CASH FOR MIGRANTS
Thursday, February 13th, 2025
CASH FOR MIGRANTS: FEMA NOT THE ONLY AGENCY SPENDING BIG
The Office of Refugee Resettlement has faced questions over transparency, conflict of interest.
Elon Musk reported that the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) spent $59 million last week alone – all on immigrants in New York City. Part of that was for housing, including luxury properties like The Row and The Watson, meant for tourists headed to see the marquees of Broadway. (Later the feds clawed back $80M from the city).
Open the Books previously reported that FEMA had an enormous $8 billion shortfall in its Disaster Relief Fund following the catastrophic damage of Hurricane Helene.
Well, FEMA is not the only agency that’s been spending gobs of taxpayer dollars on the immigration crisis. Programs span various agencies.
Included is the Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR), housed inside the Department of Health and Human Services subagency called the Administration for Children and Families.
ORR has spent over $22.6 BILLION since 2020 on grants to nonprofits providing everything from help accessing Medicaid to help building credit, help with home and auto loans, and cash assistance. Yes, cold hard cash!
WHAT IS ORR?
While Department of Homeland Security is often thought of as the main agency in charge of migration policy and spending in the United States, ORR spends tens of billions a year setting up refugees in the United States. Programmatic activities had a focus on, but were not exclusive to, unaccompanied children.
As Open the Books previously reported, one ORR program helped participants save for car and home purchases, another gave out business and personal loans to help them build credit. Another program helped with “legal assistance,” “cultural orientation,” and “emergency housing support.”
These acted as giant magnets for those seeking to cross the border and claim asylum.
As spending from ORR exploded, Open the Books also identified instances where the agency was expanding the scope of criteria for individuals eligible for its funding. For example, in its 2023 Congressional Budget Justification, the agency suggested the following changes to expand its mandate:
- Advocating that “Special Immigrant Juvenile Minors” within the “Unaccompanied Refugee Minor” (URM) program access the same benefits as refugees, which include access to Medicaid and the same foster care services as American children.
- Expanding legal assistance to Ukrainian and Afghan children and other URM-designated youth to legal assistance ensuring permanent residency.
- Giving cash assistance to full-time college or technical school student refugees.
- Removing the need for refugees to obtain economic self-sufficiency “as quickly as possible.”
Total amount of new grants awarded by ORR, from FY 2020-2024
2020: $2,682,493,224.22
2021: $2,352,120,351.54
2022: $3,378,055,499.50
2023: $10,035,487,466.68
2024: $4,207,541,746.00
