The government should investigate how $6 billion in tax dollars funded the nongovernmental organizations to move illegal immigrants across the country, Mike Howell, executive director of The Heritage Foundation’s Oversight Project, told a House panel.
Congress has a role, and so does the Department of Homeland Security’s Office of Inspector General, Howell told the House Homeland Security Subcommittee on Oversight, Investigations, and Accountability during testimony Tuesday.
“So where are all the government investigations? I’m begging for someone to please join us,” Howell said, noting several investigations on illegal immigration by the Oversight Project.
“What about the DHS OIG [Office of Inspector General]? I see investigation after investigation into the conditions at ICE facilities. Where are the investigations of these nonprofits, and the $6 billion that flowed through them? It’s time that we start treating the Biden border crisis like the crime scene that it is.”
The subcommittee held a hearing reviewing the consequences of the border and immigration policies of former President Joe Biden and former Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, who was impeached by the House for not enforcing border laws.
“Now this body funded it. I know a lot of members here had nothing to do with it. But the money came from Congress to fund the Biden border invasion,” Howell continued. “So, this body retains the responsibility and authority to figure out exactly how that money was spent and where these illegals ended up, and what NGOs, like the ones who helped facilitate the travel of Jose Ibarra who ended up killing Laken Riley with taxpayer dollars, were involved in that?”
Rep. Josh Brecheen, R-Okla., the subcommittee chairman, said he supported the idea of investigating various nonprofit groups paid by the federal government to shelter and relocate illegal immigrants.
“I really am intrigued by that because I think it is something that committees are going to be lacking on if we don’t. It’s a great idea,” Brecheen told Howell.
He then pivoted to another witness, former DHS Inspector General John Roth, appointed to the post in 2014 by President Barack Obama.
“Mr. Roth, how would Congress be able to approach the Office of Inspector General to be able to do the granular element of trying to find … What can we do in your estimation to be able to quickly accomplish this goal with accountability for NGOs?” the chairman asked.
Roth said most inspectors general will work with congressional panels with oversight of their agency.
“In my experience, IG offices are extraordinarily sensitive to requests to committees of jurisdiction,” Roth told Brecheen. “So the fact that you are a chair of a subcommittee of Homeland Security means that typically, with my experience when I was IG, we would take that very seriously. So, my advice, for what it’s worth, is that I would have your staff call their staff, engage in discussions, and follow up with a formal recommendation, or formal request, as to the sort of scope of the work.”
Howell also had recommendations for Congress and the executive branch moving forward. He said the United States must “prepare for the cartels to fight back.”
“These people made a lot of money and gained a lot of power during the Biden administration,” Howell said. “They are not going to take this lying down.”
During the Biden administration, the border crisis “was planned, promoted, encouraged, funded and sustained” by the government, Howell said. But he added, “the government just simply did not have the capacity to get this many people in and around the country without the support of the nonprofits.”
Yet, a similar public-private partnership can be applied to solve the problem, Howell suggested, in what he called, “homeward bound.”
“The Left designed a sophisticated infrastructure to get this many people in the country. You all can do the same thing to get them out,” Howell said.
“I’m encouraging you to look at all available funding streams to help work with people outside the government to educate illegals on how to leave and help arrange and pay for their travel home. I call this whole concept homeward bound.”
“People need to go home,” he continued. “It’s time for modernization of the immigration enforcement system writ large. This means we don’t need to secure the border for just 2025 but forever.”
