Illegal migrants do not stop crossing the border daily and neither does the flow of money wasted to address the problem, according to a recent report that investigates the use of taxpayer money by the Biden Administration.
According to auditors at the watchdog group Open the Books, the federal government spent nearly $20 billion in taxpayer dollars on refugee resettlement programs over the past two years, a figure that skyrocketed under President Joe Biden.
These multimillion-dollar funds were allocated to the Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR), controlled by the Administration for Children and Families of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).
The report shows that ORR received $8.93 billion in funding in fiscal year 2022, a shocking figure compared to the $2.6 billion allocated to the office in 2021.
Although a record amount of funds were delivered in 2022, in 2023, the allocated budget increased even more to $10.93 billion.
According to the watchdog group, grants awarded to the office are intended for people with the following legal status: asylees, refugees, torture survivors, trafficking victims, special immigrant visa holders, and entrants from Cuba and Haiti.
“The grants cover a wide variety of programs, such as the Individual Development Accounts program, which helps eligible people save for asset purchases like a car or a house, and the Refugee Microenterprise Development program, which helps qualified people build credit through business and personal loans,” the watchdog group’s report reads.
Open the Books auditors questioned the Biden Administration because these resources generate a strong attraction for people from other countries to choose the United States to migrate illegally, seeking refugee status.
The group criticizes that the increase in funds comes at a time when the border crisis has not eased but instead is exploding and overwhelming the response capacity of federal and state authorities.
“Potential migrants from an ever-broader range of countries are trying to enter the country by any means necessary,” explained Open the Books founder and CEO Adam Andrzejewski. “The news traveling back home is: come to America. Entry is easy and the benefits are aplenty once you’ve arrived. The grantmaking in particular is a powerful magnet for more people to keep flooding our borders; who would turn down not just a free lunch but a leg up on a new life?”
“This is creating an endless flow of people seeking help with anything from travel to health care to loans,” Andrzejewski said. “By extending so many benefits, we are creating an endless spiral of spending – and the pain can be felt everywhere from hospitals, to schools to shelters across the country.”
