Blackburn: VA has backlog of 1M veteran claims as resources go to migrants, Agency disputes analysis

The Department of Veterans Affairs has a backlog of 1 million claims for healthcare and benefits from veterans as resources are diverted to illegal immigrants, GOP Sen. Marsha Blackburn said Tuesday. 

"We checked this week, it is up to one million claims for healthcare and benefits," Blackburn, of Tennessee, said on the "John Solomon Reports" podcast. "As we were doing some oversight work of the VA, we realized that what they were doing was using some of their resources and their money to allow veterans – to approve veterans for community care – and to process claims, or to approve community care, for illegal immigrants, not for veterans, and then also to process claims for illegal immigrants."

Blackburn described the number of claims from veterans on a backlog as "alarming."

The VA told Just the News that it does not give healthcare assistance to those detained by ICE. 

“VA does not provide or fund any health care to ICE detainees," agency press secretary Terrence Hayes said. 

Hayes said there is a 2002 payment-processing agreement in which ICE pays for the VA’s Financial Service Center to process payments for ICE-funded health care.

He said the process involves no more than 10 employees, is fully paid for by ICE, and has been in place for every administration since 2002.

"This has no impact to veteran care or services whatsoever."

According to an ICE report, in fiscal 2022, the VA processed healthcare claims for illegal immigrants totaling more than $63.6 million in medical services.

Blackburn clarified that the current "backlog" which means claims of over 125 days is 406,864, but the total pending claims is 1,027,810.