Border crisis charities are getting huge government grants and spending them on music therapy sessions and “people-plant interactions” for migrants and $1m salaries for staff, according to a new report.
Several nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) which run shelters in the border states of Texas, Arizona, and California are federally funded by the Unaccompanied Children Program to resettle migrant minors who enter the US alone.
According to The Free Press, these organizations are getting rich off the contracts, with the combined revenue of the top three growing from $597 million in 2019 to a whopping $2 billion by 2022, the most recent federal disclosure documents available.
The three NGOs are named as Global Refuge, Southwest Key Programs, and Endeavors, Inc.
The report claims Endeavors uses taxpayer funds to offer migrant children “pet therapy,” “horticulture therapy,” and music therapy.
In 2021, Endeavors paid music therapist Christy Merrell $533,000, the outlet reported.
An internal Endeavors PowerPoint obtained by America First Legal, founded by former Donald Trump aide Stephen Miller, showed the nonprofit conducted 1,656 “people-plant interactions” and 287 pet therapy sessions between April 2021 and March 2023.
The Post has reached out to Endeavors and the other two NGO’s for comment but they did not immediately respond.
Furthermore, the CEOs of the nonprofits each rake in more than $500,000 per year, with the chief executive of Southwest Key earning a salary of more than $1 million, according to The Free Press.
“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 President Obama, said of the NGOs, according to the outlet.
“We’re going to find that the waste, fraud, and abuse of taxpayer money will rival what we saw with the Covid federal money,” he added; referring to pandemic funds, of which $123 billion was either wasted or misspent.
The Administration for Children and Families, a division of the US Department of Health & Human Services (HHS), funds the nonprofits through its Office of Refugee Resettlement.
As the migrant crisis has worsened and millions have flooded over the borders, its budget has exploded — from $1.8 billion in 2018 to $6.3 billion in 2023, according to HHS.
The ORR is expected to spend at least $7.3 billion this year — the majority of which will be funneled to NGOs and other contractors.
“What is new under Biden is the amount of taxpayer money being awarded, the lack of accountability for performance, and the lack of interest in solving the problem,” Jessica Vaughan, director of policy studies at the Center for Immigration Studies, told The Free Press.
The ORR has a legal obligation to house unaccompanied children without a legal immigration status until they turn 18 or can be released to a sponsor, typically a parent or another close relative living in the US.
The vast majority of minors received by the agency are migrant teenagers who say they crossed the US-Mexico border without their parents or legal guardians.
Nearly 400,000 unaccompanied children have crossed the southern border into the US since 2021, according to HHS data compiled by the New York Times.