A recent watchdog report has brought to light a significant allocation of funds by a senior official in the Biden administration's Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to nonprofits with which she has previous affiliations.
Robin Dunn Marcos, who served as the head of the Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) under President Joe Biden, was responsible for overseeing the distribution of $22.6 billion in grants since 2020. Notably, her former employers were among the primary recipients of these funds.
According to the Daily Caller, the International Rescue Committee (IRC), where Dunn Marcos held a senior director position for 23 years, received $598 million. Meanwhile, Church World Service, another organization she was associated with for four years, was awarded $355 million.
Despite assurances from HHS officials that Dunn Marcos adhered to an ethics pledge requiring her to recuse herself from matters involving her former employers, the report by OpenTheBooks highlighted a substantial increase in funding for IRC during her tenure. Specifically, IRC's funding surged from $22 million in fiscal year 2021 to over $235 million in 2023.
The ORR, through a network of nonprofit organizations, has been providing a wide range of benefits to migrants. These include matching savings plans for vehicle and home purchases, small business loans up to $15,000, and credit repair loans up to $1,500. Additionally, services such as cultural orientation, emergency housing support, legal assistance, and Medicaid care are offered. The OpenTheBooks report described these programs as a "giant magnet for those seeking to cross the border and claim asylum."
During Dunn Marcos' leadership, ORR's funding saw a dramatic increase, with annual grant disbursements rising from $2.6 billion in fiscal year 2020 to a peak of $10 billion in fiscal year 2023. This escalation in spending occurred alongside record-breaking southern border crossings, with Customs and Border Protection reporting 2.4 million apprehensions during the same timeframe.
A significant portion of the funding, amounting to $12.4 billion, was allocated to programs for unaccompanied minor children. However, the agency faced criticism for its handling of minors, with Tom Homan, President Donald Trump's border czar, estimating that 300,000 migrant children were unaccounted for under the program's supervision, as he stated in a January 2023 interview with Fox News.
OpenTheBooks has filed a Freedom of Information Act request seeking any email correspondence between Dunn Marcos and IRC, but a response has yet to be received. Dunn Marcos departed from her role at ORR following the inauguration of President Trump in January. This report emerges in the wake of the Trump administration's recent recovery of over $80 million that the Federal Emergency Management Agency had been using to accommodate migrants in luxury hotels in New York City.
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