The Trump administration seeks to cancel $810 million in funding for refugees and government services

CNN) - The administration of US President Donald Trump intends to cancel $810 million in funding that Congress had allocated for refugees, immigrants, and other services that the administration considers unnecessary, according to a spokesman for the Office of Management and Budget.

The package of proposals, which Trump sent to House Speaker Mike Johnson, includes proposals to cancel financial allocations in the departments of Commerce, Education, Health and Human Services, Homeland Security, Housing, Urban Development, and Justice. Many of these suggestions affected international aid programs.

The White House said Trump is targeting "the most harmful forms of government spending," while some lawmakers criticize the move as an illegal "line-item veto," circumventing Congress' authority.

Once repeal proposals are submitted by the White House, the funds in question are frozen while Congress is given 45 days to act on them; Since the fiscal year ends on September 30, this measure effectively eliminates those funds.

One repeal proposal seeks to withdraw $10 million of the $50 million allocated to Minority Business Development Agency (MBDA) programs, money that the Trump administration claims was allocated for “unconstitutional race-based purposes.”

There is also another proposal to eliminate $567 million from the Refugee and Newcomer Assistance Account, which funds the programs of the Office of Refugee Resettlement of the Department of Health and Human Services.

The White House considered that the office received “excessive” funding, given that Trump’s border policies had limited border crossings. Refugees usually enter the United States after undergoing a comprehensive background check, through a network of non-governmental organizations that work in cooperation with the State Department.

Some of the de-allocation decisions involve withdrawing funds allocated to the Department of Homeland Security, including $15 million for a pilot case management program for Alternatives to Detention, a program that provides case management services to people under ICE's supervision without them being physically detained.

The administration justified this step by saying that it aims to "eliminate unnecessary and wasteful spending."

Another $10 million will also be deducted from the “Citizenship and Integration” grant program of the US Citizenship and Immigration Services, which is a program dedicated to helping legal permanent residents learn the English language and learn about the history of the United States in preparation for obtaining American citizenship.

In a post on the X platform (formerly Twitter), Republican Senator Susan Collins said that this action to cancel the allocation “shows that the Office of Management and Budget deliberately withheld these funds for several months to implement this illegal cancellation of financial allocations approved by both parties (Republican and Democratic) and which have become an effective law.”

“Any attempt to revoke funds appropriated under the law without Congressional approval is a flagrant violation of the law,” Collins wrote. “I will work with my colleagues to address these unlawful actions.”

For his part, Democratic Senator Jeff Merkley described these eliminations as “an illegal use of the line-item veto” and urged his Republican colleagues to think about how they would feel if a Democratic president did the same.

“He is eliminating spending items he doesn't like,” Merkley said. “This violates the principle of separation of powers entrenched in our Constitution, which stipulates that Congress - not the president - decides the design and funding levels of programs.”

However, this is not the first time that the White House has canceled funds that Congress had already approved.

The White House praised Trump's use of "long-neglected presidential powers" - also invoking the Impoundment Control Act - to cancel $4.9 billion in foreign aid through a silent earmarking action last year; Note that Jimmy Carter was the last president to take such a step, in 1977.

The White House defended its efforts to recover the money that was allocated for spending. “Last year, President Trump took the historic step of leveraging long-neglected presidential powers granted to him under the Impoundment Control Act to implement the first ‘pocket rescission’ in 50 years,” the White House said in a statement.

He continued: “Today, the President continues his commitment to American taxpayers by using this action to eliminate nearly $1 billion in more harmful government spending items.”