TAPACHULA, Mexico (January 20, 2022) — The United Nations refugee agency (UNHCR), which receives billions in U.S. taxpayer money, is providing cash assistance to U.S.-bound illegal migrants, according to
new reporting from the Center for Immigration Studies. The United Nations is sharply escalating the amounts of cash and other direct financial assistance to immigrants all along the migrant trail from Panama to Texas, at an uncharted series of some 100 waystations, as part of a program called “cash-based interventions” (CBI).
Speaking from Tapachula, Mexico, Todd Bensman, the Center’s
Senior National Security Fellow, said, “Word of the UN handing out cash debit cards has spread and the office here in Tapachula, Mexico, near the Guatemala border, draws long lines of hopeful U.S.-bound migrants every day. This money allows migrants to continue their journey to the U.S. border rather than returning home and acts as a magnet encouraging other migrants to make the arduous journey.”
Families can receive hundreds of dollars a month for “unrestricted ... unconditional” use in local country areas depending on where they are on the trail. The United Nations spent $60 million on the program in 2019, doubled the outlay in 2020, and plans to vastly increase its use in the Americas during 2022 and beyond.
CBI is seen by many, including Texas Rep. Lance Gooden and 11 other House Republicans, as U.S.-taxpayer-funded material support for illegal immigration. They have introduced the "
No Tax Dollars for the United Nations Immigration Invasion Act", H.R. 6155, which would prohibit the $3.8 billion in contributions currently proposed in the White House’s 2022 budget to UN-supported organizations.
Bensman’s report includes a written interview with the UN agency’s public information officer Tapachula.
