Biden Spending $300 Million on Sanctuary Cities

President Joe Biden gives remarks virtually to the National Action Network Convention from the South Court Auditorium in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building on the White House campus in Washington, on April 12, 2024. Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is distributing $300 million to sanctuary cities that provide services like shelter and food to illegal immigrants amid a massive increase in incursions across the southern border.

The $300 million in grants will be provided through the Shelter and Services Program (SSP), according to an April 12 press release. SSP offers funding to non-federal entities like NGOs and local governments that provide support to illegal immigrants released into the United States by the DHS. Out of the $300 million, $275 million will be distributed in the first allocation, with the remaining $25 million to be allocated later this year to meet operational requirements.

“The initial funding will be available to 55 grant recipients for temporary shelter and other eligible costs associated with migrants awaiting the outcome of their immigration proceedings.”

Costs covered under the program include expenses related to providing shelter, food, transportation, medical care, and personal hygiene for illegal immigrants. Other costs like modification of existing facilities, clothing, translation services, outreach information, and management and administration expenses are also covered.

In addition to the $300 million funding, the DHS also announced $340.9 million for the SSP competitive grant program.

Last year, over $780 million was distributed through SSP and another program that went to organizations and sanctuary cities across the country that provided services to illegal immigrants. Well-known sanctuary cities include Los Angeles, Chicago, New Orleans, New York City, and San Francisco.

The Biden administration’s latest funding splurge comes as the influx of illegal immigrants into the United States has ballooned in recent years.

According to data from the U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP), border patrol agents encountered 1.73 million illegals at the southwest land border in fiscal year 2021. This number rose to 2.37 million in fiscal year 2022 and then to 2.47 million in 2023. For the first five months of this fiscal year, 1.34 million encounters have already been registered.

Between October 2021 and March 2024, the total number of encounters stands at over 7.9 million illegal immigrants.

During an April 10 press conference, House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) said he estimates that nearly 16 million illegal immigrants entered the United States under the Biden administration.

“Since Joe Biden went into the Oval Office, it began on day one, they began to open that border wide,” he said. The Democrat government has taken more than 60 executive and agency actions to “open the border wide and send the welcome message to everybody around the globe, including violent criminals and terrorists and foreign nationals ... coming here to do us harm.”

Under the Trump administration, the number of people on the terrorism watchlist caught attempting to illegally enter the United States was 11. This number has surged to 351 under the Biden administration.

“This is a disastrous situation,” Mr. Johnson said. It’s a catastrophe that was caused by intentional policy choices.”

Biden’s Pro-Immigration Policies

Back in January 2023, the Biden administration announced the Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans, and Venezuelans (CHNV) program that allows people from the four nations the right to live and work lawfully in the United States for a period of two years under a legal mechanism called “humanitarian parole.”

In an April 12 press release, CBP said that more than 404,000 individuals from these four nations who arrived via commercial flights “were granted parole under these processes.”

According to a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit filed by the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS), “hundreds of thousands of inadmissible aliens from foreign airports” were ferried into some 43 American airports in the past year through CBP-approved secretive flights.

CBP did not reveal the names of the 43 American airports that received 320,000 illegal immigrants last year. Instead, the agency admitted that the process was creating law enforcement vulnerabilities.

“The public can’t know the receiving airports because those hundreds of thousands of CBP-authorized arrivals have created such ‘operational vulnerabilities’ at airports that ‘bad actors’ could undermine law enforcement efforts to ‘secure the United States border’ if they knew the volume of CBP One traffic processed at each port of entry,” CIS wrote in a post.

Former President Donald Trump has harshly criticized the Biden administration’s border policies, vowing to institute stronger measures if he returns to the White House.

Speaking to reporters in late February, President Trump called President Biden “the worst president our country has ever had.”

“He’s allowing thousands and thousands of people to come in from China, Iran, Yemen, the Congo, Syria, and a lot of other nations, many nations are not very friendly to us,” the former president said.

“He’s transported the entire columns of fighting-aged men and ... they look like warriors to me. Something’s going on. It’s bad.”

During a rally in Ohio last month, President Trump promised swift action on the illegal immigration issue. “On day one, my administration will terminate every open border policy of the Biden administration and we will begin the largest domestic deportation operation in American history.”

“Nobody’s been hurt by Joe Biden’s migrant invasion more than our great African American and Hispanic American communities ... because they’re taking your jobs and they’re creating lots of problems,” he said.

The millions of illegal immigrants flooding into the United States also puts a strain on America’s Social Security program, which would end up negatively affecting the lives of retirees, the former president stated.

“Your Social Security will be destroyed by the people coming in ... There’s too many of them. It’s not sustainable. Joe Biden is costing you Medicare and he’s costing you your Social Security.”