Sen. Steve Daines (R-MT) says President Joe Biden is siphoning Veterans Affairs healthcare resources away from the nation’s military veterans to serve illegal aliens arriving at the United States-Mexico border.
The statements from Daines come as Fox News’s Adam Shaw reported this week that the Concerned Veterans for America group is urging Congress and federal investigators to look into the Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) arrangement with the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA).
During a press conference on Dec. 5, Daines said the report about the VA possibly servicing illegal aliens instead of veterans is just “one more story to build on why we need to solve the problem on the southern border.”
Sen. Steve Daines (R-MT) directs a question about limiting abortions to Xavier Becerra, nominee for Secretary of Health and Human Services, at his confirmation hearing before the Senate Finance Committee on Capitol Hill February 24, 2021 in Washington, DC. (Michael Reynolds-Pool/Getty Images)
“We just learned that [Veterans Affairs] health care resources, the VA, are being used to facilitate healthcare to illegal migrants,” Daines said:
Veterans have a hard enough time getting the care that they need and now they have to compete with illegal immigrants? This will not fix the border crisis. Biden’s border crisis puts illegal immigrants first, it puts our veterans last. You know in Montana we have the second highest per capita veteran population in the United States. This is a disservice to all those who have said sacrificed and served our country. [Emphasis added]
Last year, Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas seemingly confirmed to Rep. Ashley Hinson (R-IA) that the agency was looking at using VA healthcare resources at the southern border.
Reports from the House Homeland Security Committee, chaired by Rep. Mark Green (R-TN), have shown that Medicaid costs for emergency services for illegal aliens cost American taxpayers more than $7 billion in Fiscal Year 2021 and more than $5.4 billion in Fiscal Year 2022.
Annually, Americans are forced to subsidize medical care for illegal aliens to the tune of $18.5 billion. In 2021, Americans footed the bill for more than $316 million in medical care for illegal aliens who were detained by ICE.
John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart News. Email him at
