U.S. Spent $41 Million To Send Illegal Immigrants Home On Expensive Chartered Flights
A report made by the Department of Homeland Security earlier this month, titled, “ICE Air Transportation of Detainees Could Be More Effective,” was reported today by Washington Post as over $41 million wasted on sending illegal immigrants home on empty chartered flights. The amount of money that has been spent over the past 3-and-a-half years is astronomical.
Due to poor money management and planning, the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) spent an outrageous amount of money. DHS found the expenditures during an audit. According to IB Times, “ICE is the federal agency that enforces laws on border control, customs, trade and immigration. It is overseen by DHS.”
The report revealed that ICE Air could have saved at least $41 million if they had filled all the empty seats on the chartered flights with illegal immigrants. However, most of the flights were mostly empty, and ICE pays approximately $8149.00 for each chartered flight regardless of how many seats are filled.
The DHS report revealed that between October, 2010, and March of 2014, ICE spent over $464 million on chartered flights. IB Times reports that those chartered flights were used to fly illegal immigrants from one location to another within the United States between ICE field offices. They were also used to fly the illegal immigrants back to their homeland. Most of those flights were way below their capacity level.
According to HNGN, the report reveals that ICE spent close to $116 million on flights only 80 percent full, and spent $12 million on flights that were only 40 percent occupied.
Inadequacies abound in the report revealing that ICE recorded “54 detained removed to Nicaragua when in fact the mission only included stops in Louisiana, Texas, and Guatemala.”
To make matters worse, ICE was inaccurate in detailed background information it was supposed to supply in reference to the illegal immigrants. The DHS report states, “ICE failed to report whether 20,798 detainees had a criminal background, leaving the “Criminality” data field blank or filled with non-logical entries such as “#Ref!,” as well as leaving off the vital information as to whether any of the 155.966 detainees were involved in a gang.”
So, what happens at this point since all this information has come to light?
According to HNGN, Inspector General John Roth said, “ICE officials must ensure that management and staff use their program’s resources effectively. ICE has started taking action to implement our recommendations, which, once implemented, should provide improvements to the program and assurances that taxpayer funds are being spent efficiently.”
How do think Americans will react knowing that their taxpayers are funding these extremely expensive charter flights for illegal immigrants — all while they are struggling to make ends meet and acquire some type of decent health insurance?
[Photo Credit: HNGN.com, WashingtonPost.com]
