By Alana Mastrangelo
(Breitbart) The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) reportedly increased grants for migrants from 2020 to 2024, spending more than $22 billion in taxpayer dollars on grants that included money going toward vehicles, home loans, and startup businesses.
The agency’s Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR), handed out $22.6 billion to a host of nonprofits, effectively acting as a “giant magnet” for migrants crossing the U.S. border and claiming asylum, auditors from OpenTheBooks told New York Post.
The amount of noncitizens eligible to obtain funding that derived from ORR under the majority of former President Joe Biden’s administration soared significantly, with more than $10 billion handed out to grant-receiving organizations in just 2023 alone, the outlet noted.
Meanwhile, the United States experienced record-setting numbers of border crossings coming in from the southern frontier, as the U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) apprehending 2.4 million migrants during that time.
Non-government organizations swindled up to $1.7 billion from U.S. taxpayers for 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,” New York Post reported.
But most of the funding went toward unaccompanied migrant children — committing $12.4 billion over five years — despite whistleblowers sounding the alarm and calling out ORR for handing over many of nearly 300,000 children in its care to unvetted and sometimes even abusive sponsors.
Notably, ORR — which is tasked with settling migrants, asylum seekers, and others entering into the U.S. — infamously lost track of 32,000 migrant children.
Thursday’s revelations from OpenTheBooks come after the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) faced intense backlash for sending roughly $80 million to put up migrants in hotels around New York City. Notably, President Donald Trump’s administration rescinded that initiative on Tuesday.
New York Post noted, however, that the funding segments were listed as “obligated spending,” meaning that not all of the money has been doled out yet.
OpenTheBooks, meanwhile, pointed out that the big payday came as ORR expanded migrants’ access to legal counsel and did away with the necessity for noncitizens to become economically self-sufficient “as quickly as possible.”
The watchdog organization also pointed out that Church World Services and the International Rescue Committee were two of the top groups that received funds over the last four years.
Strikingly, since 2020, Church World Services bagged $355 million in grants, while the International Rescue Committee netted $598 million.
Interestingly, Robin Dunn Marcos — a senior HHS official who oversaw ORR program during some of that time — previously worked at both Church World Services and the International Rescue Committee for more than 30 years combined, a revelation that OpenTheBooks said represents a conflict of interest.
In a June 2023 testimony to House lawmakers, Dunn Marcos admitted that her office was not even conducting criminal background checks on migrant juveniles, who subsequently became ORR’s most costly recipients of taxpayer funds.
Dunn Marcos appears to have left government service after President Trump’s January 20 inauguration, a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request submitted by OpenTheBooks suggests.
“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,” OpenTheBooks said.
“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,” the organization added.
Alana Mastrangelo is a reporter for Breitbart News. You can follow her on Facebook and X at @ARmastrangelo, and on Instagram.