CASH FOR MIGRANTS: FEMA NOT THE ONLY AGENCY SPENDING BIG

The Office of Refugee Resettlement has faced questions over transparency, conflict of interest.

Feb 13, 2025

Elon Musk reported that the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) spent $59 million last week alone – all on immigrants in New York City. Part of that was for housing, including luxury properties like The Row and The Watson, meant for tourists headed to see the marquees of Broadway. (Later the feds clawed back $80M from the city).

Open the Books previously reported that FEMA had an enormous $8 billion shortfall in its Disaster Relief Fund following the catastrophic damage of Hurricane Helene.

Well, FEMA is not the only agency that’s been spending gobs of taxpayer dollars on the immigration crisis. Programs span various agencies.

Included is the Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR), housed inside the Department of Health and Human Services subagency called the Administration for Children and Families.

ORR has spent over $22.6 BILLION since 2020 on grants to nonprofits providing everything from help accessing Medicaid to help building credit, help with home and auto loans, and cash assistance. Yes, cold hard cash!

WHAT IS ORR?

While Department of Homeland Security is often thought of as the main agency in charge of migration policy and spending in the United States, ORR spends tens of billions a year setting up refugees in the United States. Programmatic activities had a focus on, but were not exclusive to, unaccompanied children.

As Open the Books previously reported, one ORR program helped participants save for car and home purchases, another gave out business and personal loans to help them build credit. Another program helped with “legal assistance,” “cultural orientation,” and “emergency housing support.”

These acted as giant magnets for those seeking to cross the border and claim asylum.

As spending from ORR exploded, Open the Books also identified instances where the agency was expanding the scope of criteria for individuals eligible for its funding. For example, in its 2023 Congressional Budget Justification, the agency suggested the following changes to expand its mandate:

Advocating that “Special Immigrant Juvenile Minors” within the “Unaccompanied Refugee Minor” (URM) program access the same benefits as refugees, which include access to Medicaid and the same foster care services as American children.

Expanding legal assistance to Ukrainian and Afghan children and other URM-designated youth to legal assistance ensuring permanent residency.

Giving cash assistance to full-time college or technical school student refugees.

Removing the need for refugees to obtain economic self-sufficiency “as quickly as possible.”

Total amount of new grants awarded by ORR, from FY 2020-2024

2020: $2,682,493,224.22
2021: $2,352,120,351.54
2022: $3,378,055,499.50
2023: $10,035,487,466.68
2024: $4,207,541,746.00

UNACCOMPANIED CHILDREN

ORR came under increased scrutiny in 2023 after the New York Times reported 85,000 unaccompanied children lost after being sent to agency-approved “sponsors.” Then-ORR Director Robin Dunn Marcos said in a related Congressional hearing that she did not believe the vetting system was inadequate and would not affirm if the 85,000 figure is accurate.

Tom Homan, a former acting director of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement under the first Trump administration, and now President Trump’s “Border Czar,” estimates the number of missing unaccompanied children to be around 300,000. One of his mandates is finding these children and ensuring their safety.

CLOSE TIES WITH TOP GRANTEE

Notably, two of ORR’s top grantees were also the former employers of Dunn Marcos: The International Rescue Committee (IRC), where Dunn Marcos spent 23 years, including eight as Senior Director for Resettlement, Asylum, and Integration; and Church World Service, where she spent four years.

Given the astounding increase in funding both nonprofits received from ORR, Open the Books asked the agency if Dunn Marcos was involved in decisions regarding her former employers, particularly IRC.

We were told by an ACF spokesperson: “Consistent with the Ethics Pledge, Robin Dunn Marcos is recused from participating in particular matters involving specific parties in which IRC is or represents a party. That recusal obligation lasts for two years from her date of appointment, which was September 11, 2022.”

IRC was awarded grants worth $598 million since 2020, over half of which ($336,915,216) came between 2023 and 2024. $112 million of it was discretionary grants, making IRC the top awardee during that period.

Church World Services was awarded grants worth $355 million in that same time since 2020.

SIDENOTE: In 2023, IRC received funding for the first time from ORR’s Unaccompanied Children program: $13,005,424 for “home studies and post-release services”
But even before then, the nonprofit worked in some capacity with unaccompanied children.
According to one article “IRC Los Angeles...[provides] assistance with school enrollment, acquiring state medical insurance, and obtaining pro bono legal services from local partner organizations.”
As spending at ORR swelled to new heights, IRC benefitted handsomely. The organization received over $235 million in spending in FY 2023 compared to $22 million in FY 2021.

FAILURE OF TRANSPARENCY

While it would be nice if taxpayers could take ORR at their word that Dunn Marcos was recused, Open the Books filed a Freedom of Information Act request for any emails she exchanged with anyone working IRC. This request was made in May 2023. We still have not received a response.

According to the most recently available FOIA Report from HHS (2023), ORR’s parent agency, the Administration for Children and Families, has a median wait time of 1,065 days for pending simple requests. For comparison, the Centers for Disease Control wait time is 22 days. Both agencies have roughly the same number of full-time FOIA staff (ACF has 21 compared to CDC’s 25). At the end of the 2023 fiscal year, ACF had 913 backlogged requests compared to CDC’s 186.

We reached out to ACF as to why this agency has unique issues filling FOIA requests, and what reforms could make it more effective. We did not receive a response.

LEADERSHIP CHANGE

As of February 2025, it may be little surprise that Robin Dunn Marcos’ email now returns an automated response indicating she is no longer at the agency. Colleagues are instructed to contact Marcela Ruiz, the ORR “Principal Deputy Director.” Ruiz did respond to an email but indicated questions should be directed to the ACF media team.

Very little can be learned about Ruiz from the ACF and ORR websites, but her posture towards her work can be approximated by her background. Ruiz’s previous work is in immigration policy and advocacy; before joining ORR in March 2024, she was Director of the Office of Equity at California’s Department of Social Services. In one of her presentations from 2021 she advocates for “implicit bias training,” a “racial equity working group,” and “listening sessions and affinity groups” for her department. Yes, this is more of the DEI worldview that has taken root in every nook and cranny of government over the past decade.

News reports indicate veteran Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officer Mellissa Harper has been tapped to lead the Office of Refugee Resettlement, on detail from her position at ICE. Reports indicate Harper may be the first director of ORR to come from ICE. It is unclear if Ruiz is still serving as the ORR director’s deputy.

We reached out to the ACF media team with questions about Ruiz’s current work and have not received a response.

CONCLUSION

While Dunn Marcos may have disappeared from ORR, our questions remain over whether certain nonprofit organizations received special treatment amid the billions in grants furnished by the government office. What’s clear is that ORR has funded a constellation of NGO’s deployed in border states and nationwide, who give out aid designed to attract even more migrants.

Like FEMA, DOGE ought to take an exhaustive look at the Office of Refugee Resettlement and determine what is life-saving aid, and what funding simply prolongs the border crisis by attracting more migrants.

And like too many agencies across the federal government, ORR’s parent agency needs to live up to the transparency moment and give taxpayers answers – way sooner than a thousand days.