“The cost to taxpayers for housing 1,200 migrant families for six months is about $71,000 per person,” the Tennessee senator says.

Sen. Marsha Blackburn has done the math.

The Tennessee Republican’s interest was piqued after the Biden administration announced its intention to spend nearly $87 million to house 1,200 foreigners who illegally cross the border in hotel rooms in the U.S.

“As the current contract stands, the cost to taxpayers for housing 1,200 migrant families for six months is about $71,000 per person,” Blackburn wrote in a letter Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas and Immigration and Customs Enforcement acting Director Tae Johnson. “For a family of four, that amounts to a shocking $284,000 – enough to buy a small house.”

Earlier this month, the administration awarded ICE an $86.9 million contract through Texas-based nonprofit Endeavors, which will provide hotel rooms near the border for temporary shelter. But Blackburn also questions how the group spends its money.

She said Endeavors in 2018 collected more than $38 million in contributions and grants but noted that “IRS filings show that nearly $22 million or almost half of those contributions went to salaries.”

“This raises questions if half of the $86.9 million in ICE contract proceeds will likewise be allocated toward employee and executive compensation instead of migrant services or housing,” Blackburn wrote in her letter.

She also expressed concerns that Endeavors’ CEO Jon Allman has not provided “specific details about the contract.”

“It is unclear whether this nonprofit has ever previously managed a contract of this magnitude, housed a migrant population of this size or served vulnerable children without putting them at further risk,” Blackburn wrote. “DHS and ICE must provide commitments to assure Congress and the American public that Endeavors is up for the task of securely and efficiently housing illegal immigrants without resulting in waste or abuse of taxpayer dollars, or worse, harming vulnerable migrant children.”

Blackburn asked for answers by April 15.

President Joe Biden dismissed the news that former President Donald Trump is considering a visit to the southern border.

A reporter questioned Biden about the border crisis, and reports about Trump’s possible visit, as he returned to Washington from a weekend at his home in Delaware.

“We are putting in place a plan that I feel very confident about,” Biden replied. “And I don’t care what the other guy does.”

Biden did not answer a question about when he would make his own trip to visit the border.

Former President Trump confirmed he is interested in visiting the border to highlight Biden’s border crisis in the “next couple of weeks,” during an interview Saturday on Fox News.

“Thousands and thousands of people are coming up right now as we speak,” Trump said. “And you’re going to have millions of people pouring into our country. And it’s going to destroy our country.”

Biden continues struggling to manage the border crisis, despite publicly delegating Vice President Kamala Harris on Wednesday to lead the administration’s efforts to secure the border.

But on Friday, Harris’s team clarified that the vice president “was not doing the border” but only leading the “diplomatic efforts” with Latin American countries to address the root causes of migration.

Both Biden and Harris refuse to commit to visiting the border, despite record numbers of unattended child migrants crossing into the U.S. and overwhelming Border Patrol detention facilities.

Despite the Biden administration repeatedly telling migrants the border is closed, the president makes it clear that unattended migrant children are not getting sent back.

“The only people we’re not going to let sitting there on the other side of the Rio Grande by themselves with no help are children,” Biden said during his press conference on Sunday.

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) said he was told by a Biden administration staffer that he could not record a video at a Border Patrol facility along the U.S.-Mexico border.

“Please give dignity to the people. Please give dignity to the people. … Please respect the people, the rules,” the so-called staffer told Cruz while blocking the camera with her face, according to a video he showed Fox News.

“So you work for the commissioner, you’re a senior adviser, you were hired two weeks ago and you’re instructed to ask us to not have any pictures taken here because the political leadership at DHS does not want the American people to know it,” Cruz said in response to the official. She did not disclose her identity, and The Epoch Times has contacted the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) for comment.

The staffer then told him: “Please don’t treat the people as such,” to which Cruz responded that “your policies are unfortunately trying to hide them.”

“I understand that you were instructed,” Cruz said. “I respect them, and I want to fix this situation, and the administration that you work for is responsible for these conditions.”

Cruz and more than a dozen Republican senators went to the border last week, with many describing overcrowded and severe conditions in facilities used to hold unaccompanied minors—children who unlawfully enter the country without an adult.

In recent weeks, Republicans have blamed President Joe Biden’s administration for the surge in illegal immigration, although Biden in a press conference said such surges are routine and blamed the previous administration for the humanitarian conditions on the border.

The senator also posted photos that the “Biden administration doesn’t want the American people to see,” according to a tweet that included images of a crowded illegal immigrant facility in Donna, Texas—near the border.

“This is why they won’t allow the press. This is the CBP facility in Donna, Texas. This is a humanitarian and a public health crisis,” Cruz tweeted.

Journalists will be eventually allowed to go to the border to film Border Patrol facilities after they have been largely denied access, according to White House press secretary Jen Psaki in a Sunday interview.

Some Democrats whose districts lie on the border have said Biden needs to take action immediately to deal with the situation.

Rep. Henry Cuellar (D-Texas) told CBS News on Sunday that numerous family units who crossed the border illegally have been released into the United States without a notice to appear in court.

“They’re supposed to appear, show up, maybe in 60 days, report to an ICE office,” he said. “This is unprecedented.”