Congress Defunds ICE, Opens Door for Migrant Wave

Congress has agreed to shrink funding and detention beds for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), just as pro-migration groups are warning that a wave of wage-cutting economic migrants will rush north to exploit President-elect Joe Biden’s pro-migration campaign promises.

“Democrats are bragging that they are cutting ICE funding,” said Rosemary Jenks, director of government relations at NumbersUSA. “They are bragging about making our communities less safe,” she added.

Congress chopped the ICE budget by $107 million below the 2020 level after rejecting a request by outgoing President Donald Trump’s for a $2 billion budget increase.

The cuts will pressure the agency to restart the catch-and-release of economic migrants in 2021, once the number of migrants overwhelms the agency’s reduced budget for detention spaces.

“The bill funds 34,000 detention beds, which is 26,000 beds less than the President’s budget request and 11,274 less than fiscal year 2020,” said a press statement from Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT), the top Democrat on the spending panel.

If ICE does not have enough detention beds, it must release the migrants into the United States, where they will take jobs from Americans to repay their smuggling loans. The loans often use family farms and homes as collateral, putting migrants under extreme pressure to work for wages far below Americans’ levels. This profitable economic process spiked the number of migrants from low levels in 2009 to almost one million in 2019.

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Democrats also won extra funding for a non-detention program that allows migrants to take jobs from Americans — typically, from American parents with kids, unfirm or disabled Americans, and Americans with criminal records. {snip}

But the ATD spending does create jobs for Democratic political activists under a new $5 million provision allowing the Department of Homeland Security to delegate criminal law enforcement activists to Democrat-aligned political groups. {snip}

The legislation also attacks the financial stability of the private prison industry by allowing the government to cancel contracts that fail agency inspections. {snip}

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