The state’s second-largest county received millions from the Biden administration to cater to the illegal aliens.
Funds originated from the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021, Section 4008, which authorized $110 million for Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) Emergency Food and Shelter Program (EFSP) administration of Humanitarian Relief Funds (HRF) programs.
The Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2023 provided millions in additional funding for EFSP, which authorized the transfer of up to $785 million from the Customs and Border Protection (CBP) Operations and Support to EFSP in order to provide shelter and other services to illegal aliens. Per a Congressional Research Service report from last January, this provision was a special request by the Biden administration.
From March 2021 through January 2022, the county reported receiving nearly $8 million in federal Special Funding Request (SFR) advances from the Biden administration. Yet, this wasn’t enough. The county reported its illegal alien services — Southwest Border Operation Partnership — as incurring a deficit of over $1.1 million in December 2021.
According to the county’s humanitarian aid cost breakdown spanning from March to December 2021, most of the costs incurred came from housing: over $3.4 million for hotel rooms. The remainder of costs were, in order of greatest to least: $629,000 for staffing, $516,000 for medical, $425,000 for food at hotels and Casa Alitas Welcome Center (CAWC), $331,000 for transportation, and $175,000 for housing with CAWC.
In that same time period, the county reported providing services to over 24,200 illegal aliens seeking asylum.
By May 2024, the county reported assisting over 477,000 illegal aliens using federal funding.
Last February, the county instructed its staff to wind down its logistical coordination, contracts management, and funding reimbursement administration of the temporary sheltering coalition in response to the then-pending exhaustion of federal and state funds anticipated by the end of March of last year. The county warned of the probable release of illegal aliens who would exacerbate their homeless crisis as a consequence.
In those communications, county administrator Jan Lesher spoke to the unsustainability of continued catering to illegal aliens without federal coverage. Lesher recommended against the use of county funds to further assist the illegal aliens.
“There is no feasible way the County could afford to maintain sheltering services for an average of 1,000 people a day or more. At $1 million or more a week, it would cost County taxpayers between $50 million and $60 million a year to maintain current operations. […] I believe it would be imprudent for the taxpayers of Pima County to also have to absorb the cost of providing even this minimal amount of sheltering as described above, as this is a federal problem that requires federal funding. It is severely frustrating and disappointing that we are in this situation. This is a crisis of the federal government’s making due to the failure to pass sensible border and immigration reform and to provide the necessary funding to local jurisdictions forced to deal with the deleterious effects of federal border policy. It is likely there will be costs to the community, especially to the budget of the City of Tucson, if we do nothing to assist the legally processed asylum seekers released by CBP every day, which is likely to last at least another year (perhaps the next Congress will be more amenable to solving border problems). There is already a difficult homeless problem in Pima County that we are working tirelessly to solve or mitigate. What we are about to experience with street releases is homelessness on steroids. But every dollar spent helping legally processed asylum seekers move on to their destination cities will be a dollar we can’t spend on County residents who are struggling financially to afford adequate housing, or who are suffering from mental illness or drug and alcohol addiction.”
Those worries of fiscal sustainability and burdens on the taxpayer went out the window after Republicans in Congress ceded to the Biden administration, agreeing to the $1.2 trillion budget bill with $650 million for CBP and the Shelter and Services Program (SSP). The Biden administration issued a Notice of Federal Opportunity (NFO) declaring the availability of another $340.9 million for assisting illegal aliens, with individual applications of funding limited to $34 million.
Last May, separate from that NFO, the county received an additional tranche of funding amounting to over $21.8 million. The county estimated it could provide funding through the end of 2024 — a monthly projection of expenditures amounting to over $3.6 million. The county administrator advised the supervisors against applying for the additional NFO grant, citing the great burden of illegal alien assistance as “a chronic situation.” The board voted in favor of doing so, anyway.
Last month, a day after President Donald Trump’s inauguration, the Board of Supervisors determined it would decrease its funding from $2.8 million to $33,600 (a 99 percent decrease) for illegal alien shelter and services “due to a decrease” in that population.
Below are some highlights of the contracts awarded by Pima County to service illegal aliens these past four years:
In September 2021, Pima County approved over $2 million within the Shelter National Board Program Fund for hotel shelter services for asylum seekers exposed to or testing positive for COVID-19. Jot Properties LLC received the contract. The contract funded a program to not only provide hotel rooms for the illegal aliens, but to provide medical care, food, and supportive services.
In December 2021, Pima County issued another $550,000 in federal funds for transportation of illegal aliens and approved $3 million for emergency housing support.
In January 2022, FEMA EFSP awarded Pima County an additional $3.3 million for illegal aliens.
By December 2022, Pima County had increased its contract obligation to Triple A Cab Services for shuttling illegal aliens around the county to over $1 million.
In August 2023, Pima County awarded SJM Premier Medical Group the $3.5 million contract to provide medical support to illegal aliens.
This is good, it’s about time the feds paid for their policies!
It is obvious that board members are just political hacks, they are not representing the interest of the county and the people of the county. But we did not know that didn’t we? So why the county voters keep voting for these board members? There have been very sensible candidates in the past and they got nowhere. And where was the media report on this issue? hello, Tucson media? Is there anyone there with journalistic integrity?
You probably won’t find it anywhere else because they are complicit in the cover up. If they do, it will be buried somewhere in the publication.
With regard to electing the same idiots, the Tucson electorate is either too lazy to get educated on a given candidate or they just don’t care. You want to see NOTHING changing, just wait until Grijalva finally goes away and they implant his POS daughter or our idiot Mayor!
what hotels motels did they use? Remember that the gem show waas gonna leave forever due to lack of motel hotel rooms! Guess the mayor and her godfaher as well as other scumbag politicians got this $$ as it sure didnt hit the streets here. Just drive around the air base and see the ‘homeless cities’ oh thats right this was $$ for ILLEGALS.
Nothing good will happen around here until we get rid of the turd and his progenity. Amazing he hasnt stepped down yet to allow his daughter or the mayor to take his seat, no election required just like he got in!
Pima County and Tucson don’t need federal millions… millions of dollars are pouring in from bicycle races, the gem shows, and the 4th Avenue Street Fair. Just ask local tv news.
One hundred years ago some people would have faced a firing squad for this treason.
If you don’t view anything else, about what’s coming because of stuff like this above, watch this 11.5m video from the UK’s newest young commentator, Carl Benjamin, below. He puts it all in perspective, OUTSTANDING: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xFGOddatJVk&t=40s
a ‘federal budget’ is a local budget – we pay the taxes.. that they got the money to send back to us ‘oh THEY PRINTED MORE’ is exactly what happen. They devalued the money.. and we see that in our price of eggs and… WHY DID THEY DO THIS ? WHY DID THEY OPEN THE BORDERS? WHY DID THEY ENCOURAGE ALL THE BORDER CROSSING ? WHAT WAS THE GOAL OF THIS ACTION> Destroy the nation? IN DEBT THE PEOPLE AND NATION – WHY? These same people are now in charge our our county – schools – public services. WHY IS THIS BEING DONE?
No wonder FEMA was out of money. Since when are ILLEGALS a flood, hurricane or other natural disaster. Ask the people in NC and along the east coast how much help they got from the Feds especially if you were an obvious DJT supporter. the same but not as bad in California. ILLEGALS before citizens and the democrats are damn proud of it. Now we know that the state of New York is working on allowing 800,000 ILLEGALS to vote in state and local elections. If this happens, there will never be another republican elected in the state and it will become a worse sewer than it already is.
What happened to those people who swore an oath to defend the U.S. Constitution and the laws of the land? There should be a significant consequence for the theft, corruption, mismanagement, and outright fraud that has been perpetrated against our country and taxpaying citizens.
I’m betting the economies of both Tucson and Pima County will collapse. Both are dependent on federal and state funds for illegals. How many seats are filled in schools with illegals? Bye, ,bye gravy train.
It is in bad shape anyway; there is no where to collapse. Tucson could be the jewel of the desert but left wing hacks are holding all the leading positions in the county and the city. They are no just incompetent but bent on holding down the city and the people for power.
Pima County has crooked politicians. So, what is new about that? They’ve always been corrupt!