Tag Archives: Office of Refugee Resettlement

Where Is The Money Actually Going?

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On Friday, The Washington Free Beacon reported that the Biden Administration’s Office of Resettlement lost track of almost 100,000 migrant children. At the same time, it has also quadrupled the amount of money awarded to contractors responsible for placing migrant children with responsible adults.

The article reports:

The Office of Refugee Resettlement doled out upwards of $6 billion in 2021 and 2022 to contractors and nonprofit groups—up from $1.7 billion in 2020—according to records obtained by the Functional Government Institute and provided to the Washington Free Beacon. The taxpayer funds were supposed to be used to help place 264,000 unaccompanied children with adult relatives or sponsors with whom they could await court dates, though the agency lost track of almost 100,000 of those kids.

The massive increase in grants is attributed primarily to more than $5 billion in no-bid contracts doled out to three companies, a practice Democrats such as Rhode Island Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D.) and Vice President Kamala Harris decried during the Trump administration. Among the companies that benefited from the Biden administration’s largesse: the San Antonio-based nonprofit Family Endeavors, which inked a $579 million no-bid contract with the Office of Refugee Resettlement in March 2021.

It was only a problem when Republicans were doing it!

The article concludes:

“Putting aside the eye-popping increases in funds to house and transport migrant children—and the potential for rampant waste, fraud, and abuse—these records provide early receipts for the cartel-friendly immigration policy that actually endangers children,” said Functional Government Initiative communications director Peter McGinnis. “The federal government’s failure to exercise existing authority has created nothing short of a humanitarian crisis.”

The Department of Health and Human Services did not respond to a request for comment.

Unfortunately, our government does not do many things well. If the border were closed, we might be able to take care of the few unaccompanied children that sneak through, but there is no way to handle to flood of children that is currently coming through. The real tragedy is that a large percentage of these children will wind up being sex trafficked and other horrible outcomes. This is a disgrace for a supposedly civilized country.

Someone Did Not Do Their Job

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On Tuesday, Just the News reported that thorough background checks were not done on employees at the emergency holding centers hurriedly opened by the Office of Refugee Resettlement to accommodate a Biden-era surge of unaccompanied minors at the southern border.

The article reports:

The Department of Health and Human Services Office of Inspector General (OIG) visited an influx care facility (ICF) and 10 emergency intake sites (EIS) opened to shelter “an unprecedented number of unaccompanied children” arriving at the border under President Biden to determine whether the facilities were complying with required background checks on employees.

The watchdog found that “ORR’s ICF and EISs did not conduct or document all required background checks or did not conduct the checks in a timely manner.”

According to the report:

    • FBI fingerprint checks were “not conducted or documented” for 174 of 229 EIS employees, while another 25 were “conducted but not in a timely manner.” Only 30 were “conducted in a timely manner.”
    • Background checks for child abuse and neglect were not conducted for 200 of 229 EIS employees, with 20 conducted but not promptly, and only 9 conducted promptly. “For 51 of the 200 employees, ORR had waived the Child Abuse and Neglect (CA/N) check requirement,” the report noted.

Federal regulations explicitly prohibit ORR — tasked with the “care and placement” of unaccompanied migrant children (UAC) — from “hiring or enlisting the services” of anyone to work with children if they have any documented history of sexual misconduct. However, the ORR is allowed to “waive or modify” background checks so long as it’s “for good cause,” like an emergency. 

Of a required 78 sex offender registry checks, 42 were “not conducted or documented,” and another 11 were “conducted but not in a timely manner,” according to the report. Less than a third, 25, were “conducted in a timely manner.”

According to the Assistant Regional Inspector General Sylvie Witten, the ORR “did not waive the DOJ sex offender registry check” and many were not vetted through it despite being “required.”

In today’s world, people who want to volunteer in the church Sunday School program routinely undergo background checks. It is a major breach of trust that the people working with underage unaccompanied migrant children were not properly vetted.

 

The Price Of A Porous Border

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Yesterday The Washington Examiner posted an article about the cost of young people illegally entering America every day.

The article quotes Center for Immigration Studies Policy Director Jessica Vaughan:

“An average of 255 illegal alien youths were taken into the custody of the Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) every day this month, according to the latest figures the agency provided to Congress. This is the largest number of illegal alien children ever in the care of the federal government. To pay for it, the agency says it will need an additional one or two billion dollars for the next year – above and beyond the $1.2 billion spent in 2016 and proposed for 2017 – depending on how many more arrive. For now, the Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), where ORR resides, is diverting $167 million from other programs to cover the cost of services for these new illegal arrivals through December 9, when the current continuing resolution expires.”

So, what are the other programs? A total of $167 million will be coming from other federal programs. This includes $14 million from the Health Resources and Services Administration, including $4.5 million from the Ryan White HIV/AIDS Program and $2 million from the Maternal and Child Health program. I have a question. If (according to the Democrats in Congress) it is impossible to cut the federal budget, how can you cut these programs? Are you denying Americans what they need to accommodate people who entered the country illegally? Wouldn’t it be cheaper simply to send the youths home?

Let’s hope that the new Congress follows its obligation to approve a budget and stick to it. This is ridiculous.