Immigration

Rep. Garcia shares biggest fear about border crisis

Published

1 year ago

May 17, 2021

Rep. Mike Garcia (R-CA) appeared on “The Sara Carter Show” podcast on Thursday to further discuss what he calls the “humanitarian crisis” at the border. This comes after Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas testified before the Senate Homeland Security Committee last week.

Garcia and Carter recently visited the Antelope Valley in Southern California and saw miles and miles of warehouses and pot farms that stood as testaments to President Biden’s border policy failures. While it is legal under the right regulations to grow marijuana in California, these were illegal farms and reportedly run by the cartels.

Garcia says workers at these pot farms face deadly consequences. “We’ve also found, you know, 10, dead bodies of these illegal immigrants who are indentured servants working there,” Garcia said. “They have no one to report to, they have no one to, you know, express grievances to, they have no top coverage.”

Therefore, Garcia told Carter, “it’s a humanitarian crisis, not only at the southern border, but also 200 miles inland.”

Many of the local residents Garcia spoke to during the visit expressed fear of cartel retribution. According to Garcia, these farms have become increasingly brazen because their work is producing a high reward at little risk.

“My biggest fear is we’re going to lose an innocent civilian American life to these organizations that didn’t exist in our neighborhoods just a couple of months ago,” Garcia said.

You can follow Jenny Goldsberry on Twitter @jennyjournalism

Immigration

IG Audit shows nonprofit wasted $17 million taxpayer dollars on hotels to not house illegal foreign nationals

Published

3 days ago

September 27, 2022

Sara Carter Staff

An audit report by the Inspector General shows enraging information as to exactly how millions of dollars from the American people were completely wasted.

One doesn’t need to read past the IG report’s headline to become furious: “ICE Spent Funds on Unused Beds, Missed COVID-19 Protocols and Detention Standards while Housing Migrant Families in Hotels.”

In summary, an unbelievable $17 million was wasted on not housing illegal foreign nationals. At the heart of the story is Endeavors, a nonprofit which has received half a billion dollars in taxpayer money “through no-bid government contracts to house foreign nationals who illegally entered the U.S. and were released by the Biden administration instead of being deported” reports The Center Square.

The audit evaluated the process used by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to grant no bid contracts to Endeavors and their compliance with federal law, the article explains.

The report evaluated an $86.9 million sole source contract first awarded to Endeavors earlier this year. The contract was awarded for six months to provide “temporary shelter and processing services for families who have not been expelled and are therefore placed in immigration proceedings for their removal from the United States,” The Center Square previously reported.

Months after it received its first no bid contract, Endeavors received a second $530 million contract and hired former Biden administration official Andrew Lorenzen-Straight as its senior director for migrant services and federal affairs, Axios reported.

The Center Square explains:

Sole source contracts are used when an agency can demonstrate the contract meets specific and justified criteria. If contracts don’t meet one of the criteria, they must be awarded through an open competitive process.

Endeavors has no professional history of providing housing services and has never provided beds or all-inclusive emergency family residential services, OIG auditors found. Those critical of DHS’ contract process argue the agency should be awarding contracts through an open competitive process to ensure that those bidding for funds can offer the services they claim they can provide.

Under the contract in question, for six months between March and September 2021, Endeavors was responsible for providing 1,239 beds and other necessary services in hotels. It used six hotels and repurposed them as Emergency Family Reception Sites to accommodate families staying less than three days while ICE considered conditions of release, including alternatives to detention.

The IOG made four recommendations for ICE to improve its contracting and oversight of hotel facility management and operations. “ICE concurred with one recommendation and didn’t concur with three. Based on information ICE provided in its response, the IOG said it considered one recommendation resolved and closed, and three recommendations administratively closed.”