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Law360 (February 26, 2020, 8:48 PM EST) -- Acting Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf faced heat from House Democrats over migrants' safety and access to counsel as he defended the government's request for more funding during a Wednesday budget hearing.
Wolf, who was sworn in as acting Homeland Security chief in November, batted back lawmakers' concerns about the priorities of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security's budget request for fiscal year 2021, which called for increased detention bed space and more border wall funding.
"This administration has taken it too far with a heartless obsession with immigration enforcement," charged Nita Lowey, D-N.Y., chair of the House appropriations committee, knocking the administration for creating what she described as a "culture of fear" in communities.
She rebuked the department for proposing cuts to local security programs while requesting $3.1 billion for 60,000 immigration detention beds — an increase of $400 million and 6,000 beds from last year's request — and almost $2 billion to finance construction of 82 miles of the border wall.
"The cuts that you propose are a slap in the face to my constituents who live in constant fear that they won't have the security and funding needed," Lowey said. "We will not be a part of a political act that distracts from the real threats facing our homeland."
Wolf responded that the budget priorities remain "consistent." He also said that DHS uses a data model to determine how much bed space in ICE detention facilities is needed, and that programs offering alternatives to detention had been factored into the department's analysis.
Democrats also tore into the Trump administration's so-called Migrant Protection Protocols, which force asylum seekers to wait in Mexico as immigration courts decide their cases. DHS has asked for $126 million to spend on that program next year, the majority of which would go toward operations at tent court facilities along the border.
Rep. Lucille Roybal-Allard, D-Calif., who leads the committee's homeland security appropriations panel, pressed Wolf on how border agents decide which populations are vulnerable enough to be excluded from MPP and are permitted to wait out their immigration proceedings within the U.S. She described a 7-year-old girl who suffers from seizures, who she said was nonetheless placed in MPP and pushed into Mexico.
"As a mother, I cannot accept that we would send a 7-year-old child who is extremely ill, has uncontrollable seizures, back into Mexico into those deplorable conditions that have been described there," she said.
She asked Wolf to discuss the possibility of having qualified medical personnel involved in these decisions and to work toward a definition of "medically vulnerable."
Wolf agreed, but maintained that MPP exclusions are generally reserved for those with emergent, life-threatening conditions, not chronic illnesses.
He also claimed that migrants do have access to counsel in MPP, saying they are shown a "Know Your Rights" video, while dismissing concerns raised by Democrats that asylum seekers may be missing their court dates because of logistical problems with the MPP program or because of dangers in Mexican border towns.
According to a Human Rights First report released in December, there have been at least 636 publicly reported cases where migrants returned to Mexico under MPP have been kidnapped, raped, tortured or assaulted.
Wolf also said that the administration is continuing to implement its controversial Prompt Asylum Claim Review program, or PACR, and its Humanitarian Asylum Review Process, or HARP. He said that these programs — which advocates have described as "legal black holes" in a recent lawsuit — are meant to "root out fraud" and ensure that migrants with meritorious asylum claims "get their day in court quickly."
Wednesday's hearing comes amid ongoing court battles over President Donald Trump's decision to raid funds earmarked for defense spending to finance his long-promised border wall.
After Congress gave him less than $1.4 billion for border wall construction last year, Trump declared a national emergency, allowing him to make more than $8 billion available to bring his campaign promise to life.
Federal judges in Texas and California have found that the funding diversions are likely illegal, but their orders have been temporarily lifted while the appeals continue, freeing up $3.6 billion in military construction dollars.
The U.S. Supreme Court has also given the Trump administration the green light to spend another $2.5 billion in diverted defense money on the border wall.
Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, D-Fla., slammed those funding transfers for hurting members of the military, accusing the administration of fearing migrant families more than a Russian adversary.
"We have competing priorities, and we will continue to balance those," Wolf said in response. "The president has made a decision."
Rep. Henry Cuellar, D-Texas, also joked that money allocated for the border wall in the administration's budget request could be used instead to boost efforts to combat the coronavirus in the U.S.
"Any dollars you want to take from the wall over to that? Be happy to go ahead and make that transfer. Just kidding," he said.
--Editing by Adam LoBelia.
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