Get all your news in one place.
100’s of premium titles.
One app.
Start reading
Axios
Axios
Politics
Orion Rummler

White House requests $4.5 billion in emergency border funding, cites humanitarian crisis

A border patrol car between El Paso, Texas, and Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, April 7, 2018. Photo: Herika Martinez/AFP/Getty Images

The White House asked Congress for $4.5 billion in emergency funding on Wednesday to manage what it describes as a record number of migrants attempting to enter the southern border, Politico reports.

The impact: “In the worst-case scenario, thousands of children might remain for lengthy periods of time in facilities that were never intended to be long-term shelters, rather than being expeditiously transferred to HHS custody,” White House acting budget director Russ Vought wrote in his budget request, per Politico.


Details: Citing a "humanitarian and security crisis," the request includes $3.3 billion for humanitarian assistance and $1.1 billion for border operations, per the Washington Post. That would be in addition to the $8 billion that President Trump requested to build a wall on the southern border, which involved obtaining $3.6 billion through his national emergency declaration.

The other side: Democrats will likely condemn this multibillion-dollar ask, as they attempt to block Trump’s separate initiative to shift more government funds toward building a border wall.

Go deeper: Immigration brings out Trump's most radical self

Sign up to read this article
Read news from 100’s of titles, curated specifically for you.
Already a member? Sign in here
Related Stories
Top stories on inkl right now
One subscription that gives you access to news from hundreds of sites
Already a member? Sign in here
Our Picks
Fourteen days free
Download the app
One app. One membership.
100+ trusted global sources.