleeing desperate and dangerous situations in their home countries for political gain by busing them to D.C., New York City, and Chicago,” the Democrats wrote in the letter.
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott’s Mission to Secure Border
Abbott launched Operation Lone Star in March last year in response to a rise in illegal immigration. He has consistently cited U.S. President Joe Biden’s “open border” policies for the rise.
To help border communities in Texas deal with the influx of illegal immigrants Abbott issued a disaster declaration in 48 counties in May to augment additional resources to efforts addressing the immigration crisis at the border (pdf).
The White House in late August denied that illegal immigrants are simply walking across the border, but Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS) Lt. Chris Olivarez has said, “that is completely false.”
“They are walking across, in fact,” Oliverez told Newsmax on Sept. 2. “They are walking across from their country of origin, where they’re coming from. When they get to Mexico they’re paying a criminal organization to be smuggled into the United States, where they have to cross a river, or … in most severe cases, they’re having to cross the desert or mountainous terrain, like in West Texas.”
Oliverez said illegal immigration numbers shot up to “unprecedented” numbers in early 2021, including of unaccompanied minors.
Under Operation Lone Star, state law enforcement were directed to interview unaccompanied minors, or children who illegally enter the country without an adult, to identify victims of human trafficking.
More than 7,900 illegal immigrants have been bused from Texas to D.C. since April and over 2,200 to New York City since August, and 300 to Chicago, according to Abbott’s office.
“The busing mission is providing much-needed relief to our overwhelmed border communities,” the Texas governor’s office said in a statement on Friday.
It has cost the Texas Division of Emergency Management over $12 million to transport “migrants processed and released by the federal government in Texas border communities,” the agency told the El Paso Times.
During Operation Lone Star, Texas DPS and the Texas National Guard apprehended 302,600 illegal immigrants and made more than 19,700 criminal arrests, with over 17,200 felony charges reported, according to Abbott’s office.
Authorities have also seized over 340.5 million lethal doses of fentanyl during the border mission, which “would have otherwise made their way into communities across Texas and the nation due to President Biden’s open border policies.”
Reprinted with Permission from - The Epoch Times by - Caden Pearson
Where’s the money for Texas and Arizona, to try to feed and shelter, the over 4 million illegals that have broken and entered our nation.
50 Million is pocket money for Soros, the culprit of this mess with his Open Borders Foundation and his funding of illegal immigration. He should be the one shouldering the cost of this aberration.
As of note: Yesterday, at Ft Lauderdale airport, on my way home (Baltimore) from a short stay in Miami Beach, Security padded me thoroughly (underarms, breasts, waist, legs up and down, in and out: then, the agent proceded to pull the back waist of my pants and looked inside my back side in front of everybody!), no mercy. Not been enough, a strange substance was rubbed on the palms of my hands, maybe to look for explosives/narcotics residue. That substance left a burning sensation in my hands and I can’t get rid of it. I am a scary looking, extremely suspicious 70 yr old gray haired, 5 ft, 110 lb FEMALE, retired nurse, LEGAL American citizen. In the time that it took to humiliate me, probably a few hundred illegals crossed the border carrying narcotics and what not. This is how things are done in this regime.
I’m no rocket scientist, but it seems to me, the comon sense solution to solve this problem is simply close the borders and deport all illegals.Is something wrong with this logic?
These dems, and many others, belong to the SDI Club. Stupid, dumb and ignornite…Just close the southern border…problemSOLVED
Hell no they have already wasted enough money and the states that have grown due to this influx aren’t receiving help.They need to shut down the border not spend money for accomodations
OnlY $50,000,00??? Now! How much more sooner or later??? You want “Sanctuary Cities?” That is your freaking problem!!!! Why no funding for the border states??? It is a joke and the tax payers better wake up. STOP PAYING FOR SELF INFLICTED WOUNDS. HOW ABOUT HELPING THE BORDER STATES??????????????? TURN THE WATER OFF AND THE FLOOD WILL SUBSIDE.
I hate to say it but it seems no matter how much we cry about this cr*p that the unrighteous incompetent leaders are pulling in washington. Nothing will be done . They don’t give a rats a** about whats happening . All we can do is keep giving them the same cr*p they are giving us .
Plus vote them out of power in the midterms.
Odd these dem states/cities who have declared themselves sanctuary cities for their illegals want others to pay for them. Tell old joe to Close the borders, problem drastically reduced. But stop being such hypocrites Dems.
Where is the funding for Texas and Arizona?
Decency and good common sense are sorely lacking in Washington these days……this applies to ALL the politicians in that city……..the moral compass is not working in our politicians……and I am a Catholic and I blame Catholic services for financing these illegals who btw could be terrorists, perverts, rapists. Spreading disease and drugs into our society…..we are in a world of hurt folks
I hear Portland Oregon is next on the busing schedule….
That’s great! Nothing harmful or exploitative about that . If it’s OK for them to be in Texas and Arizona then it should be okay for them to be other states. The Democrats are such hypocrites.
Especially since old joe’s been busing/flying their illegals all over our nation.
Send 90% to Portland. They deserve it.
Where’s Texas and Arizona’s extra $50 million x 1000 for all the felons and diseased parasite ILLEGAL INVADERS coming for the fraud puppet’s freebies via the fraud administration’s wide open orders?
Tell the Dems to get their $50 million from the illegals’ remittances to Mexico, which are a record-breaking $50 billion this year.
Suck it up Democrats!!! If we have to endure these ILLEGALS coming in so does the Blue states.
$50 million to FEMA for NY, Chicago, and D.C.?! NO WAY!!! ANY extra money should go down to the border towns! They’re in way worse shape than the DemoRat run cities!!!
That 50 million would be misused by democrats in those cities.
this area used to be about 20% Hispanic, but has become about half. The little stuff of them coming isn’t mentioned; My neighborhood is now about half and half, and I have non-emergency dispatch on speed dial for the NOISE. I have neighbors now who want to have loud, outdoor parties every weekend with no thought about their neighbors.
Mine used to be about 1% “Hispanic” (we all know they’re Mexican) but has since become about 85%. We have the same horrible noise problem now as you speak of, especially with their subwoofer speakers boom, boom, booming at all hours of the day and night, and with police doing absolutely nothing about it although it’s against city ordinances at ANY time of the day or night. And yes, the parties are in their yards instead of their houses like we always did before. And although there are dozens of venues to have parties elsewhere, they’re too cheap to rent those, choosing instead to disturb everyone within a mile of their parties.
Their pieces of sh*t that should be flushed. Put together a neighborhood militia and eliminate them.
Please read the border agents list of what nations all these illegals are coming from. It’s not just Hispanic nations.
I’m aware of that; however, in my neighborhood, they are all Mexican.
So the sauce that goose is is forced to swallow is not good for the gander
Exactly as predicted…let the illegals enter at will, then beg for millions more to give them for food, housing, healthcare and transportation. One choice creates the obvious next action. OUR tax dollars being given away while our own citizens are hurting.
Reported today how much each new illegal that violates our immigration laws – old Biden just IGNORES- cost American taxpayers huge amounts of funds. Biden doesn’t give a rats a** about these costs he’s running up each year to taxpayers.
How much have our border town received? 2 million illegal aliens getting $800.00 to $2200.00 a month. What a travesty when we’re at a 31 trillion dollars in DEBT and we’re in a recession with an 8.3% inflation. What would the inflation rate be if gas was still over $5.00 a gallon. The only reason inflation is not much higher is that the Biden Administration has been pumping one million barrels of oil a day from the strategic oil reserves for the past 5 months. The oil spigot will be turned off on October 22nd just before the midterms. 180 million barrels will have been pumped by then. Where would gas prices be at today? You will see gas prices and inflation grow after the midterm as Biden will not allow us to be come energy independent again.
Absolutely NOT, these people already have prepaid cards that are $800.00 and have from $800.00 a month to $2200.00 a month given to them EACH from FEMA by our federal treasury offices, each individually, and it’s NOT fair. Forget it, Democrat cities, if our border towns didn’t get any money, then neither CAN YOU!
I never could afford membership in a country club and i did not care, because I live in America and enjoyed the freedoms and perks of citizenship. America is my country and I have paid my dues over 3/4 of a century. Mr. Biden does not have the authority to share Americas wealth with illegal immigrants. The law his office requires him to execute says so. Mr. Biden by failing to do his job cost this nation funds that belong to its citizens and Mr. Biden makes himself a criminal and encourages others to be criminals by failing to do his job!
The travesty at the border is inexcusable. it encourages the importation of illegal drugs, white slavery and child prostitution and human misery. For these reasons, I pray God take his vengeance on the corrupt administration in Washington DC.
Lawx mean nothing to Biden and his sic regime