Owens Closes Loophole Fueling the Impact of the Biden-Harris Border Crisis on Utah

WASHINGTON — Congressman Burgess Owens (UT-04) introduced the Sanctuary City Oversight and Responsibility in Enforcement (SCORE) Act of 2024, legislation to prohibit the use of Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) Shelter and Services Program (SSP) grant funds for the transportation of migrants to municipalities, cities, or states without preliminary notification and confirmation of continued support and services at their destination. 

“Self-declared sanctuary cities like Denver are abusing loopholes in the law and using federal taxpayer dollars to transport illegal immigrants to non-sanctuary cities like Salt Lake City,” said Rep. Owens. “Right now we have migrants showing up at our airports, bus stations, and city halls with no support, services, or sponsors after being dumped by so-called sanctuary cities. President Joe Biden ran on opening America’s borders, and he has succeeded by all measures of misery, allowing over 10 million unvetted people, including individuals on the terrorist watchlist, to illegally cross into our country and be flown at taxpayer expense to the city of their choice. If this administration won’t fight for America’s safety, security, and rule of law, we will.” 

Background: 

The legislation prohibits the FEMA Shelter and Services Program (SSP) grant from being used to transport migrants to municipalities, cities, or states without preliminary notification and documentation confirming that the migrant-receiving assistance with transportation will continue receiving support in their destination. More specifically, the bill does the following:

1. Builds in protections for non-sanctuary cities through notification requirements, ensuring state, local, territorial, and tribal leaders are aware of any imminent migrant arrivals.
2. Transportation of covered individuals requires documentation confirming that the migrant-receiving assistance with transportation has a place to continue receiving support at their destination —either through another provider organization (e.g., a nonprofit or faith-based organization), family, or a sponsor.
3. Requires a GAO report to Congress each fiscal quarter, available to state and local governments, detailing which cities have received SSP grants and for what amount.
4. Creates new eligibility criteria that require those receiving FEMA SSP grants to report to FEMA the destinations of those who used the travel vouchers.
5. Indefinitely prohibits any municipalities, cities, or states from being eligible for a FEMA-SSP grant if funds are used improperly or without the required documentation.

The FEMA Shelter and Services Program (SSP) provides financial support to non-federal entities to offer humanitarian services to noncitizen migrants following their release from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).

Denver, Colorado has been using FEMA-SSP grant money to reimburse travel vouchers for migrants, who are then using these vouchers to travel to Salt Lake City, Utah.

The full legislative text is available here. 

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