Morgan Chalfant, Washington Free Beacon, December 17, 2015

A massive appropriations bill expected to be approved by Congress would provide more than $1.6 billion to resettle illegal immigrants arriving at the U.S. border through 2018.

Congress would award the massive check to the government just as the U.S. is experiencing a surge in arrivals of immigrant children at the southern border. Last week, federal agencies said they were opening two temporary shelters with 1,000 beds in South Texas to cope with the surge. A 400-bed shelter is also to be opened in Southern California.

“Out of an abundance of caution, the Office of Refugee Resettlement at the Department of Health and Human Services has begun a process to expand its temporary capacity to house unaccompanied children,” the Department of Health and Human Services said in a statement last Monday.

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In October and November, U.S. government data showed that over 10,500 unaccompanied immigrant children crossed the southern border with Mexico, according to the Washington Post. That number is more than double the count of unaccompanied minors that arrived at the border during the same time period last year.

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