Officials are pushing back at conservative lawmakers' claims a decades-long arrangement between the Department of Veterans Affairs and Immigration and Customs Enforcement puts the health care of migrants over veterans.
The clash emerged in December when Rep. Mike Bost, R-Ill., chairman of the House Veterans Affairs Committee, and Sen. Tommy Tuberville, R-Ala., introduced the "No VA Resources for Illegal Aliens Act," which would prohibit the VA from using resources to provide health care or process claims for migrants.
However, the VA's Financial Services Center has processed medical claims for an ICE program office responsible for providing health care for migrants at the border since 2002, the digital site Military reported, and facilitates the same work under separate contracts for a variety of other federal offices.
Now, the pact with ICE has become a political football amid an unprecedented flood of migrants crossing the southern border during the Biden administration, Military reported.
In rolling out the proposed legislation, Bost argued he was being "stonewalled" by the Biden administration about the agreements, which have been in place since the George W. Bush administration.
"Until I get the response our veterans deserve, I'll use every available tool of my chairmanship to end this practice and put our veterans first," Bost said in a statement, Military reported.
VA officials countered on Thursday that while taxpayer funding is used to process the health care claims, ICE pays for the work.
"VA does not provide or fund any health care to ICE detainees," VA press secretary Terrence Hayes told Military. "There is a 2002 payment processing agreement, in which ICE pays for the FSC to process payments for ICE-funded health care. This involves no more than 10 employees, is fully paid for by ICE, and has been in place for every administration since 2002," Hayes said in a statement to Military.com.
The New York Post reported Tuberville's office charged the Biden administration with "playing word games" — and accused the VA of allowing detainees to access its community care network, which provides private health care services to veterans outside VA clinics and medical centers.
"By definition, that means worse options for our veterans," a Tuberville spokesperson told The Post.
Military reported that in the agreement, it's the ICE Health Service Corps [IHSC] program office that's responsible for authorizing health care services for detainees and obtaining providers to deliver their health care.
"No resources meant for veterans are used as part of this agreement. FSC provides an administrative function for ICE, using ICE funds, that has zero impact on veteran health care or benefits," Hayes told Military.
"Again, they provide this claims processing function in return for IHSC paying a fee to FSC. None of the employees have been diverted from other roles, and no resources meant for veterans are used as part of this agreement," Hayes added.
In fiscal 2021, IHSC paid VA $74.7 million to provide medical claims processing and support referral for outside care, according to a 2022 report to the Senate and House Homeland Security Committees, Military reported.
The 2022 report also noted IHSC provided health care directly to 88,000 immigrants and oversaw health care for more than 169,000 in other medical settings — spending a total $338.2 million on care for detainees, including $21.4 million from Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act funds.