Department of State, Foreign Operations, and Related Programs Appropriations Act, 2024

Floor Speech

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Mr. BURGESS. Mr. Chair, 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. If you want to make something important to someone, you make it about their money. I want these countries of origin to take better care of their citizens so that they do not undertake the dangerous irregular migration to this country.

For 5 years, I have tried to push this point, and those countries have done nothing to make it less likely that a child will undertake that dangerous path to come to the United States with irregular immigration.

Passing this amendment sends a very strong message. We need to incentivize these countries to better serve their children and better serve their future.

This amendment will provide a real, tangible, monetary incentive to those countries to combat factors that are driving irregular migration.

Mr. Chair, I urge everyone to vote for this amendment, and I reserve the balance of my time.

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Mr. BURGESS. Mr. Chair, I would only point out that the American taxpayer is being hit twice in this exchange. One, they send tax dollars to other countries so that those countries can take care of their own children, but they don't spend the money on the children. They spend it on other things. Then, the American taxpayer has to step up again and be charged again for the care and feeding of that child while in the custody of the Office of Refugee Resettlement.

I wish this amendment were not necessary. I wish those countries would take care of their own citizens so it was not necessary for them to undergo irregular migration. For over 5 years, I have been trying. It has not helped. This is the way to get their attention.

Mr. Chair, I urge support of my amendment, and I yield back the balance of my time.

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