President Biden‘s discretionary funding request for fiscal 2022 nixed all funding for a border wall, including unused funds previously allocated to the project.
The request’s immigration and border enforcement sections reflect the administration’s focus on combating the root causes of migration, rather than discouraging immigration through enforcement, as the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) did under former President Trump.
You may recall how about a month ago, Alejandro Mayorkas, who was appointment by Biden; fired almost every member of the Homeland Security Council.
Although Biden requested $1.2 billion for border security and infrastructure, he explicitly declined funding for the border wall, Trump’s signature immigration policy.
“The discretionary request includes no additional funding for border wall construction and proposes the cancellation of prior-year balances that are unobligated at the end of 2021,” – the discretionary budget request summary for DHS.
Biden, on his first day en la oficina, signed an order pausing construction of the border wall. In February, Biden formally rescinded Trump’s emergency order to justify building the border wall and divert money from other priorities to fund it.
The Supreme Court has since granted a White House request to cancel a February hearing that would have reviewed the legality of those diversions. The case, brought by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), the Sierra Club, and others, challenged the $2.5 billion in Department of Defense funds used for the wall.
Beyond wall funding, the budget request addresses several of Biden’s immigration proposals, starting with funding for the Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR), an agency within the Department of Health and Human Services.