The Trump administration wants to sink as much as $44.1 billion into the budget of the Department of Homeland Security in order to increase the number of federal agents who patrol the porous southern border of the United States, a preview of the 2018 budget request from the agency has indicated.
The budget request for the Department of Homeland Security from President Donald Trump is focused on investment in human personnel in addition to advanced technology and infrastructure in order to help enforce immigration laws and tighten border security, an overview of the 2018 fiscal year budget request from the Department has revealed.
The investment would represent an increase in many billions of dollars over the last budget of the Obama administration and focuses on securing the southern border of the United States, which under President Barack Obama experienced some of the largest illegal immigration levels ever recorded.
Officials within the Trump administration said that the new President’s first budget is a reflection of his commitment to increasing border security and reversing the policies from the Obama administration that saw restrictions on immigration loosened and resulted in an influx of undocumented immigrants streaming to the US border.
Senior officials in the Department of Homeland Security called the budget an “important down payment” for the policies of the Trump administration, particularly those geared toward closing the gaps in the southern border where there are almost no checks on continued illegal immigration into the United States.