The U.S. Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) is asking for $134.5 million in contingency funding as part of its budget request for Fiscal Year 2016 to help the agency "provide the necessary support activities" to a "future influx" of up to 104,000 unaccompanied illegal immigrant children who could make their way across the southern border next year.
During a House Appropriations Homeland Security Subcommittee hearing on Thursday, CBP Commissioner R. Gil Kerlikowske pointed to last year's surge in immigrants as justification for the request.
"The budget request provides baseline funding for the care and custody of 58,000 UCs and takes steps to better prepare the Department for a future influx of UCs through a contingency fund which will provide up to $134.5 million to provide the necessary support activities required to apprehend and maintain the health and safety for up to 104,000 UCs once specific threshold levels are met," he said in his written statement, reported CNSNews.
"Without this increase in funding, CBP will not have the flexibility to adequately respond to a significant surge of UCs in FY 2016."
When asked by Subcommittee Ranking Member Rep. Lucille Roybal-Allard, D-Calif., if the CBP is prepared for another surge of unaccompanied youth, Kerlikowske responded in the affirmative.
"I am fully confident that the border patrol has much greater resources and is much more fully prepared to address this issue, with contracts in place for health care, for food service, for transportation that can be used, and an additional processing center that was purchased and equipped," Kerlikowske said.
The surge in 2014 put a strain on a number of government agencies and resulted in more than 53,500 undocumented children being released to sponsors in the U.S., reported Breitbart.
Kerlikowske noted that there has been a 48 percent decline in CBP "encounters" with unaccompanied immigrant children compared to the same period last year, but said "it would be a mistake to pat ourselves on the back for those lower numbers, because we don't know what the future will bring," reported CNS.
According to a footnote on Kerlikowske's testimony, since the chances of a massive surge is lower than previous years, the requested increase is being scored at $24.4 million.
"Because of the low probability of such a high number of UCs attempting to enter the United States in FY 2016, the Budget scores the requested increase at $24.4 million," it reads. "An additional $4.7 million will be utilized for supplies for UCs at Border Patrol (BP) Stations and Land Ports of Entry (LPOEs). This requested funding will be used to procure a standardized set of supplies and personal hygiene items that will be provided to mothers and unaccompanied children at BP stations and LPOEs."
The decline in border crossings can largely be attributed to Mexico's efforts to stop unaccompanied children before they even reach the U.S. border.
"The fact that the numbers are lower is not because the administration has had an effective PR campaign or conditions in those countries have improved. We've exported the enforcement," Kevin Appleby, director of migration policy at the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops told The Hill. "They're pulling kids off the trains; they're stopping them at the Mexico-Guatemala border. ... So there's still a violation of international law there."
Deputy director of the Migration Policy Institute, Marc Rosenblum, agreed, saying the major reason numbers have fallen is that not only has Mexico increased deportations of children at its southern border, but Mexico and Central American Countries have been conducting public education campaigns discouraging illegal immigration.
President Barack Obama also plans to send $1 billion in aid to Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador to help fight the corruption and poverty that so often encourages immigrants to seek shelter in the United States, according to The Hill.
