by Jason Hopkins
House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan is investigating how the United Nations is working with the Biden administration to “accelerate” the migration of thousands of migrants to the United States as the country grapples with an ongoing border crisis.
Jordan has demanded that the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and the International Organization for Migration (IOM), which are part of the UN, hand over documents showing how they cooperated with the Biden administration to resettle thousands of foreign nationals in the U.S. According to two letters captured by Daily Caller News Foundation on Thursday. UNHCR and IOM are working with the State Department to resettle migrants in the U.S. through Safe Mobility Offices, an initiative launched by the Biden administration.
The letter argued that agencies were exploiting “illegal” immigration pathways created by the Biden administration, such as abusing the parole system.
“Despite the unprecedented border crisis and the Biden Administration’s release of millions of undocumented immigrants in the United States, the Administration continues to create additional illegal avenues to expedite the entry of even more people into the country,” the letter to UNHCR stated.
The letters to UNHCR and IOM requested all communications the two organizations had with the State Department and other offices regarding the Safe Mobility Offices initiative, as well as the amount of funding allocated to the initiative and other documentation. California Republican Tom McClintock co-signed the letters.
“Under President Biden, the State Department has announced the Safe Mobility Offices initiative, which allows undocumented immigrants to bypass the southwest border and, according to UNHCR, ‘avoid the risks associated with onward travel,’” the letter continues. “In other words, this new program expedites the entry of aliens into the United States out of sight of Americans and without public transparency into the chaos at the border,” the letter continues.
The Safe Mobility Offices initiative, launched by the Biden administration in 2023, is a collection of processing centers in Latin America and elsewhere that provide a way for citizens of other countries to apply for legal migration to the U.S. According to Department of State. Non-citizens have a variety of options for entering the country, including refugee resettlement, work visa programs, family-based visa programs, or humanitarian parole.
“The Safe Mobility Office is not only expanding the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program, but is also giving non-U.S. aliens ‘multiple options’ to settle in the United States, including through ‘family reunification, job pathways,’ and expanding the Biden Administration’s illegal humanitarian parole abuse,” the letter stated.
UNHCR and IOM have been working to reach out to foreign citizens about the initiative — while also benefiting from hefty funding from the U.S. taxpayer. The United States gave UNHCR $1.9 billion last year and IOM $16 million last year, according to the letters.
More than 21,000 people have been approved to legally settle in the U.S. through Safe Mobility Offices in Ecuador, Colombia, Costa Rica and Guatemala, according to Jordan’s office. As of mid-April, Safe Mobility Offices had reached about 170,000 foreign nationals and conducted more than 33,000 interviews with refugees.
Due to the enormous number of migrants covered by this initiative – and despite the country already facing financial and logistical problems in connection with refugee crisis coming from southern border – Jordan demands transparency.
The letters were addressed to UNHCR Commissioner Filippo Grandi and IOM Director General Amy Pope. Neither office immediately responded to a request for comment from the DCNF.
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Jason Hopkins is a reporter at the Daily Caller News Foundation.
