Jessica Vaughan - Director Of Policy Studies, Center for Immigration Studies Joins Houston's Morning News

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
So if you want to spend money, you know, enhancling
the lives of illegal immigrants or providing ways for them
to get into the country, and you want somebody else
to do the work for you, and you want it
to go pretty much unnoticed much of the time because
it's going through a charity and not through a government agency.
What better way to do it than the funneled billions

(00:20):
liberally billions of dollars to charities, some of them religious charities,
who don't go under a tremendous amount of scrutiny, and
probably most people don't even realize that that's what's going on.
Just Givon joins, us director of Policy Studies at the
Center for Immigration Studies. Any idea, Jessica, how many charities
are involved in this type of work?

Speaker 2 (00:42):
Good morning. Well, there are about five or six main
religiously affiliated in name only charities, and I really don't
like to use the term charity because they're really government contractors.
So these big five or six, the Catholics, Lutherans, the Quakers,

(01:05):
the Methodists, and the Episcopals, they are the primary contractors
to the federal government to set up programs that help
migrants when they first arrive and then also transport them
to their destination in the United States and then give
them services after they settle there. And they have their

(01:27):
own network of local subcontractors affiliated with those churches who
receive this money again to provide these services for the migrants.
But it is it is a contract, and they only
provide those services that they are paid with taxpayer funds
to give, whether it's you know, transportation, shelters, daycare, uh,

(01:55):
you know, legal assistance, all kinds of things that they
are off to these newly arrived illegal migrants. It's a
huge network. And we're talking billions of dollars.

Speaker 1 (02:06):
Do they realize that the people that are helping are
here illegally? They understand that right.

Speaker 2 (02:10):
Up front, yes, and and they they use the language
of the Gospel and the scripture to justify this assistance
by saying, you know, we're obligated as Christians to to
welcome the stranger, and you know, you know, help the

(02:31):
needy and so on. But this is, you know, this
is a tough issue because first of all, they've come
in illegally, and secondly, they are enticed to come here
illegally by the knowledge that they are going to get
these services once they arrive, right, and they put themselves
in the hands of criminal smugglers and traffickers to break

(02:53):
our laws to come here. And also these are resources
that could be well used for need Americans and legal
immigrants and refugees for example. So it's it's really you know,
a problematic, I think, to entice people to to come
here in this way. And you know, again this is

(03:15):
a business deal that's being made in the name of
a faith. But truly, these these entities, they most of
them get almost one hundred percent of their funding from
the federal government, which means US taxpayers well.

Speaker 1 (03:29):
And as a registered religious charity, they're also not paying
any taxes are they on the income that they're making
from the government, That is right.

Speaker 2 (03:38):
And they also don't get much inspection or you know,
many audits of how they're spending the money. Uh so
it really is not a very transparent operation. And so
you know, it's hard to know how much of it's
going to salaries as opposed to actual services. And I

(04:01):
think we need to remember that. You know, I applaud
the impulse to help people around the world who are
facing challenges in their own countries, but we can help
a lot more people by directing this money overseas to
where the people are so they can stay in their
homes and not have to go through their process, traumatic

(04:22):
and illegal process.

Speaker 1 (04:24):
To come here right and brisk the chances of deportation.
They should descend their missionaries overseas and work with the
people in the countries of their origin exactly, and I'm
sure they due to a certain extent, but this is
sort of an offshoot of that, I guess. Jessica Vallan,
always a pleasure. Thank you, Director Policy Studies and the
set of for Immigration Studies. That's Jessica Vaughan. It's five

(04:45):
fifty seven.