Exclusive | House panel demands records of 217 NGOs that nabbed billions of taxpayer dollars to fuel border crisis

WASHINGTON — A House Republican panel is demanding records from more than 200 non-governmental organizations that nabbed billions of dollars in taxpayers’ money to settle migrants in the US under ex-President Joe Biden.One of the targeted groups is among those embroiled in the anti-ICE protests in Los Angeles.House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Mark Green (R-Tenn.) and Subcommittee Chairman Josh Breechen (R-Okla.) fired off letters to the 217 organizations Tuesday, accusing each of having “helped fuel the worst border crisis in our nation’s history.”The powerful Republican chairman and Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee leader said the groups created a “pull factor” in providing taxpayer-funded transportation, translation, housing and other services to migrants, most of whom were released into the country after crossing the border illegally.“The Committee remains deeply concerned that NGOs that receive U.S.taxpayer dollars benefitted from the border crisis created by the Biden Administration, and stand ready to do so under future Democrat administrations,” Green and Breechen wrote, citing a “near-total lack of accountability” for how the money was spent.They also noted that they are investigating how much the funding incentivized “human trafficking and smuggling” operations as well as whether the “NGOs are now actively advising illegal aliens on how to avoid and impede law enforcement officials.”One of the groups, the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights (CHIRLA), took nearly $1 million in DHS grants to “offer both citizenship instruction and naturalization application services to lawful permanent residents” starting in 2021.

Its last tranche of funding was yanked by the Trump administration in March.CHIRLA organized a rally Thursday to denounce the ICE arrests of illegal immigrants in Los Angeles before protests devolved into full-blown riots that destroyed property and led to the assaults of federal law enforcement...