The Patriot Post® · NGOs Cashing in on the Border Crisis

The invasion at the southern border is a masterclass in human trafficking and federal negligence. Millions of people have poured across the open border since President Joe Biden took office. It’s a tragedy and a travesty, but one of the worst aspects of this permitted invasion is the vast number of unaccompanied minors who are not only abused on their journey to the U.S. but who are funneled into even more nefarious forms of trafficking once here.

The Free Press reports on a particularly disturbing aspect of the plight of these unaccompanied minors — namely, non-governmental organizations that are cashing in and further facilitating a cycle of harm. These nonprofit NGOs are basically subcontracted by the government with the task of resettling these children. Charles Marino, former Obama DHS adviser, says: “The amount of taxpayer money they are getting is obscene. We’re going to find that the waste, fraud, and abuse of taxpayer money will rival what we saw with the Covid federal money.”

If the amount of waste and fraud is at COVID levels, then heads should roll.

The Free Press focused its investigation on three of the largest NGOs: Endeavors, Inc., Global Refuge, and Southwest Key Programs. It found that each organization received an astronomical influx of government funding, and the use of that funding was questionable.

Each CEO makes between half a million and a million dollars a year.

Endeavors, Inc. — which gets 99.6% of its revenue from the government — shows abundant evidence of waste. It provides pet, plant, and music therapy for the migrant children. One of the music therapists it employs made $533,000 in 2021. To put this in perspective, the national average income of a music therapist is $86,000, according to Glassdoor.com.

Global Refuge — an organization that houses migrant children and facilitates adoptions — also has a somewhat troubling financial track record. In 2019, it was able to house 2,591 minors with a total expenditure of $30 million. In 2022, it served only 1,443 minors and yet spent $82.5 million. In other words, Global Refuge had about half the children and almost triple the expense. Inflation is bad, but this seems fishy.

The CEO of Southwest Key Programs paid himself $1 million in 2022 and is the highest-paid of the trio. According to The Free Press: “Despite a number of scandals in the recent past, including misuse of federal funds and several instances of employees sexually abusing some of the children in its care, Southwest Key continues to operate — and rake in big government checks. In 2020, the year of Covid-19, its government grant was $391 million; by 2022, its contract was nearly $790 million.”

These NGOs and others are raking in government grants dolled out by Health and Human Services’s Office of Refugee Resettlement. Besides the massive amount of taxpayer money being wasted through them, the other problems associated with the rehoming of these minors are exacerbated. There is little to no oversight put in place to protect them. Moreover, the goal is to get them processed and released as quickly as possible. That means the likelihood of them being placed with bad actors, traffickers, and exploiters is higher.

Yet the cycle will continue on both sides of the open border. On the Mexican side, the cartels won’t stop because they rake in tens of millions of dollars a week. On the American side, the NGOs will continue to obtain government funding to the collective tune of billions. It’s a lose-lose for American taxpayers and for the illegal immigrants who are exploited.