Secretary of Veterans Affairs Doug Collins on Wednesday confirmed that the agency, under former President Joe Biden's administration, did not move money from care for veterans to benefit immigrants, but it did use manpower to help them.
"I think what we've found is we actually took time away from what I call veteran care to process health applications and we're still looking into this," Collins told Sirius XM's Andrew Wilkow, host of "The Wilkow Majority" on SiriusXM's Patriot Channel.
He added that there was a use of resources that "could be better directed to manpower."
"That's what we've seen so far without a complete picture, but that's what we've looked at and where those numbers were being processed — using processing claim times and everything else," said Collins. "I would much rather either give that to the other agency or take those people back and process their own claims."
Conservative lawmakers have been arguing for over a year that an arrangement between the VA and Immigration and Customs enforcement prioritizes the healthcare of immigrants over that of U.S. veterans.
In December 2023, Rep. Mike Bost, R-Ill., then-chairman of the House Veterans Affairs Committee, and Sen. Tommy Tuberville, R-Ala., introduced the "No VA Resources for Illegal Aliens Act," to prohibit the VA from using resources to provide health care or process migrant claims.
The VA's Financial Services Center has been processing medical claims for an ICE office that provides health care for migrants at the border since 2002, according to reports. It also does the same work under separate contracts for several other offices.