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But it's a drop in the bucket.
The Trump administration has redistributed $ 200 million from the entire Department of Homeland Security to Immigrations and Customs Enforcement, despite congressional warnings about the "lack of fiscal discipline" and "unsustainable" spending by the CIE .
The decision comes as the Trump administration pursues an aggressive immigration program, stepping up arrests of undocumented immigrants and expulsions.
The additional $ 200 million would allocate to the ICE budget for holding and transporting more than $ 3.6 billion.
The money came from different parts of the DHS, including FEMA, the WMD Bureau, the Federal Forces Training Centers, the Coast Guard, the Transportation Safety Administration, and so on. , the cybersecurity and customs office.
DHS and ICE did not immediately respond to a request for comments on overruns.
The $ 10 million from FEMA does not come from the agency's emergency budget, the agencies noted. "DHS / FEMA is financially and operationally ready to respond to current and future response and recovery needs," said FEMA spokesperson Tyler Q. Houlton.
DHS has asked to transfer the money to the Congressional custodians, who approved the plan this summer, according to Detention Watch Network Policy Director Mary Small, whose group obtained the document and provided it to Merkley.
The Congress sets funding levels for all parts of government through the appropriation process, but the funding of reprogramming requests such as this is allowed by law for relatively small amounts within the agencies. .
The department must then inform the chairpersons of the relevant Congressional appropriation sub-committees, which must approve. Since Republicans are in the majority in both the House and the Senate, these legislators lead the committees. The two have signed the reallocation, said Republican and Democratic assistants to CNN.
Small said the claim was part of a larger problem and accused ICE of "stealing" money for themselves in order to expand their deportation and deportation capabilities. detention, even beyond the intentions of the Congress.
Congress has long limited the amount of money allocated to the CIE to force it to prioritize its efforts to control immigration. ICE has only about 40,000 places in detention, which means that it can not hold all undocumented immigrants in the United States. Keeping funds at a certain level allows Congress to control how much enforcement can be done.
But ICE exceeded this amount and regularly asked for more money.
"(That's) this uncontrolled behavior on the part of the ICE where they exceed the amount that they received from Congress, especially for detention of immigrants, and then they steal basically other accounts in the DHS, "Small said.
Legislators dissatisfied with CIE spending
The Republican-led Congress has already reprimanded ICE for its spending habits.
"The lack of fiscal discipline and cavalier management of funding of detention operations, evidenced by inaccurate budget formulation and uneven execution, appears to be the result of a perception that ERO is financed by indefinite appropriation. ", the statement said.
Similar wording appears in this year's appropriation bills.
Small says his group is "on the hill screaming about it" to encourage Congress to break the pattern.
"These are real shenanigans that need to be mastered, not just from the point of view of good governance, but also from the point of view that it is other accounts that need money," Small said.
CNN's Ashley Killough and Betsy Klein contributed to this report. request
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