Source: United States House of Representatives – Congressman Juan Ciscomani (Arizona)
TUCSON, AZ – U.S. Congressman Juan Ciscomani (AZ-06), a member of the House Appropriations Committee, this week urged the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to immediately disburse money from the recently passed Further Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2024 (H.R. 2882) to Tucson Sector of the southern border. On Monday, the Congressman toured a soft-sided facility in Tucson and visited the border wall in Nogales to talk with agents and officers about how these funds will benefit their operations.
In a letter to DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, Ciscomani conveyed the need for swift allocation of the funding to border communities.
“I write to urge you to take immediate action to begin dispersing funds from the Further Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2024, which recently passed Congress,” wrote the Congressman. “This bill includes multiple provisions that can help address the border crisis that communities like mine in Arizona are facing. In order to properly secure the southern border, we must utilize an all of the above approach, providing U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agents and officers with a mix of workforce, technology, and resources.”
Ciscomani outlined the provisions funded in the recent package that would benefit Arizona’s border communities:
- Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO): This money provides funding for 41,500 detention beds nationally. Tucson Sector is encountering and processing about 1,000 migrants daily, but ICE is only able to take custody of less than 50 migrants per day, on average.
- CBP personnel: The funding secured brings CBP nationally to a total of 22,000 Border Patrol agents and brings on 150 new CBP Office of Field Operations officers across all Sectors. This type of additional workforce could have helped prevent the closure of the Lukeville Port of Entry in December.
- Border Technology: This includes funding for both existing and new border technology in a variety of forms, including fentanyl scanners that previously were unable to be installed.
- FEMA’s Shelter and Services Program (SSP): This package replenishes the SSP account that allows NGOs and local governments in border communities prevent street releases. Estimates for previously allocated SSP funds in Arizona indicated that funding could run out as early as next week.
Ciscomani is the only member of Arizona congressional delegation to sit on the House Appropriations Committee and advocated for these provisions throughout the appropriations process. The Congressman also secured $26 million for projects across Arizona’s 6th Congressional District in the first government funding package, passed on March 6th, 2024.
