Statement of Administration Policy: H.R. 3401 - Emergency Supplemental Appropriations for Humanitarian Assistance and Security at the Southern Border Act, 2019

(House Rules)
(Rep. Lowey, D-NY)

The Administration strongly opposes H.R. 3401, the Emergency Supplemental Appropriations for Humanitarian Assistance and Security at the Southern Border Act, 2019. After ignoring the Administration's request for desperately needed funding to address the humanitarian crisis at the border for over a month, and despite the efforts of the House minority, the House majority has put forward a partisan bill that underfunds necessary accounts and seeks to take advantage of the current crisis by inserting policy provisions that would make our country less safe.

The Administration is disappointed that neither the House nor Senate bills include necessary funding for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention. By opposing detention beds—where illegal migrants are placed pending their removal—Democrat lawmakers are declaring their belief that illegal immigrants, including those who skip court hearings or commit additional crimes, should be allowed to remain in our country indefinitely. The ideological aversion to our Nation's interior immigration enforcement agency must stop. We cannot have a sovereign nation if we continue to demean and underfund our enforcement agencies and personnel. In addition, H.R. 3401 declines to provide important funding for the equipment and courtroom space necessary to support the execution of the President's Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP) to adjudicate illegal immigrant hearings, and fails to provide any funding for Department of Defense assistance to the Department of Homeland Security's (DHS) border enforcement efforts.

H.R. 3401 also contains a number of problematic policy provisions that would hinder the Administration's efforts to enforce our immigration laws and protect children. Among other troublesome provisions that undermine child welfare, the bill would block the Administration from modifying certain Health and Human Services (HHS) directives in order to prevent children from being placed in danger in the future. Further undermining child welfare, the bill includes onerous language impeding the ability of HHS to develop additional UAC influx capacity, which risks requiring children to remain in DHS custody for longer periods of time.

H.R. 3401 would also attempt to undermine MPP by requiring the provision of services to individuals in the program who are no longer in the United States, and by prohibiting its use altogether for those families processed under a new and untested migrant processing center pilot program established by the bill. Finally, the bill would seek to block the Administration's current policy of foreign aid to Northern Triangle countries, a necessary tool for ensuring enhanced control of migration from those countries.

Because this bill does not provide adequate funding to meet the current crisis, and because it contains partisan provisions designed to hamstring the Administration's border enforcement efforts, the Administration opposes its passage.

If H.R. 3401 were presented to the President in its current form, his advisors would recommend that he veto it.