Biden admin spent $20 billion on cars, home loans, other services for migrants: report

The taxpayer-funded assistance was used to help purchase cars, homes, as well as loans for start-up businesses among other services in the United States, according to the New York Post. The Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) at HHS handed out around $20 billion to nonprofits and NGOs in the fiscal years of 2021-2024 in what the outlet said was a "giant magnet" for those crossing the border and claiming asylum. The data was given to the outlet by OpenTheBooks.

In fiscal year 2021, $2.3 billion was sent out the door, followed by $3.3 billion in 2022, $10 billion in 2023, and $4.2 billion in 2024. The funding is obligated spending, meaning that not all the funds have been disbursed, but are set to be.

The ORR was tasked with resettling migrants claiming asylum as well as refugees coming to the United States. The Biden administration drastically increased the number of migrants that were able to get funding from ORR, and over $10 billion was spent on grants in 2023 alone to manage the influx of foreign nationals.

NGOs received up to $1.7 billion in order to shell out payments for cars, homes, college tuition, as well as start-up business loans up to $15,000. Medicaid care, "emergency housing support," and many other services were offered by these organizations to migrants, using money given out by the ORR. However, most of the funds were going to place unaccompanied migrant children, with $12.4 billion being obligated over the last five years. This amount of spending was going on despite nearly 300,000 children going to sponsors that were unvetted, according to the outlet.

OpenTheBooks CEO John Hart told the Post, “The Shining City on a Hill, with its walls and doors, makes room for legal immigrants and legitimate refugees and asylum seekers, but the ORR has made a mockery of that vision in recent years."

“ORR is part of a troubling trend of using nonprofit groups as ideological proxies. Vast sums are being outsourced to evade accountability and prop up an immoral, exploitive system that is hurtful to both American citizens and people in other countries who are longing for a better life," the watchdog group added.

Hart slammed the ORR as well as Robin Dunn Marcos, whos served in the Administration for Children and Families, the parent office for ORR. Dunn left as President Donald Trump was inaugurated in January.

"While Dunn Marcos may have disappeared from ORR, our questions remain over whether certain nonprofit organizations received special treatment amid the billions in grants furnished by the government office,” Hart said. “What’s clear is that ORR has funded a constellation of NGOs deployed in border states and nationwide, who give out aid designed to attract even more migrant."