Leftist Group Obtained $158 Million in Taxpayer Funds to Help Illegal Aliens not Face Deportation

Jose Nino | Feb 16, 2022



A left wing group that is categorically opposed to immigration enforcement was able to obtain a $158 million taxpayer-funded contract to assist unaccompanied minors avoid deportation.

Specifically, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) granted the Vera Institute of Justice this allotment of money. This institute is a leftist nonprofit that supports defunding the police. They received the contract in 2021 “provide immigration related legal services to unaccompanied minors,” per a report by USASpending, a federal contract database.

“The Vera Institute of Justice is a behemoth progressive nonprofit based out of New York City with well over a $140 million budget, which they use to fund a slate of progressive causes and initiatives across the country,” Jason Hopkins, an investigative associate with the Immigration Reform Law Institute, said to Fox News. “Whether that be criminal justice reform, bail reform and also immigration.”

Hopkins claimed the institute receives roughly half of its funding from the federal government. From July 1, 2019, and June 30, 2020, almost $137 million of the non-profit’s $174 million in revenue was from government grants, per the institute’s most recent tax documents.

“The $158 million is just the latest in the hundreds of millions that they provided to Vera for their services,” Hopkins stated.
The contract hasn’t been previously reported. It started on March 30, 2021 and could potentially end on March 30, 2022.

Right when the contract went into effect, HHS diverted $2 billion originally allocated for health initiatives, which included expanded Wuhan virus testing, to help tackle the growing border crisis.

On an annual basis, “thousands of immigrant children are placed into court proceedings in which government prosecutors seek to deport them unless those children can prove they have a right to stay in the United States,” a Vera Institute spokesperson told Fox News Digital.

“Many children face these immigration proceedings alone,” she added. “Many children have legal options that establish their ability to remain in the United States (such as refugees, trafficking victims, and survivors of crime and abuse), but these options are nearly impossible to access without the assistance of trained attorneys. Other children require legal assistance to seek to voluntarily repatriate to their countries of origin.”

The spokesperson claimed the contract was awarded to “provide legal orientation services and, in some cases, legal representation, to children in removal proceedings and detention.” She noted that “a vast majority of federal funding” they obtained is subcontracted to legal service providers across the country who provide the services in HHS facilities and immigration courts.

Since the mid-2000s, the federal government has funded similar initiatives.

According to a report by USASpending, the recent contract looks like the Vera Institute’s most lucrative contract for a single year.

The Immigration Reform Law Institute estimated that taxpayers in several cities will be on the hook for a deportation legal defense initiative Vera is involved in, per a Fox News Digital report published last month.

“Vera Institute of Justice has an initiative called Safety and Fairness for Everyone,” Hopkins said to Fox News with regards to their state programs. “This began several years ago, and it focuses on providing taxpayer-funded legal representation to aliens – even illegal aliens – that are placed in deportation procedures.”

According to the immigration reform group, the initiative used public funding in 50 jurisdictions, 22 of which are formal partners with the Vera Institute.

“What they’ve done is frankly very smart,” Hopkins stated. “It’s sort of a bottom-up approach.”

“Instead of being funded by the federal government and kind of trickling down, this is more of a grassroots approach where they’re going from city to city, county to county and getting these local city governments to create a deportation fund that’s in part funded by taxpayers,” he added.

Hopkins also noted that immigration and deportation are civil issues and the government isn’t required to supply individuals a taxpayer-funded attorney.

Hopkins added that immigration and deportation are civil matters and that the government isn’t required to provide individuals with taxpayer-funded legal counsel. He observed that the Vera Institute’s website highlights how it “is committed to ensuring that every person facing deportation receives legal representation regardless of … history with the criminal legal system.”

Hopkins said to Fox News: “That really opens up the door to—is this an illegal alien who’s been charged, convicted of murder, rape and any other heinous crime? Vera is very open that they really don’t care about their criminal history.”

NGOs are notorious for facilitating the demographic replacement of the American population. It’s one of the many ways that the globalists assault the Historic American Nation. The way these forces seek to undermine America is unconventional in nature and will require unique policy responses.
A serious populist presidential administration would seek to curb NGO influence as much as possible.

Leftist Group Obtained $158 Million in Taxpayer Funds to Help Illegal Aliens not Face Deportation - Big League Politics