A CIS examination of one subset of 200-plus NGOs helping a mammoth UN-led immigration assistance project reveals pass-through taxpayer funding of the worst mass migration in U.S. history
AUSTIN, Texas — As the Center for Immigration Studies recently reported, a United Nations-led “Regional Refugee and Migrant Response Plan (RMRP)” calls for more than 200 nonprofit groups to dole out $1.6 billion in cash debit cards, food, clothing, medical treatment, shelter, and even “humanitarian transportation” during 2024 to millions of U.S.-bound immigrants in 17 Latin American nations and Mexico.
But suspicions that the administration of President Joe Biden is directly footing the bill for at least part of facilitating the most voluminous mass migration crisis in U.S. history, now in its fourth straight year, can now be confirmed.
A follow-up CIS examination of the more than 30 faith-based nonprofits among those UN NGO partners — representing Jewish, Lutheran, Seventh Day Adventist, Catholic, and nondenominational evangelical organizations — shows that the U.S. State Department’s Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration (PRM) and the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) have been mainlining taxpayer funds to these groups, which then distribute them to keep hundreds of thousands of migrants comfortably moving toward illegal U.S. southern border crossings.
HIAS. A prime example is the self-described “Jewish American” nonprofit organization HIAS of Silver Spring, Md. (incorporated in 1903 as the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society), which has pledged $17.1 million in aid to immigrants in at least seven Latin American nations during 2024, the UN’s RMRP planning documents show. It turns out that in FY 2022, 47 percent of revenue reported by HIAS came as grants from government agencies, the majority from the State Department, but some also from the Department of Homeland Security, according to the group’s tax filings and other sources, with the balance coming from a mix of major corporate sponsors and other sources.
But there can be little question about the origins and purpose of at least some of HIAS’s $17 million pledge to the UN’s Latin America migrant trails project. Last year, the State Department’s PRM gave HIAS a $6 million grant for it, according to USAspending.gov, a database that tracks federal spending.
The first infusions of another $5.2 million State Department PRM grant to HIAS this year — explicitly for the UN endeavor in Latin America — started arriving in September 2023 with the last of it to come in September of this year, according to USAspending.gov.
All $11 million was earmarked to HIAS by the State Department’s overseas refugee assistance programs for the Western Hemisphere, which the UN plan aims to support through “direct emergency humanitarian assistance such as food, non-food items, shelter, health, psychosocial support” in major migration transit countries like Colombia, Ecuador, and Peru.
A UN “activity explorer” database of the participating NGOs shows that some $6.1 million of 2024’s HIAS commitment will go out as cash cards, cash vouchers, and cash in-kind services while most of the rest goes to humanitarian transportation, food, shelter, and various services.
By Todd Bensman
