The Health and Human Services Department is diverting funds from HIV and cancer prevention programs and other health programs to pay to detain thousands of unaccompanied minors who cross the U.S-Mexico border.
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Alzheimer’s patients, lower-income preschool children, and HIV and cancer patients are among the Americans whose needs may go unmet so that the Trump administration can afford to detain thousands of migrant children.

Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Alex Azar told Congress this week that he plans to divert $385 million from numerous healthcare programs to pay for detention centers across the country where more than 15,000 young undocumented immigrants are currently being held.

“We cannot continue to spend taxpayer dollars on the President’s manufactured crisis at the border, which is government-sanctioned child abuse.” —Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.)

About $286 million will be taken from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the National Institutes of Health, and HHS’s programs for children and families, according to The Hill. Programs including HIV prevention and Head Start are expected to be affected.

“The Trump administration is once […]