Funds are being moved from HIV/AIDS and cancer research to help maintain the detainment of immigrant children who have been removed from their families. $16.7 million will come from Head Start, $13.3 million from the National Cancer Institute, $5.7 million from the Ryan White HIV/AIDS Program and $80 million will be diverted from other refugee programs. Money is also being diverted from programs dedicated to mental and maternal health, women’s shelters and substance abuse. The diverted money will be reallocated to the Unaccompanied Alien Children (UAC) program in the Office or Refugee Resettlement (ORR). As of September 19th, there are 13,312 immigrant children in custody. The number of children detained has increased from May 2017 not because there are more children crossing the border but because the government has slowed down the release of children in custody. The average stay in custody is now 59 days compared to 48 days in 2017. HHS will more than triple the capacity of an emergency tent facility in Tornillo, Texas – the beds are three times more expensive than the average shelter and it costs about $755 per person per night. However, the conditions of these detention centers can be detrimental to children’s mental and physical health.
First Opinion
This redirection of funds is an extremely irresponsible move from the White House, especially considering the far reaching nature of the defunding. The United States health system is facing attacks on scales national, individual, and in between. In taking resources from the CDC, our biggest resource in monitoring disease and protecting citizens from nationwide health issues of all types is injured severely. Furthermore, by taking money away from Medicare and Medicaid, we hinder the ability of citizens, particularly of low income or ability, to maintain their base health needs. The health of a country should always be of utmost priority, and by attacking so many levels of our healthcare system, these budget cuts form a direct attack on the American people.
Second Opinion
When politics becomes more important than children and health, is when you know that a nation’s priorities are not straight. If you think that by saying that we are taking care of undocumented immigrant children by defunding other health programs to be able subsidize HHS is not looking the bigger picture. Why would you spend so much money in building and supporting detention centers for the children? It seems like it is all politics because the new policies are holding the children longer, but why? Is it done on purpose for the administration to say that these new centers were needed? This is just one of the many things that is inexplicable from this administration. Furthermore, behind all this mayhem, different health institutions that are subsidized by the government like: HIV programs, the CDC, National Cancer Institute, and the NIH, among others, are being heavily affected by the defunding. Politics should not be a reason of why children are being hold in centers and national health care funding is being treated with such irrelevance.
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