The city of Atlanta received $4.85 million in funding for 2023, the first year of the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s Shelter and Services for Migrants program.
In 2024, the city will get $10.89 million in year two, with more funding expected to be announced later that year.
FEMA’s shelter and services program is another indicator of the growing impact of millions of foreign nationals arriving in the U.S. since President Joe Biden took office.
The program subsidizes communities for the costs of handling immigrants.
Fourteen states, including Washington, D.C., received the first round of funding for fiscal year 2023.
Funding for the program was increased from $363.8 million in fiscal year 2023 to $650 million in fiscal year 2024. Now, city officials and politicians are calling for as much as $3 billion in funding for the program.
On July 2, the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas called the current US migrant surge “unprecedented.”
Nearly 12 million illegal border crossings have been recorded since Biden took office in January 2021, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection data and “fugitive” data obtained by The Center Square from Border Patrol agents.
Gotaways are CBP’s official term for people who crossed the border illegally but were not apprehended. CBP does not release “gotaway” data.
In November 2023, the U.S. Conference of Mayors sent a letter to Congress urging it set funding for the program at a minimum of $1.3 billion.
In March, Rep. Lori Trahan, D-Mass., and Rep. Diana DeGette, D-Colo., called for $3 billion in funding for shelter and services programs.
