Biden budget proposes slashing $600 million from DHS amid growing threats

Anna Giaritelli

March 09, 04:34 PM March 09, 04:34 PM

President Joe Biden has proposed slashing funding for the Department of Homeland Security by $600 million as problems of national security mount against the United States, including cyberattacks, irregular immigration, violent crime, and record high border crossings.

The White House budget proposal for fiscal 2024, which will begin in October, suggested $60.4 billion for the DHS, the nation’s third-largest department with 260,000 employees worldwide. Budgets for agencies and departments typically increase year to year, but the DHS's would drop by 1% from the amount enacted this year.

"President Biden’s budget fails to adequately fund the Department of Homeland Security, proposing a 1% DECREASE in funding from FY23 levels," a GOP aide said in a statement Thursday. "As the agency with lead responsibility for protecting our nation’s borders, transportation systems and cyber security, this is an unacceptable proposal."

The Biden administration maintained that it had taken unprecedented action and “secured more resources for border security than any of the presidents who preceded him.”

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"The President’s Budget includes billions of dollars to keep America’s borders secure and enforce our immigration laws, while expanding legal pathways for migrants seeking asylum," the White House wrote in a statement on the newly released budget.

DHS funding on immigration and border matters will increasingly focus on bringing outdated border facilities up to speed with renovations, adding more technology capabilities to ports of entry and elsewhere that employees work, lowering the 2 million cases before immigration judges nationwide, and changes that improve how immigrants are detained after initially being apprehended at the border or while in longer-term immigration custody within the U.S.

Roughly 40%, or about $25 billion, of the budget is directed toward the DHS agencies Customs and Border Protection and Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

The White House touted that it would cover the hiring of an additional 350 Border Patrol agents at CBP.

Both agencies would bring on 460 more employees to interview immigrants in custody, a task that has fallen to Border Patrol agents and pulled as many as half of agents from the field on the southern border to document, fingerprint, and fill out the paperwork for every person apprehended. Over two years, agents on the southern border have apprehended and taken into custody more than 2 million people.

The Biden administration also wants $535 million to add more technology to the ports of entry, where pedestrians and vehicles must pass federal inspection to be admitted to the U.S. Fewer than 1 in 5 vehicles are scanned at inspection booths, a number Congress is trying to increase to improve the screening of people and goods entering the country.

Approximately 85% of all fentanyl seized at the nation’s border last year occurred at southern border ports of entry. An additional $40 million would go toward countering fentanyl smuggling and cartels, though the budget does not specify how it would do so.

The DHS would create a massive $4.7 billion fund for immigration-related emergencies at the border. The contingency fund would give the department access to a large pot of cash in the event of a surge of illegal immigrants at one time.

Over the past two years, between 150,000 and 305,000 people have been encountered each month at the nation's borders, far beyond the fewer than 50,000 seen in most months during the Obama and Trump administrations.