Posted on Wednesday, February 12, 2025

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by Outside Contributor

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Did you know that your tax dollars have been propping up a system of nonprofit organizations that house and transport illegal aliens across the country? President Donald Trump has paused some of the programs that propped up that system, and now those nonprofits are taking him to court.

HIAS (formerly Hebrew Immigrant Aid Services) and Church World Service—two faith-based nonprofits that receive federal grants and oppose efforts to enforce immigration law—filed a lawsuit Monday aiming to block Trump’s order pausing the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program.

The lawsuit admits that Trump’s action has essentially defunded what I call the Immigration Industrial Complex—and left them struggling to pay their bills.

“In the meantime, Plaintiffs HIAS Inc. and Church World Service Inc.—national faith-based nonprofit organizations that receive a majority of their funding from the federal government—are already struggling to keep their lights on and their staff employed, let alone continue to serve the vulnerable refugees at the core of their missions,” the lawsuit states.

The Immigration Industrial Complex

As I explain in my book “The Woketopus: The Dark Money Cabal Manipulating the Federal Government,” HIAS and Church World Service helped abet the border crisis by transporting illegal aliens across the country—paid for by your tax dollars.

Alejandro Mayorkas, then-secretary of the Department of Homeland Security under then-President Joe Biden, went from assistant DHS secretary under President Barack Obama to the board of HIAS during the first Trump administration. In an April 2022 memorandum, Mayorkas listed groups like HIAS as part of his border security plan. In that plan, “Border Security Pillar 4” involves “bolstering the capacity of non-governmental organizations to receive noncitizens after they have been processed by [Customs and Border Protection] and are awaiting the results of their immigration removal proceedings.”

Both HIAS and Church World Service lobbied against the border security legislation HR 2 in 2023.

As I note in the book, HIAS received 33% of its total revenues in 2021 from the State Department and the Department of Health and Human Services. Church World Service, meanwhile, received $20.5 million in government grants in the year ending in June 2022, about 40% of its $51 million in total assets.

Church World Service received $25,000 from Sixteen Thirty Fund, one of the left-leaning nonprofits founded by the for-profit company Arabella Advisors. The Sixteen Thirty Fund forms a part of what I call the Left’s dark money funding network—a series of nonprofits that fund the “Woketopus,” the woke activist groups that staffed and advised the Biden administration.

Church World Service has urged Americans to contact their representatives in Congress, pressuring them to support $4.447 billion for the Migration and Refugee Assistance program—a program from which Church World Service received $28 million between November 2022 and September 2023.

When approached for comment about the claims in my book, Church World Service emphasized that funding from the Migration and Refugee Assistance account only funds refugees resettled under the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program, and the “individuals arriving in the U.S. via these programs are in the United States lawfully, having been granted admission from the U.S. Government following rigorous vetting.”

Church World Service did not address the grants it receives through other programs that are eligible to fund the transportation of illegal aliens, such as the “Unaccompanied Alien Children Program” run through the Administration for Children and Families in the Department of Health and Human Services.

Lora Ries, director of The Heritage Foundation’s Border Security and Immigration Center, countered that “the Left has greatly watered down the standards to grant refugee status to economic migrants who make weak claims of fear from ineligible conditions like general crime, civil strife, and climate change.”

“Our refugee system has strayed significantly from what the U.S. committed to following World War II,” Ries added. “We need to return to a system with integrity, not use resettlement as just another pathway to bring more aliens into the U.S.”

All these funds and programs are separate from the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s efforts. According to Elon Musk, the head of the Department of Government Efficiency, FEMA just last week spent $59 million to house illegal aliens in New York City hotels.

The Lawsuit

The lawsuit, Pacito v. Trump, seeks an injunction to block Trump’s executive order suspending the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program.

The order notes that the U.S. “has been inundated with record levels of migration” over the past four years, causing even major cities to declare states of emergency and seek federal assistance to “manage the burden of new arrivals.” The order suspends the refugee program “until such time as the further entry into the United States of refugees aligns with the interests of the United States.”

In the lawsuit, HIAS and Church World Service joined with nine individuals who stood to benefit from the refugee program and Lutheran Community Services Northwest, another nonprofit that helps resettle refugees. Those plaintiffs are suing Trump, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, and acting Secretary of Health and Human Services Dorothy Fink.

The plaintiffs claim the Trump administration violated the Refugee Act of 1980, which established the refugee program; that it violated the Administrative Procedure Act; that it violated the due process clause; and that it violated the separation of powers established by the Constitution.

Perkins Coie, the law firm that infamously hired Fusion GPS to compile the dossier suggesting that Trump had been a Russian asset, is representing the Immigration Industrial Complex in the lawsuit. The International Refugee Assistance Project is also representing the plaintiffs.

Tyler O’Neil is managing editor of The Daily Signal and the author of two books: “Making Hate Pay: The Corruption of the Southern Poverty Law Center,” and “The Woketopus: The Dark Money Cabal Manipulating the Federal Government.”

Reprinted with permission from The Daily Signal – By Tyler O’Neil

The opinions expressed by columnists are their own and do not necessarily represent the views of AMAC or AMAC Action.