House Judiciary: Taxpayers funding border crisis, services to illegal foreign nationals

(The Center Square) – Taxpayers are not only funding the border crisis, but they are also paying for numerous free services illegal foreign nationals receive, according to a new report published by the House Judiciary Committee and its Subcommittee on Immigration Integrity, Security, and Enforcement.

The committee blames the Biden administration in its new report, "Chauffeur at the Border, Concierge in the Interior: How the Biden Administration Rewards Illegal Aliens on the Taxpayers' Dime" for costs to U.S. taxpayers.

It also notes that Congress, including Republicans, voted to fund the programs it identified as wasting taxpayer money and facilitating the border crisis when Congress passed an omnibus appropriations bill in March that President Joe Biden signed into law.

The $1.3 trillion funding package passed by a vote of 72-24 in the Senate and 286-134 in the House. It included $61.8 billion for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.

The report states that the Biden administration funneled tens of millions of taxpayer money to facilitate illegal entry into the U.S. and also provided "support services" to illegal foreign nationals "at the expense of border security and public safety."

It cites data exclusively reported on by The Center Square about the now more than two million foreign nationals who illegally entered the country and evaded capture, known as "gotaways," since Biden has been in office.

In addition to the Biden administration incentivizing "mass illegal immigration into the United States," it is also encouraging "illegal aliens to arrive at the border, chauffeurs them into the interior, and then rewards them with concierge services, all on the taxpayers' dime and at the expense of public safety," the report states.

Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas' newly created U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement's Alternatives to Detention (ATD) program, for example, "serves as a taxpayer-provided windfall for illegal aliens to receive social services once they are inside the United States," it states.

Taxpayer money is also funding an ATD subprogram, the Young Adult Case Management Program (YACMP), which provides illegal foreign nationals with free services, including legal orientation programs, legal service provider referrals, social services referrals, mental health support, among others.

Taxpayer money is also funding another ATD subprogram, the Case Management Pilot Program (CMPP), which "awards funds to nonprofit organizations to provide mental health services; trafficking screening; legal orientation programs; cultural orientation programs; connections to social services," among others.

"Congress provided an initial $5 million to create the [CMPP] program in fiscal year 2021, with an additional $15 million of funding provided in 2022," the report states. "In March 2024, as a part of the omnibus appropriations bill, Congress approved and President Biden signed into law an additional $15 million for CMPP through September 30, 2025."

The YACMP and CMPP programs, whose funding allocation Congress approved, "amount to personal concierges for thousands of illegal aliens—all on the taxpayers' dime," the report states.

Taxpayer money also funds ICE contractors referring "illegal aliens to receive services from groups like Planned Parenthood, an organization that promotes 'kink' events and advocates for transgender surgeries for children, and a group that has compared Republican governors to Russian President Vladimir Putin," according to the report.

The report was released after the U.S. House Committee on Homeland Security previously released several reports identifying costs to taxpayers stemming from Biden administration border policies. One report identified "consistent misuse and abuse of taxpayer resources enabled by Mayorkas, specifically through his failure to detain illegal aliens and use Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention resources in accordance with their intended purpose."

This includes $1.43 billion spent on ICE detention facilities regardless of whether they were at full capacity or not, $600 million on one no-bid contract with a nongovernmental organization that had no prior experience providing housing services for unaccompanied minors, and $17 million spent on unused hotel spaces and services through another NGO contract.

It also found that halting border wall construction cost taxpayers $10 billion and $72 million in shutdown costs to halt border wall construction.

A separate Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services report found that "emergency services for undocumented aliens" added up to $7 billion in fiscal 2021 and $5.4 billion in fiscal 2022, with taxpayer money funding at least $8 billion in improper Medicaid payouts (10% of the nation's total of $80 billion).