Posted on Thursday, March 6, 2025
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by Hunter Oswald
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26 Comments
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In recent weeks, the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) along with several government watchdog groups have uncovered a growing mountain of waste, fraud, and abuse stemming from the unmitigated catastrophe at the U.S.-Mexico border during Joe Biden’s presidency. Just as conservatives warned, the Biden administration was using taxpayer dollars to line the pockets of left-wing NGOs and facilitating an all-out migrant invasion.
In one of the most shocking findings, a report from Open the Books uncovered that the Biden Department of Health and Human Services “spent $20 billion on cars, home loans, other services for migrants” through the Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR). In 2022, even as millions of American families were struggling under 40-year-high inflation, the Biden administration handed out $3.3 billion in taxpayer money to noncitizens.
Most of this money reportedly went toward helping unaccompanied minors. But as Fox News correspondent Brooke Taylor reported, ORR has faced criticism for “losing track of thousands of kids who never showed up to their court dates.” Government data shows that, as of last August, ORR had lost track of nearly 300,000 migrant children.
ORR also gave at least $1.7 billion to NGOs for “migrant services,” after which government officials had virtually no insight or accountability over how those funds were spent. Some of those NGOs provided “cultural orientation” for migrants, while others provided “emergency housing support,” “legal assistance,” and even small business loans of up to $15,000.
In another outrageous misallocation of taxpayer dollars, Elon Musk announced on X last month that DOGE had discovered that the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) had “sent $59M LAST WEEK to luxury hotels in New York City to house illegal migrants.” That funding was sent in direct violation of an executive order from President Donald Trump forbidding taxpayer funds from going to house migrants.
As many commentators on social media were quick to point out, FEMA’s disaster aid fund faced a $6.2 billion shortfall following Hurricane Helene last year that devastated the Southeast. But while taxpaying American citizens couldn’t get the aid they needed, leading many to be stranded out in the cold, Biden’s FEMA was apparently still doling out tens of millions of dollars to house illegal aliens. Four FEMA officials were fired over the $59 million payment for migrant hotels, and the Trump administration has initiated proceedings to claw back those funds.
While the full scope of Democrats’ border invasion spending spree is just now coming to light, the signs have been obvious for years.
In January 2024, for instance, the Center for Immigration Studies reported that the Biden administration was engaging in “pass-through taxpayer funding of the worst mass migration in U.S. history.” That report found that more than 200 nonprofits and NGOs as well as more than 30 faith-based charities had received billions of dollars through the State Department’s Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration (PRM) and the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) to effectively facilitate illegal immigration into the United States.
Even some officials within the Biden administration couldn’t ignore the egregious misuse of funds. In March 2023, the Office of the Inspector General for DHS issued a report acknowledging that “FEMA did not provide sufficient oversight” of funding outlays and couldn’t even tell where millions of dollars were being sent.
Thankfully, the Trump administration and congressional Republicans have begun to confront and reverse the Biden administration’s illegal immigration funding scheme. Trump has promised a significant overhaul of FEMA, Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem has announced that DHS is freezing all grants to NGOs that are knowingly facilitating illegal aliens into the United States, and Secretary of State Marco Rubio effectively dissolved USAID altogether.
Rep. Lance Gooden (R-TX) has also reintroduced the “Protecting Federal Funds from Human Trafficking and Smuggling Act,” which prevents NGOs and nonprofits from receiving any federal grants or contracts unless they have been properly vetted and certified by the Office of Management and Budget that they are not involved in human trafficking and are not offering taxpayer-funded benefits to illegal aliens.
If an NGO or nonprofit is found to be violating these requirements, they would lose their tax-exempt status under the bill’s provisions. Gooden’s legislation also requires DHS to provide a written strategy and best practices to ensure that nonprofits are in compliance.
In the Senate, Bill Hagerty (R-TN) has introduced the Fixing Exemptions for Networks Choosing to Enable Illegal Migration (FENCE) Act. Hagerty’s bill seeks to “revoke the tax-exempt status of organizations that engage in a consistent pattern of providing financial assistance, benefits, services, or other forms of material support to individuals they know to be unlawfully present in the United States.”
“It’s absurd that our federal government has been giving tax exemptions and federal funding to NGOs that have helped facilitate record illegal immigration and carry out the far-left’s agenda, while cloaked as charities,” said Senator Hagerty.
Though Democrats will undoubtedly try to fight Republican efforts to halt funding, their days of reaching into Americans’ pocketbooks to fund a border invasion look to have come to at least a temporary end.
Hunter Oswald is a Research Fellow for The American Spectator. He is an alum of Grove City College, where he graduated Cum Laude with a B.A. in Political Science. You can follow him on X @HunterOswald8
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