In the wake of Joe Biden's presidency, the border crisis has spiraled into a grotesque spectacle of profiteering, corruption, and human suffering. Under the guise of humanitarian aid, non-governmental organizations (NGOs) have transformed into billion-dollar enterprises, enriching themselves at the expense of American taxpayers and the vulnerable migrants they claim to serve. Let's delve into the sordid details of this reprehensible saga.
First on the list of shame is Global Refuge, a once-obscure NGO whose coffers have swelled to unimaginable proportions under Biden's watch. In just four years, their revenue ballooned from a paltry $50 million to a staggering $207 million, with the lion's share—$180 million—coming directly from government funds. While American families struggle to make ends meet, Global Refuge executives bask in opulence, their pockets lined with taxpayer dollars.
But Global Refuge is just the tip of the iceberg. Southwest Key Programs, despite a laundry list of scandals, saw its government contract nearly double from $391 million to almost $790 million in a mere two years. The very same organization embroiled in allegations of misuse of federal funds and employee misconduct continues to receive lavish payouts from the Biden administration, with CEO salaries soaring to exorbitant heights.
And then there's Endeavors, Inc., the crown jewel of corruption in Biden's border crisis. In 2022 alone, this NGO secured a mind-boggling $1.3 billion government contract—the largest sum ever granted to an NGO working at the border. While unaccompanied minors languish in overcrowded shelters, Endeavors executives rake in obscene profits, their wealth built on the backs of human misery.
But let's not forget the human cost of Biden's border betrayal. Amidst the chaos, unaccompanied minors are subjected to deplorable conditions and minimal oversight, leaving them vulnerable to abuse and exploitation. The very children whom these NGOs purport to protect are treated as pawns in a sickening game of greed and political expediency.
An illustration of this failure is the recent investigation by a grand jury empaneled by Florida Governor Ron DeSantis in 2022, which revealed how the Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) continually loosened its safety protocols.
This lax approach aimed to connect children with sponsors more quickly—but with far less due diligence. The investigation uncovered that in 2021 alone, 105 adults were discovered posing as unaccompanied children, including a 24-year-old Honduran male charged with murdering his sponsor in Jacksonville, Florida.
“We used to have DNA testing to make sure we had these family units,” Chris Clem, a recently retired Border Patrol officer, told The Free Press. But since the border crisis, the ORR has abandoned DNA testing, according to congressional testimony by the General Accountability Office. In 2021, ORR revised its rules so that public records checks for other adults living in a prospective sponsor’s home were no longer mandatory.
The human cost of these failures is staggering.
Tara Rodas, a government employee who was temporarily detailed to work at the California Pomona Fairplex Emergency Intake shelter in 2021, uncovered evidence of fraud within the sponsorship system. “Most of the sponsors have no legal presence in the U.S. I don’t know if I saw one U.S. ID,” said Rodas. “There were no criminal investigators at the site, and there was no access to see if sponsors had committed crimes in Guatemala, El Salvador, and Mexico.”
Last October, the ORR published a series of proposed changes to its regulations in the Federal Register that will effectively codify the more relaxed standards. The new regulations, which will go into effect in July, will allow background checks and verifying the validity of a sponsor’s identity—but wouldn’t require them. “It is mind-boggling that ORR has not seen fit to adjust the policies for (unaccompanied children) placements, except to make them more lenient,” Jessica Vaughan at the Center for Immigration Studies told The Free Press. “They could do a much better job, but they only want to streamline the process and make the releases even easier.” The Administration for Children and Families did not respond to emailed questions from The Free Press.
Deborah White, another federal employee temporarily detailed to the Pomona Fairplex facility in 2021, echoed these concerns: “Ultimately, the responsibility is on the government. But the oversight is obviously not adequate—from the contracting to the care of the children to the vetting of the sponsors. All of it is inadequate. The government blames the contractor and the contractor blames the government, and no one is held accountable.”
In conclusion, Biden's border crisis is not just a failure of policy—it is a moral abomination. It is a betrayal of American values, a betrayal of the vulnerable migrants seeking a better life, and a betrayal of every hardworking taxpayer forced to foot the bill for this grotesque charade. It is time to hold Biden and his administration accountable for their complicity in this shameful saga of corruption and cruelty.
