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State Dept. Redacts Big Chunks of $22.8 Mil Contract to Resettle Muslim Refugees
MAY 24, 2017
The U.S. government spends billions of dollars to “resettle” foreign
nationals and transparency on how the money is spent depends on the
agency involved. Judicial Watch has been investigating it for years,
specifically the huge amount of taxpayer dollars that go to “voluntary
agencies”, known as VOLAGs, to provide a wide range of services for the
new arrivals. Throughout the ongoing probe Judicial Watch has found a
striking difference on how government lawyers use an exemption,
officially known as (b)(4), to the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) to
withhold records. All the cases involve public funds being used to
resettle foreigners on U.S. soil and Americans should be entitled to the
records.
The (b)(4) exemption permits agencies to withhold trade secrets and
commercial or financial information obtained from a person which is
privileged or confidential. Depending on the government agency and the
mood of the taxpayer-funded lawyers handling public records requests,
that information is exempt from disclosure. In these cases, the
Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) disclosed a VOLAG contract
to resettle tens of thousands of Unaccompanied Alien Children (UAC)
that entered the U.S. through Mexico under the Obama administration
while the State Department withheld large portions of a one-year, $22.8
million deal to resettle refugees from Muslim countries. Most of the
UACs came from El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala and the Obama
administration blamed the sudden surge on violence in the three central
American nations. The agency responsible for resettling the minors and
issuing contracts
for the costly services is HHS.
As a result of Judicial Watch’s work HHS furnished records
with virtually nothing redacted. Disclosed were employee salaries of
VOLAGs contracted by the agency to provide services for the illegal
immigrant minors, the cost of laptops, big screen TVs, food, pregnancy
tests, “multicultural crayons” and shower stalls for the new arrivals.
The general contract was to provide “basic shelter care” for
2,400
minors for a period of four months in 2014. This cost American taxpayers
an astounding $182,129,786 and the VOLAG contracted to do it was
government regular called Baptist Children and Family Services (BCFS).
The breakdown includes charges of $104,215,608 for UACs at Fort Sill,
Oklahoma and an additional $77,914,178 for UACs at Lackland Air Force
Base in San Antonio, Texas.
HHS rightfully provided all sorts of details in the records, including
the cost of emergency surge beds ($104,215,608) for just four months;
food for the illegal alien minors and staff ($18,198,000); medical
supplies such as first aid kits, latex gloves, lice shampoo and
pregnancy tests ($1,120,400); recreation items such as board games,
soccer balls and jump ropes ($180,000); educational items like art paper
and multicultural crayons ($180,000); laptops ($200,000) and cellphones
($160,000). Hotel accommodations for the BCFS staff was $6,765,000, the
records show, and the salary for a 30-member “Incident Management Team”
was $2,648,800, which breaks down to $88,293 per IMT member for the
four-month period. It was outrageous that the Obama administration spent
nearly $200 million of taxpayer funds to provide illegal alien children
with the types of extravagant high-tech equipment and lavish benefits
many
American families cannot even afford for their own children.
This has become a heated issue for the government which may explain why
other agencies aren’t as forthcoming in providing specific figures,
thus abusing the (b)(4) exemption. The State Department, for instance,
redacted huge portions of records involving contracts with VOLAGs to
resettle refugees from mostly Muslim countries. The files illustrate the
disparate redaction treatment given by different government agencies to
the same types of records. The State Department paid a VOLAG called
United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) a ghastly
$22,838,173 in one year to resettle refugees that came mostly from
Muslim countries. Unlike HHS, the agency redacted information related to
what the USCCB charged the government for things like furniture,
personnel, equipment and other costs associated with contracts to
resettle refugees. Why did one government agency hand over the same
types of records that another agency claims are trade secrets? Judicial
Watch is challenging the State Department’s (b)(4) exemption and will
provide updates as they become available.
HHS and the State Department work with nine VOLAGs to resettle refugees
and the voluntary agencies have hundreds of contractors they like to
call “affiliates.” It’s a huge racket that costs American taxpayers
monstrous sums and Judicial Watch is working to pinpoint the exact
amount. Besides BCFS and USCCB, other VOLAGs with lucrative government
gigs to resettle refugees are: Church World Service, Ethiopian Community
Development Council, Episcopal Migration Ministries, Hebrew Immigrant
Aid Society, International Rescue Committee, U.S. Committee for Refugees
and Immigrants, Lutheran Immigration Refugee Services and World Relief
Corporation.
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