Is your money funding the transportation of foreign terrorists to Minnesota? Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas won’t answer that question. In January, reporting revealed that DHS allowed a known terrorist to roam freely throughout the country for almost a year before being arrested in Minnesota after U.S. Customs and Border Protection released him into the United States at our southern border.
According to research published in March by The Heritage Foundation, he may well have been provided a plane ticket and other support by the American taxpayer. Since 2021, the Biden administration has been using a program called the Emergency Food and Shelter Program-Humanitarian to provide long-range transportation, legal services and more to illegal aliens encountered at the southern border.
Not only has the Biden administration failed to answer basic questions about the EFSP-H program, but they’ve also doubled-down by creating the Shelter and Services Program , which will replace EFSP-H and 'facilitate more effective support of CBP efforts to efficiently process and humanely treat noncitizens.' In their proposed budget for fiscal year 2025, DHS requested an additional $1.4 billion for the SSP.
abuse of taxpayer dollars while failing to protect the homeland from known terrorists cannot stand. Congress can and must use the power of the purse to defund the SSP and stop hardworking Americans from being forced to foot the bill for President Biden’s unprecedented crisis at our southern border. Meanwhile, the Biden administration owes it to the American people to provide answers on the dangers it has welcomed to the country.
Lora Ries is the director of The Heritage Foundation’s Border Security and Immigration Center.