Michael Burgess: “I want to speak in support of my amendment to H.R. 4665, the Department of State, Foreign Operations, and Related…”

“I want to speak in support of my amendment to H.R. 4665, the Department of State, Foreign Operations, and Related Programs Appropriations Act, 2024. This amendment would reduce foreign assistance to three Central American countries based on the number of unaccompanied children from each of those countries that were referred to the Office of Refugee Resettlement custody in the previous year. Mr. Chair, for the last 5 fiscal years, the United States has provided more than $3 billion of foreign assistance for Central American countries. For fiscal year 2022, the Department of Homeland Security referred almost 130,000 unaccompanied children to the Office of Refugee Resettlement. Forty-seven percent of those children were from Guatemala, 29 percent from Honduras, and 13 percent from El Salvador. Eleven percent were from other countries. On average, providing care for an unaccompanied alien child costs the Office of Refugee Resettlement $500 per day, with the average length of stay in ORR custody being 30 days. This means the average total cost of care for an unaccompanied alien child in ORR custody in fiscal year 2022 was $15,000 per child. In aggregate, it was nearly $2 billion to take care of these unaccompanied alien children. Mr. Chair, this is a crisis that only continues to get worse in 2023 because of the very dangerous and volatile open border policies of this administration. We know the deal in Washington.…”