New White House estimates show that the projected costs of caring for and resettling child migrants from Central America could reach $2.28 billion next year -- well over double what the administration asked for in its 2015 budget just months ago.
The numbers were sent to Congress Friday in a letter from the Office of Management and Budget to the leadership of the House and Senate Appropriations Committees.
The two-page document is the most explicit public summary yet by the White House on the budget challenge posed by the growing humanitarian crisis.
The $2.28 billion number compares with the $868 million requested by the administration in its budget submitted in March. That translates to a $1.4 billion or 163 percent increase, the scale of which confirms -- even exceeds -- internal estimates reported earlier this week by this newspaper.
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Moreover, OMB adds a warning in its letter that U.S. border and immigration agencies -- which first interact with the child migrants -- will also need another $166 million to cover their costs.
No answers are given as to how these needs are to be paid for under the strict budget caps negotiated last December. Instead OMB only urges the committees to allow "appropriate flexibilities" in writing spending bills for the Department of Homeland Security and Health and Human Services.
But the letter seems sure to push the oft-ignored issue more into the forefront.
"This is a humanitarian crisis," said Senate Appropriations Chairwoman Barbara Mikulski (D-Md.), who has pressed the administration to be more forthright about the costs. "I look forward to reviewing the letter."
Indeed, this year there has already been an escalation in the number of teenagers and younger boys and girls crossing the Southwest Border unaccompanied by their parents or adult relatives. Most are not from Mexico itself but nations like Honduras, Guatemala, and El Salvador, where poor economic conditions and gang-related violence appear to be driving what's become a remarkable migration.
(Earlier on POLITICO: Child migrants a neglected challenge)
All under 18, these are Unaccompanied Alien Children or UAC's in Washington's legal shorthand. Their numbers could approach 66,000 this year -- more than four times the level of just two years ago.
Republicans contend that criminal elements are taking advantage of families by demanding large sums to smuggle the children up to the border, where they then cross alone, some even holding a phone number for a relative in the U.S.
But the migrants themselves tell of harrowing, dangerous trips riding the tops of freight trains at night to get through Mexico. The heightened violence at home is real, and thus far, there has been bipartisan support for providing medical treatment and foster care while resettling the children with relatives in the U.S.
OMB stresses that considerable uncertainty remains about all such projections given the "very fluid" nature of the border crossings. But the letter, signed by deputy director Brian Deese, says the updated estimates are based on a model that assumes "the month-over-month rate of increase in arrivals that we have been experiencing for the past year will continue."
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Deese stops short of spelling out how many children this would be. But House Appropriations Committee Chairman Hal Rogers (R-Ky.) has quoted estimates of 127,000. Based on its updated cost figures, OMB's projections appear to assume a number at least modestly higher still.
For the White House and Congress, the crisis poses a remarkable challenge -- all in the context of stalled immigration reform and a budget framework that imposes a virtual freeze on domestic appropriations.
The administration is mandated by law to provide care for the children -- a responsibility that falls most heavily on the Office of Refugee Resettlement in HHS. But the money comes out of the discretionary side of the budget and competes with President Barack Obama's domestic initiatives.
Critics contend that the White House chose to lowball its initial UAC request of $868 million to save room under the caps for Obama. Ironically enough Sylvia Mathews Burwell, who helped prepare the 2015 budget as OMB director, will inherit this problem directly when she takes over as the new HHS secretary.
In the spring of 2012 and again last January, the Appropriations leadership stepped in to provide more money to care for the children. But the numbers now far exceed what was required then and add to a list of unpredictable costs facing the committees.
The growing threat of wildland fires in the West is a second major concern. The uproar now over delayed appointments over the Veterans Affairs Department has highlighted a shortage of staff physicians available to patients.
The 2011 Budget Control Act allows for an "overseas" contingency fund to meet ongoing military operations in Afghanistan and refugee crises in Syria and Africa, for example. But in this case, that money is judged off limits even though the child migrant costs are really being driven by circumstances in Central America -- outside the U.S.
The crunch will be felt most in the giant annual appropriations bill governing not just HHS but also the Labor and Education Departments.
As scored by the Congressional Budget Office, the president's budget asked for just over $158 billion for these accounts in 2015. But to help pay for competing priorities, House Republicans are already proposing to trim this back to $155.7 billion.
That leaves a $2.3 billion hole for starters. And if Congress and the White House have to come up with another $1.4 billion for the child migrants, the gap grows to $3.7 billion with big implications for the last years of the president's second term.
