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 / Modified jul 25, 2018 1:36 p.m.

Committee Set To Debate Budget Increase for Homeland Security, Border Wall

The Customs and Border Protection budget would grow by nearly $4 billion over the last fiscal year. by Michel Marizco, Fronteras Desk

border fence yucca A yucca stalk leans toward the sun and the border fence between Arizona and Mexico.
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The House Appropriations Committee is scheduled to begin debating a massive funding request for the Homeland Security Department this Tuesday.

The budget request includes money for new canine teams, opioid detection and for hiring 375 new port inspectors. For Customs and Border Protection, there’s an additional $5 billion for 200 miles of new border wall. And for Immigration and Customs Enforcement, money for an additional 3,400 detention beds, giving the agency 44,000 detention beds across the country.

Activist groups are calling for the committee to reject specifically those two pieces of funding, the border wall and the detention beds.

"That’s an unprecedented sum of $5 billion and that goes back to Donald Trump’s campaign promise of 2016," said Joanne Lin the government relations director for Amnesty International USA which called for a rejection of the funding.

Overall, CBP would receive nearly $4 billion more than it did in the last fiscal year.

A Homeland Security Department spokesman said the department would not comment on the legislation.

Fronteras Desk
This story is from the Fronteras Desk, a collaboration of Southwestern public radio stations, including NPR 89.1. Read more from the Fronteras Desk.

MORE: Border, Fronteras Desk, Immigration, News, Donald Trump
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