Border crisis charities receive huge government grants and spend them on music therapy sessions for migrants, “human-plant interactions” and $1 million in salaries for staff, according to a new report. That’s what it means.
Several nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) that operate shelters in the border states of Texas, Arizona, and California receive funding from the federal government. Program for unaccompanied children To resettle immigrant minors who enter the United States alone.
according to free pressthe most recent federal disclosure documents available, show these organizations are making their fortunes through contracts, with the top three’s combined revenue rising from $597 million in 2019 to a whopping $2 billion by 2022. Increased has.
The three NGOs are named Global Refuge, Southwest Key Programs, and Endeavors, Inc.
The report alleges that Endeavors uses taxpayer funds to provide “pet therapy,” “horticultural therapy,” and music therapy to immigrant children.
Endeavors paid in 2021 Music therapist Christy Merrell The media reported that the price was $533,000.
PowerPoint of internal initiatives Retrieved by America First LegalThe nonprofit, founded by former Donald Trump aide Stephen Miller, conducted 1,656 “human-plant interactions” and 287 pet therapy sessions between April 2021 and March 2023. announced that it had been carried out.
Endeavors and two other NGOs did not immediately respond to requests for comment from the newspaper.
Additionally, nonprofit CEOs each earn more than $500,000 a year, and Southwest Key’s CEO earns more than $1 million, according to the Free Press.
Charles Marino, a former adviser to Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano in President Obama’s administration, said of NGOs, “The amount of taxpayer money they are receiving is outrageous,” according to the newspaper.
“The waste, fraud and abuse of taxpayer money will rival what we have seen with federal coronavirus funding,” he added.He mentioned the pandemic fund, of which $123 billion was wasted or misused.
The Administration for Children and Families, a division of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), provides funding to nonprofit organizations through the Office of Refugee Resettlement.
Its budget exploded in 2018 from $1.8 billion in 2018 as the immigration crisis worsened and millions of people flooded across the border. $6.3 billion In 2023, According to H.H.S..
ORR is expected to be spent at least $7.3 billion This year, much of the money will go to NGOs and other contractors.
Jessica Vaughn, director of policy research at the Center for Immigration Studies, said, “What’s new under the Biden administration is the amount of taxpayer dollars given to them, the lack of accountability for performance, and the lack of interest in solving problems.” told. press.
ORR has a legal obligation to hold unaccompanied children who do not have legal immigration status until they reach the age of 18 or until they are released to an assignee (usually a parent or next of kin living in the United States). there is.
The majority of the minors the agency accepts are immigrant teens who say they crossed the U.S.-Mexico border without their parents or legal guardians.
Approximately 400,000 unaccompanied children have crossed the southern border into the U.S. since 2021, according to HHS data. Compiled by the New York Times.
