Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) is doing some digital archeology into the dark closet of federal spending, and the skeletons they’re turning up aren’t pretty.
I’ve been writing for over two years about the Biden administration’s use of taxpayer money to facilitate illegal immigration. But I won’t complain about headlines like “Elon Musk said DOGE uncovered $59 million in payments for luxury hotels”—even if Musk’s work was more to “publicize” than to “uncover.”
Thanks to Biden’s open border and mass parole programs, millions of aliens entered the U.S. border illegally over the past four years. Over the same timeframe, Congress granted $31 billion to the Department of Health and Human Services to provide housing, medical and legal services to these aliens.
But the Biden administration also actively worked to facilitate mass migration using the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA)—whose mission is to help disaster-stricken Americans, not aid illegal aliens.
Via the Department of Homeland Security, the Biden administration channeled billions to FEMA, which in turn granted states, cities and nonprofits money to transport, house and care for illegal aliens.
From FY2021 to FY2024, Congress gave FEMA’s Shelter and Services Program $2.2 billion for “nonprofits and local entities to provide support to noncitizens released from DHS custody.” This means “to pay for illegal aliens released at the border.”
In 2024 alone, FEMA set aside $640.9 million in Shelter and Services grants “to enable non-federal entities to off-set allowable costs incurred for services associated with noncitizen migrant arrivals in their communities.” The top recipients were Denver; Washington, D.C.; Chicago; Massachusetts; New York; and Philadelphia—Democrat-run states and cities with “sanctuary” policies offering free housing and services to illegal aliens.
Biden also used the Emergency Food and Shelter Program (a FEMA grant program authorized in 1987 to help homeless veterans) to pipe another billion dollars into housing illegal immigrants. The $59 million DOGE just flagged was doled out as part of one FEMA grant to house illegal aliens in New York City in more than 200 jerry-rigged shelters that included formerly luxurious hotels like the Roosevelt.
This isn’t an anomaly. It’s just the latest payment in a four-year federal subsidy of sanctuary cities. And these FEMA grants are just one tool among many used by the Biden administration to fund an unauthorized, taxpayer-funded mass migration system.
Officially, refugees who have been vetted and selected are supposed to enter the U.S. through the congressionally authorized U.S. Refugee Admissions Program (USRAP).
Funded by the U.S. government, USRAP already had a network of NGOs and charities such as Catholic Charities, Jewish Family Services, and Lutheran Refugee and Immigrant Services. Traditionally, these NGOs were paid to help bring in and resettle a fairly small annual number of refugees.
The Biden administration took this existing NGO pipeline and supercharged it with billions of dollars of federal money, and these charities went from handling tens of thousands of cases per year to millions through many different channels and programs.
In November 2024, retired Border Patrol officer J.J. Carrell told a flabbergasted House Homeland Security Committee that DHS was cutting checks for $600 million to Jewish Family Services alone every three months that year.
Similarly, the government granted over $550 million to various Lutheran charities in FY2024, most of it for migration. Catholic Charities USA received $1.4 billion in federal grants in 2021 alone.
Much of these taxpayer dollars went directly to the task of importing illegal aliens.
Americans have seen the consequences of wide-open borders but might not have focused on the fact that it was done with their money. DOGE’s candlepower can enlighten them.
Reprinted with permission from The Heritage Foundation by Simon Hankinson.
The opinions expressed by columnists are their own and do not necessarily represent the views of AMAC or AMAC Action.
Everything the federal government does is done with taxpayer dollars. When the federal government is handing out hundreds of billions of dollars, over a four-year period, to tens of thousands of NGOs of questionable validity, one should expect something either unlawful or at least highly questionable is being done with the intention of masking said activity from public scrutiny. Or at least the percentage of the public that can’t figure this whole scheme out.
When the illegal aliens started streaming into this country within hours of Biden being sworn in, many wearing brand new tee shirts emblazoned with Biden on the front, it shouldn’t have taken very long to figure out a coordinated effort was engineered between the Democrat Party, the incoming Biden administration and the hundreds of well-staffed and well-funded NGOs operating south of our own border in Mexico and other South American countries to arrange for the care, feeding, clothing and transport of illegal aliens to our southern border.
That the American people decided to sit by for 4 long years, as upwards of 20 million illegal aliens streamed non-stop into our country was truly amazing and eye opening. We allowed an invasion force to literally walk into our country for 4 long years while useful tools like Biden and Mayorkis lied non-stop and claimed nothing is wrong and the border is secure. Where we continued to spend hundreds of billions more to house, feed and care for these people, who ultimately contributed nothing to this country.
One would hope the American people have learned something at this point and they wouldn’t repeat the same costly mistake a second time. Maybe or maybe not.
Illegal anyone should not be entitled to American tax payers money. Where was FEMA when real Americans were in need? Consequences should be mandatory for those bureaucrats who commit fraud otherwise there’s nothing to keep them from doing it and they know it.
Informative article, but without the consequence, what is it’s point? We know that Biden handler is a crook.
the us is being destroyed by extremist turkeys, on one side there’s nutty progressives and on the other there’s just as nutty maga, they are very similar, both have an extreme appetite for attention and both want to shove their so called values onto others, i wish progressives and maga would just go away
so sick of aoc and the squad and the rest of the progressive caucus, absolutely tired of trump and musk and mtg the freedom caucus
the more a politician makes the news, the worse they are, the good ones go to washington and quietly get things done, the bad ones always want attention and post multiple times a day on social media
maga and progressives feed off each other in the most pathetic ways and are no good attention seekers
term limits need to happen too at all levels, no more career politicians
a big idea would be to upgrade the immigration system, make a decision in a year or two, yes you can stay and become a citizen, or no you will be deported, the current system is terrible and nobody understands it including many experts
we need to stop having the elderly who are losing their minds make all of the decisions, when a politician turns 80, they need to be made to retire immediately
look at what happened with biden and pelosi and feinstein and now with trump who would be able to keep office until june of next year, then jd vance would take over, its good for america
there’s a better way to reduce crime, now don’t get angry but we have to do something
no restrictions on firearms
limit the amount of ammo bought to 2 bullets per firearm owned per month
it will not infringe on the 2nd amendment but it will prevent many mass shootings, a win win if you ask me, we should at least try