HOUSTON, Texas–In a budget report for Fiscal Year (FY) 2015 obtained by Breitbart Texas, the Obama Administration’s Health and Human Services (HHS) admitted that it has no way of reliably predicting how many illegal aliens will enter the U.S. next year. However, that did not stop the agency from requesting hundreds of millions in funding.
The budget report says:
Since FY 2011, the number of arriving UAC [unaccompanied alien children] has increased from 6,560 to an estimated 60.000 for FY 2014. AFC [Administration for Families and Children] has implemented strategies to reduce the cost per child, but total costs have risen dramatically as the number of UAC has increased.
It continued, “Due to the volatile nature of this program, the Administration is not able to reliably predict the number of UAC who will arrive in FY 2015 at this time. The FY 2015 budget is therefore $868 million, the same as FY 2014.”
It is puzzling that HHS has requested the same funding for FY 2015 as it did for FY 2014, given that the number of UAC entering the country in 2015 is expected to soar.
The Obama Administration even recognized a lack of funding to deal with the border crisis, and requested an additional $3.7 billion to deal with the situation earlier in July. Department of Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson reportedly asserted that if those funds are not allocated, “we will have to go to a harsh form of reprogramming that will take money away from some vital homeland security programs I am sure members of this committee care a lot about.”
Most of the requested $3.7 billion would go towards HHS, which administers taxpayer subsidized benefits–such as food, housing, vocational training, English lessons, recreation, and legal counsel–to newly arrived illegal immigrants. As Breitbart Texas previously reported, only $433 million would go to Customs and Border Protection, which is in charge of securing the border.
Given that HHS admittedly has no “reliable” estimate of expected UAC during FY 2015, it is unclear if the requested funds will allow the agency to properly accommodate next year’s flow of illegal immigrants.
Follow Kristin Tate on Twitter @KristinBTate.
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