Trump Administration Cuts $500 Million from Central American NGO’s Budgets

Holy cow!  Who knew! Not only do millions of your tax dollars go to the nine federal refugee contractors*** in the US, but we send apparently billions to supposedly Christian social justice groups in places like Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador.

Let the wailing begin as the groups claim that they use our millions to keep citizens of those countries from fleeing toward our southern border, so cutting them off is wrong they say.

It is pretty clear for all to see that even with billions of dollars over the years they have failed spectacularly in stopping the invasion and I assume the State Department has pretty much figured that out.

I wish I had time today to take a deep dive into past funding for the groups that include, Proyecto Aldea Global, Association for a More Just Society, International Justice Mission and World Vision, but I don’t.

Here is the story at Christianity Today:

Christian Nonprofits Reeling from Trump Cuts to Foreign Aid

Christian ministries in Honduras, Guatemala, and El Salvador know they are in for a tough year. The US government has drastically cut aid to the three Central American countries in response to the large number of refugees who have fled north to seek asylum in America. Some of the more than $500 million of US taxpayer money was going to Christian nonprofits working on economic development, anti-corruption efforts, and helping children in poverty in the three countries. Those ministries will have to lay people off, reduce services, and scramble to find other funds.  [Just call George Soros and ask him to supply the funds—ed]

“The Trump administration shot itself in the foot with these cuts,” said Chet Thomas, director of Proyecto Aldea Global in Honduras, which has been forced to stop a job training program that gave teenagers alternatives to working for criminal gangs. “These projects are designed to … reduce the number of people migrating to the US.”

US foreign aid flows through various channels. In many cases, it ends up funding nongovernmental organizations, including Christian relief organizations in the area of Central American known as the Northern Triangle. Many of these address the conditions that cause people to flee their homes and seek asylum, leading to a crisis at the US border. Some ministries work directly with host governments to train national staff and increase the effectiveness of state institutions. Others focus more on community development, often building connections with local churches that don’t trust their government and don’t have many of their own resources.

Governments must do their jobs!

Justifying the cuts, the State Department appeared to downplay the role of nonprofit groups in addressing migration. “We expect the governments of El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras to keep their commitments to stem illegal immigration to the United States,” it said in a statement.

More here.

Sure looks to me that the State Department calculated that based on the hordes flooding to the US border, we weren’t getting our money’s worth from these ‘Christian non-profits’.

However, some US ‘religious charities’ are not seeing huge funding cuts!

*** Here (below) are the nine federal refugee resettlement contractors.

I’m not posting my usual spiel, but only want to say that in my analysis of funds received by three contractors (so far) since Trump took office, only the US Conference of Catholic Bishops has taken a large cut in its federal funding.

Church World Service and Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service are still about on par with federal funding as they were under Obama.

I’ll have more to say when I’ve been through all nine.

• Church World Service (CWS)
• Ethiopian Community Development Council (ECDC) (secular)
• Episcopal Migration Ministries (EMM)
• Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society (HIAS)
• International Rescue Committee (IRC) (secular)
• US Committee for Refugees and Immigrants (USCRI) (secular)
• Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Services (LIRS)
• United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB)
• World Relief Corporation (WR)