Pompeo says U.S. has “ceased allocating new funds” to El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras, but didn’t address money appropriated.
By John Hudson and John Hudson National security reporter focusing on the State Department and diplomacy.
In budget testimony Tuesday, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said that “we have ceased allocating new funds” to El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras. Pompeo did not speak to the money appropriated, but not yet spent, over the previous two years that Trump said he cut. The president charged that those countries had failed to prevent their citizens from leaving and trying to gain entry to the United States.
The number of apprehensions along the U.S.-Mexico border has soared recently, with more than 76,000 migrants taken into U.S. custody in February, most of them from Central America. In response to the question, Mark Green, the head of the U.S. Agency for International Development, said he could not explain the policy and that it would be best directed to the State Department.
That is what the administration did when Trump insisted that $20 million be reprogrammed to the Department of Homeland Security to pay for airfare to send migrants back to Mexico, although the demand was eventually dropped. An administration’s other option, in the face of congressional objection, is simply to refuse to spend the money, allow the appropriation to expire and return the money to the Treasury.
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