Tag Archives: Office of Refugee Resettlement

Where A Lot Of The Money Went

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On Thursday, The New York Post posted an article about how much money the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) spent on migrants from 2020 to 2024.

The article reports:

The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) ramped up grants for migrants from 2020 to 2024 — which included cash assistance to buy cars, homes and even build credit for startup businesses, according to a shocking watchdog report that found taxpayers were left on the hook for $22.6 billion.

HHS’ Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) — which came under fire last year for having lost track of 32,000 migrant kids in the US — handed out the high sum to a host of nonprofits, effectively acting as a “giant magnet” for those crossing the US border and claiming asylum, auditors from the money monitor OpenTheBooks revealed exclusively to The Post.

Tasked with settling migrants, asylum seekers and other refugees in America, ORR drastically increased the number of noncitizens eligible to receive funding over the bulk of President Joe Biden’s term, with more than $10 billion shelled out to grant-receiving organizations just in fiscal year 2023.

…Non-governmental groups bilked taxpayers for up to $1.7 billion in services including dollar-for-dollar matching savings plans for cars, homes, college educations or startups; small-business loans of up to $15,000; loans to repair credit history of up to $1,500; “cultural orientation,” “emergency housing support,” legal assistance and Medicaid care.

Some programs were only available to migrants or refugees who had been living in the US for several years, who were employed or who were making around double the federal poverty level or less, among other stipulations.

The article concludes:

Hart (OpenTheBooks CEO John Hart) slammed ORR’s treatment of migrant kids and said it had revealed “the Left’s counterfeit compassion around immigration.”

“Losing track of 300,000 children violates their dignity and puts them at risk,” he said.

In its report, OpenTheBooks claimed Dunn Marcos’ past work for nonprofits receiving ORR grants posed a “conflict of interest.”

Reps for Dunn Marcos’ office said in a statement that after being appointed in September 2022, she had recused herself from approving funding for any past employer.

…OpenTheBooks nevertheless submitted a Freedom of Information Act request to ORR’s parent office, the Administration for Children and Families, where Dunn Marcos served until recently. Email bouncebacks, the group noted, suggest she departed government service after President Trump took office Jan. 20.

“While Dunn Marcos may have disappeared from ORR, our questions remain over whether certain nonprofit organizations received special treatment amid the billions in grants furnished by the government office,” the group’s report concludes.

“What’s clear is that ORR has funded a constellation of NGOs deployed in border states and nationwide, who give out aid designed to attract even more migrants.”

Reps for HHS did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

It is clearly time to stop the NGO gravy train.

Follow The Money

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Some of us were appalled by the message given at the National Cathedral Prayer Service. It was not Biblical and was not appropriate. (article here) Well, as usual, it turns out that there was more to the story than meets the eye.

On Friday, The New York Post reported the following:

Episcopal Bishop Mariann Budde’s sermon to President Trump during an inaugural prayer service, coupled with her church’s advocacy for humanitarian immigration programs, reveals a striking hypocrisy — one that could be seen as self-serving and even a conflict of interest.

That’s because the federal contracting arm of the church, Episcopal Migration Ministry (EMM), is paid to bring in people on resettlement programs that Trump has temporarily paused and targeted for re-evaluation.

EMM budget figures for 2024 are not available yet, but in 2023 it earned $53 million from various taxpayer-funded government programs to resettle 3,600 individuals.

…Unlike everyday immigrants, these new arrivals receive government assistance and, most importantly, are immediately eligible for all forms of welfare, such as Medicaid and cash assistance, on the same basis as a US citizen.

Further, they can immediately sponsor friends and relatives under a recent Biden expansion of the refugee resettlement program.

The Office of Refugee Resettlement was projecting 656,500 new arrivals in 2025, who would fall under its care. Clearly this is a program wildly out of control.

In an wild understatement, a 2012 Government Accountability Office report quotes an official noting that “funding is based on the number of refugees they serve, so affiliates have an incentive to maintain or increase the number of refugees they resettle each year rather than allowing the number to decrease.”

The article concludes:

Of course, it is not fair to question the Episcopalians alone on this.

Their resettlement contractor is the second smallest of the 10 contractors in the industry. The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) dwarfs EMM.

Forbes reported that USCCB affiliate Catholic Charities USA, which has its hand in all aspects of immigration and seems to get money from every government agency except NASA, received $1.4 billion in taxpayer dollars in 2021. That’s 68 times more than EMM got that year.

It was never intended that the sponsoring organizations, formerly known as “Voluntary Agencies,” would be purely federal contractors, with all the behavior, untoward incentives, money, and influence-peddling that this brings, not to mention questions of church-state relations which are never raised in this context.

Any re-tooling of our humanitarian immigration programs must put the bulk of responsibility back on the “sponsoring” entity and limit new arrivals’ access to welfare.

As for encouraging the church to practice true sacrificial charity, Bishop Budde may have put it best when she said in an interview with Rachel Maddow, “the first and primary role that we have is [to lead] by example.”

I would have no problem with the church sponsoring immigrants if the church took care of them after they got here rather than making the taxpayer pay for the church’s generosity. This is a racket. These facts make the Bishop’s remarks seem even more hypocritical than they seemed to be at the time they were given.

It’s Time To Protect The Children

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On November 9, Townhall reminded us what one of the first priorities of the Trump administration should be–locating and rescuing the children who have gone missing after crossing America’s southern border.

The article reports:

On Day One, President Trump must take immediate action to protect migrant children by completely overhauling the Office of Refugee Resettlement within the Department of Health and Human Services. The current catastrophe has resulted in thousands upon thousands of children vanishing into the unknown, many into the hands of traffickers. The true number remains unknown as the government has lost track of so many of these vulnerable souls. Those in the current administration who have deliberately weakened or eliminated crucial sponsor vetting procedures must be removed. The safety of vulnerable children cannot be sacrificed for administrative expediency.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement, with its extensive capabilities and expertise in immigration proceedings, should assume primary responsibility for vetting sponsors and monitoring these children’s whereabouts. Just as ICE successfully manages its Alternatives to Detention program through vetted contractors, similar frameworks could be established to track and protect unaccompanied minors. By leveraging ICE’s resources and coordinating with other agencies’ direct support, we can create a robust system that actually protects these children rather than abandoning them to potential traffickers.

The article concludes:

As we confront this ongoing crisis, our resolve must be stronger than ever. We must work together to create a world where no child is subjected to the horrors of trafficking or falls through the cracks of a failing system. This is more than a call for action; it’s a demand for justice and a plea to our collective conscience to treat this issue with the seriousness it deserves.

Every day we delay, more children vanish into the shadows. Their fate will be our legacy. The time for action is now. Our government’s first duty is to protect the vulnerable. When it comes to migrant children, we’re not just failing – we’re actively enabling their exploitation. This must change, and it must change now.

Matthew 18:6 in the New King James Bible states:

“But whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in Me to sin, it would be better for him if a millstone were hung around his neck, and he were drowned in the depth of the sea.

I’m not suggesting we drown anyone, but let’s hold the people who are exploiting these children accountable.

Is This About Money Or About Doing Good?

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On Tuesday, The Washington Examiner posted an article which provided information on the charities that are profiting because of the illegal aliens entering America.

The article reports:

Communities throughout the United States are suffering while they try to find money to house, clothe, feed, educate, and provide medical care for millions of illegal immigrants caught and released into the country by President Joe Biden. However, the left-wing nonprofit organizations paid to serve migrants are profiting pleasantly.

According to an examination by the Free Press of three of the most prominent nonprofit organizations paid by the Biden administration for migrant services, their revenues have more than tripled since 2018, and each of their CEOs makes more than $500,000 a year.

The article continues:

One, Global Refuge, saw its revenue rise from $50 million in 2018 to more than $200 million in 2022. Documents show that Global Refuge housed more than 2,500 migrant children in 2019 at a cost of $30 million. It housed just 1,443 in 2022 at a cost of $82.5 million. In that same period, Global Refuge CEO Krish O’Mara Vignarajah saw her salary rise from $244,000 a year to $520,000. Before coming to Global Refuge, she served as former first lady Michelle Obama’s policy director.

Another nonprofit group, Endeavors, was awarded more than 1 billion dollars in 2022, of which it spent $533,000 on a music therapist, $4.6 million on “consulting services,” $1.4 million on conferences, and $700,000 on lobbyists. Despite past scandals involving self-dealing among top executives, in 2022, Southwest Key Programs was awarded almost $800 million, of which it gave more than $1 million to its CEO.

Each nonprofit organization benefits from the Department of Health and Human Services’s Unaccompanied Children Program. When children are caught illegally crossing the border without parents, Border Patrol must, by law, turn them over to HHS, whose Office of Refugee Resettlement is charged with housing, feeding, and educating them until their parents or a sponsor can be found. HHS does not provide these services. They contract with nonprofit outfits that do, hence the big payouts to Endeavors, Global Refuge, and Southwest Key Programs.

At some point the communities where illegal aliens settle are expected to provide education for the children and medical care for the families, regardless of the involvement of a nonprofit. Local communities are dealing with overcrowded schools, diseases that Americans have not seen in years, and a serious strain on their financial resources. Children are being put in the care of people who are not relatives and may be subjected to human trafficking or other forms of slavery.

The open border is bad for our country, but it is also bad for the people coming here. There is no safety in making the trip and no guarantee of a better life once they get here. Right now the cartels are in charge of our southern border, and they are making a lot of money that they can invest in destroying America with drugs and violence.

Drastic change is needed.

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.