The spotlight in the Twin Falls, Idaho controversy shifts from the big business interests we mentioned in our previous post, to the major federal contractor that is really calling the shots — not the local College of Southern Idaho Refugee Program.
The federal resettlement contractor, located in Arlington, Virginia is known in the refugee industry as USCRI (US Committee for Refugees and Immigrants) which passes your tax dollars through to their local affiliate—CSI.
We continue to be perplexed why there is no federal Form 990 available for CSI’s refugee program and would like to see the College’s financials to see exactly how much is coming in through their books for the refugee program.
However, we get some idea by having a look at the most recently available Form 990 for USCRI.
First, the best page of recent Form 990s is page 9. I say recent because when I first looked at Form 990s years ago these numbers were more prominently presented on page 1.
In 2013, USCRI had an income stream as follows (in red are your tax dollars). Numbers are rounded to save me work!
Government Grants: $35.4 million
Other contributions: $247,000
IOM Collection Fees: $1.7 million (Refugees are loaned tax dollars via the International Organization for Migration, another contractor, for their airfare and must return the loan, however the resettlement contractors get to keep a portion of any money they can wring out of the poor refugees. This is USCRI’s share for that year. It really should have been all returned to the US Treasury.)
Interpreters: $1.2 million (This is probably mostly local tax dollars as the contractors are now in the business of providing their workers and refugees for interpretive services needed in the health care system and criminal justice system to name just two).
Childcare Service: $350,000 (will give them the benefit of the doubt that this is private income???)
Misc. small stuff
Total income: $39.2 million or about 98% funded by tax dollars!
BTW, CEO Lavinia Limon earned a cool $289,192 according to this Form 990 and another Limon (relative?) earned $139,869. These salaries are in the mid-range for CEOs and employees in the humanitarian business. One of them, in another non-profit, makes close to $500,000 a year.
Limon had served as Bill Clinton’s Director of the federal Office of Refugee Resettlement having revolved in and out of government as did her right hand man Eskinder Negash (you saw him here the other day leading the charge for 100,000 Syrians to be admitted to the US this coming year).
Anyway, back to Twin Falls. On Page 10 of the Form 990 you will see that Limon passed $22.3 million of their income (from you) to subcontractors working for them around the country. I was going to list the Top Ten recipients of the money that one could say USCRI launders to subordinates (Does anyone in the federal government follow the money to be sure it is used properly? Are there federal audits?), but I am too lazy. Check the dollar figures yourself in Schedule I.
On their list of grantees is the College of Southern Idaho which received $807,380 (passed to them by USCRI). If they had other income (gifts, fundraiser income, etc.) we have no idea because there is no Form 990 for CSI Refugee Program.
I did check to see if some of the other USCRI beneficiaries have filed separate Form 990s and the answer is yes!
So where is CSI’s? This arrangement with the College of Southern Idaho is a strange one!
We have many posts on Ms. Limon, click here for our archive.
Note to the New York Times reporter who was in Twin Falls on Tuesday evening. I hope you are doing your homework! The finances! The secrecy! The revolving door! The big business interests! The lobbying push by USCRI and others for 100,000 Syrian ‘clients’ for them! All of it!
First I want to thank the 
