NGOs Are Getting Rich Off the Crisis at the Border

One of the more distressing statistics about the border crisis is the large number of "unaccompanied minors" that somehow made it to the U.S. border. Some were guided by coyotes, while others hoofed it across the desert with friends and relatives. 

According to the Department of Health and Human Services, which funds the Unaccompanied Children Program (UCP), more than 130,000 children crossed the border in 2022. The government is responsible for caring for these minors as well as resettling them.

And most of that money went to three nonprofit groups: Global Refuge, Southwest Key Programs, and Endeavors, Inc. According to The Free Press, "the combined revenue from the three NGOs grew from $597 million in 2019 to an astonishing $2 billion by 2022."

It's like COVID all over again.

“The amount of taxpayer money they are getting is obscene,” Charles Marino, former adviser to Janet Napolitano, the secretary of the Department of Homeland Security under Obama, said of the NGOs. “We’re going to find that the waste, fraud, and abuse of taxpayer money will rival what we saw with the Covid federal money.”

Waste and fraud? But the people getting this money are heroes! They are selfless workers who are tireless in helping these kids find a better life in America, right?

That's not entirely accurate. 

Some of the services NGOs provide are eyebrow-raising. For example, Endeavors uses taxpayer funds to offer migrant children “pet therapy,” “horticulture therapy,” and music therapy. In 2021 alone, Endeavors paid Christy Merrell, a music therapist, $533,000. An internal Endeavors PowerPoint obtained by America First Legal, an outfit founded by former Trump aide Stephen Miller, showed that the nonprofit conducted 1,656 “people-plant interactions” and 287 pet therapy sessions between April 2021 and March 2023. 

Endeavors paid "$4.6 million for “consulting services,” $1.4 million to attend conferences, and $700,000 on lobbyists," according to the article. 

The Administration for Children and Families, a division of HHS, funds the nonprofits through its Office of Refugee Resettlement, whose budget has ballooned from $1.8 billion in 2018 to $6.3 billion in 2023.

We've already seen where the nonprofits are putting some of this cash. Pet therapy and horticulture therapy are, I'm sure, very beneficial for the children as they are resettled in the United States. But, not surprisingly, a lot of that money goes to line the pockets of NGO CEOs. "The CEOs of all three nonprofits reap more than $500,000 each in annual compensation, with one of them—the chief executive of Southwest Key—making more than $1 million," according to the Free Press article. 

But while it’s true the number of migrants has exploded in recent years, critics say these enormous federal grants far exceed the current need. The facilities themselves are generally owned by private companies and are leased to the NGOs, which house the unaccompanied minors and attempt to unite them with family members or, if that’s not possible, people who will take care of them—their so-called sponsors. The ORR does not publicly list the specific number of shelters it funds in its efforts to house migrants, a business The New York Times once described as “lucrative” and “secretive.” 

And a scam, the Times should have added. 

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In 2019, Global Refuge housed 2,591 unaccompanied children while spending $30 million. Three years later, the NGO reported that it housed 1,443 unaccompanied children at a cost of $82.5 million—almost half the number of migrants for more than double the money.

Congress has asked for an accounting but, of course, HHS says, in essence, "We'll get back to you." Along with the possible half-trillion in COVID waste and fraud, this administration will easily set the record for the most mismanaged crises in U.S. history.

It didn't have to be like this. And that's the tragedy for taxpayers.