| Dreamstime.com |
A President Joe Biden administration “no-bid” contract worth $87 million to house migrants crossing the southern border in hotels is coming under the scrutiny of the Department of Homeland Security, the Washington Examiner reported Monday.
The department’s Office of Inspector General is looking into the contract with the San Antonio-based Endeavors that places migrants that crossed the southern border into seven area hotels at an estimated cost of $352 per night, the Examiner reported.
“The decision to award a massive, no-bid contract to the nonprofit Endeavors raised many questions including how an organization with no experience working with ICE could win a non-compete contract,” House Homeland Security Committee ranking member John Katko, R-N.Y., told the Examiner. “It’s bad enough that this administration has created a self-inflicted border crisis. Its response should now be focused on reversing the misguided policies that got us here — not engaging in activity that raises significant ethical questions.”
Since taking office in January and reversing many of the policies of the previous Trump administration, the Biden administration has seen an increasing number of migrants coming across the southern border, straining the efforts of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers and the agency’s resources amid the COVID-19 pandemic. --->READ MORE HERE
A Biden-Harris transition team official who worked on border issues was simultaneously advising the organization that ended up getting hundreds of millions of dollars in immigration contracts from the government.
This week, the Department of Homeland Security’s inspector general launched an investigation examining how its agency, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, selected a small Texas-based nonprofit organization known as Family Endeavors to house migrant families in hotels.
New information obtained exclusively by the Washington Examiner revealed that the Family Endeavors employee believed to have brokered the deal, a former ICE official, was advising Family Endeavors while he was on the Biden-Harris transition team, where he may have had knowledge of the government's plans to change border policies and known what housing needs would arise. Lawyers familiar with the situation said it raises more red flags beyond the existing conflicts of interest that members of Congress have urged to investigate.
Andrew Lorenzen-Strait was named Family Endeavors’s senior director for migrant services and federal affairs on the day President Joe Biden was inaugurated. As such, he acquired government contracts for Endeavors, which up until this point had received no more than $2 million contracts for tasks unrelated to the border or immigration.
“In the totality of the circumstances that happen then, you know, being a consultant for Endeavors and then these very large contracts being awarded to that company, with limited experience, and without any competition does certainly raise, you know, red flags that you know there might have been some cozy dealings taking place,” said Scott Amey, a general counsel for the Project On Government Oversight, a nonpartisan organization in Washington that investigates government corruption. --->READ MORE HEREFollow links below to related stories:
No-bid contract to house immigrants under new scrutiny
Comer Applauds DHS Inspector General Investigation into Questionable Contract Awarded to Ally of Biden, Harris
If you like what you see, please "Like" us on Facebook either here or here. Please follow us on Twitter here.
No comments:
Post a Comment