The White House signaled its opposition on Monday to a House Republican bill designed to stymie migrant housing on federal lands as pressure builds for Washington to tackle the border crisis.
A statement from the Office of Management and Budget said Biden administration “strongly opposes” the legislation that prohibits the use of federal funds to provide housing to “certain noncitizens, including migrants seeking asylum,” on properties under the jurisdiction of the National Park Service, the Bureau of Land Management, the United States Fish and Wildlife Service, and the Forest Service.
“The Administration opposes this legislation because it would significantly restrict the ability of the Department of the Interior and the Department of Agriculture to make decisions regarding the appropriate uses of their lands and resources, even in emergency or other situations,” the statement added.
Rep. Nicole Malliotakis (R-NY) introduced the legislation, which has several GOP co-sponsors, in August and it advanced out of the House Natural Resources Committee in the weeks that followed.
The bill contains a clause that nixes a lease agreement with the federal government allowing New York City — which has resorted to budget cuts amid the ballooning costs of taking care of the estimated 10,000 asylum-seekers arriving every month — to use Floyd Bennett Field in Brooklyn as an emergency shelter for migrants.
“Not only did President [Joe] Biden create this crisis but he unfairly wants to continue taking tax dollars and public spaces like Floyd Bennett Field from citizens to perpetuate it,” Malliotakis said in a statement reported by the Staten Island Advance.
The congresswoman added that she expects and looks forward to the GOP-led house passing her bill this week and sending a “clear message” to Biden and leading New York Democrats that people in her district “have had enough of their self-created migrant crisis that they can and should end today.”
Though the legislation would likely face long odds in the Democrat-controlled Senate, the expected passage of the bill in the House this week comes as Congress grapples with a partisan debate over whether to link funds to national security priorities in places such as Israel and Ukraine to U.S. border security reforms.
“Last month’s total southern border encounters marked the busiest October in decades of [U.S. Customs and Border Protection] records. And the harsh reality of the Biden Administration’s border crisis continues to impact millions of Americans in cities across the country,” said Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) in remarks pushing for a swift remedy.