Millions for Kamala’s Failed Root Causes of Irregular Migration Venture Flowed through USAID

The frenzy over President Trump’s crackdown on flagrant waste at the nation’s scandal-plagued global aid agency is finally bringing widespread attention to the outrageous programs it funds with taxpayer dollars and many Americans may not realize it has been occurring for years under both Democratic and Republican administrations. Not surprisingly, the reckless spending skyrocketed under Biden with a multitude of problematic initiatives, including a costly ill-fated effort run by Vice President Kamala Harris to curb “irregular migration” from three targeted countries known as the northern triangle—El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras. The money, hundreds of millions of dollars, flowed continuously through the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), even as illegal immigration from the targeted Central American nations shattered records. The former vice president insisted however, that the investment would help improve conditions in the three impoverished countries “so people do not feel compelled to leave their homes.”

Harris’ disastrous root causes experiment to curtail illegal immigration is just a snippet of controversial USAID spending that should alarm the nation’s tax paying citizens. For well over a decade Judicial Watch has reported and exposed rampant fraud and corruption at the famously bloated agency, which has a massive budget of around $40 billion with little oversight or accountability to supposedly provide global economic, development and humanitarian assistance. This has included hundreds of millions of dollars to promote leftwing billionaire George Soros’ radical globalist agenda in Latin America, a failed Clinton-backed port and power plant in Haiti, help Asians learn enough English to work in offshore call centers and a project to develop a Pakistani version of the iconic educational children’s program Sesame Street. Other USAID allocations have funded a condom strategy in Eswatini, bicycles for rural communities in sub-Saharan Africa and racial equity.

The list goes on and on, perpetually cheating the American public year after year with highly questionable foreign projects that often operate in secrecy or fill the coffers of our enemies. USAID has funded a Scandinavian humanitarian group that helps Islamic terrorists and has provided monstrous amounts of aid without oversight to countries largely controlled by Islamic extremists, even after reports of widespread fraud, abuse and corruption by radical elements that limit the humanitarian assistance from reaching those in need. Among them is Syria, which has received billions from USAID despite federal audits documenting that for years the agency has “lacked a framework to manage fraud risks in humanitarian responses” in the Middle Eastern country that has appeared on the State Department’s list of nations that sponsor terrorism for over four decades. USAID also continues to send enormous amounts of aid to Afghanistan even though the funds go to the Taliban after the 2021 U.S. military withdraw. A federal audit slammed USAID for refusing to cooperate with an investigation involving efforts to ensure that U.S.-funded programs supporting the people of Afghanistan do not result in the illegal transfer of funds to the Taliban or the Haqqani Network.

Fraud and waste are so rampant in foreign programs that receive enormous amounts of money from USAID that a few years ago the U.S. government spent $30 million to counter corruption in the projects it already funds. The multi-million-dollar anti-corruption plan aimed to systemically address pervasive governance weaknesses that corrupt actors commonly exploit, according to a press release unveiling the initiative. “This funding will strengthen the systems and actors needed to close loopholes, detect illicit finance and dirty money, follow its movement across borders, and ultimately hold corrupt actors accountable,” USAID writes in the announcement that also says the investment will boost high priority reforms such as countering pervasive money laundering and enhancing asset recovery. “At the regional and global levels, this award will fund multi-country efforts to enhance international cooperation in tracking and blocking transnational corruption; and test tools and approaches that move anti-corruption practice forward.”

It was too little too late for a fraud-infested government agency long gripped by corruption and secrecy. Over a decade ago, Judicial Watch reported on a USAID scandal involving $60 million in Malaria drugs provided to Africa by the U.S. government that get stolen annually and sold on the black market. The agency leads a program called President’s Malaria Initiative (PMI) that distributes the medication in Africa where the disease kills more than half a million people each year, but more than 20% of the drugs are diverted annually. Several years later U.S.-funded malaria drugs were still being sold on the black market in Africa and the problem got so bad that USAID launched “malaria hotlines” to offer cash rewards for information about the illicit operations that have fleeced American taxpayers out of tens of millions of dollars.

A key issue that the Trump administration will hopefully address is that USAID does not divulge to whom millions of dollars in contracts and grants are being sent. In fiscal year 2024 and 2025 the agency has awarded at least $961 million in new funding to undisclosed recipients, with the largest contract of $447 million to provide “strategic technical and procurement advice” to Ukraine’s energy sector. Last year Judicial Watch sued USAID for failing to provide under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) records involving $27 million in Gaza grants that went to “Miscellaneous Foreign Awardees.”

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