ICE Wasted Huge Amounts of Tax Payer Funds for Empty Hotel Rooms

Immigration and Customs Enforcement allegedly spent 17 million on unoccupied hotel rooms while housing illegal migrants in 2021. This happened after hiring a politically connected contractor which failed to meet the COVID-19 protocols that the government had set. Ice entered into an $87 million contract with endeavors, a nonprofit company, that was supposed to provide services for a surge in illegal aliens coming from the southern border. Ice did not seek multiple bids for the work. Instead, they signed onto a sole source deal with endeavors. This required the agency to pay for a block of 1200 hotel rooms whether they were used or not.

This obligated the government to pay Endeavor $17 million for hotel rooms that were mostly empty April of 2021 through June of 2021. This is a monumental waste of taxpayer money. Also, Endeavors did not follow testing procedures before transporting illegal aliens, thus putting families and the outside population in the United States in danger of contracting COVID-19. It failed to provide snacks and storage areas for illegal alien families which is required by ICE. There was spotty surveillance and documentation at the security facilities run by Endeavors. This means we can’t really rely on the records that Endeavors did manage to make of these illegal aliens and their families.

This contract occurred at the same time that Endeavors entered into another much more lucrative no bid contract with United States Department of Health and Human services. It raised eyebrows because Andrew Lorenzen-Strait became the director for migrant services and federal affairs shortly before this occurred. Ice claims that it was justified in entering a no bid contract due to compelling urgency of the border crisis.

“ICE is committed to ensuring that non-citizens in its custody reside in safe, secure and humane environments, and under appropriate conditions of confinement,” an agency executive wrote in a March letter to DHS.

No bid contracts have been a favorite of political darlings and nonprofit groups that are favored by the administration. No bid contracts should be illegal. If a contractor fails to meet the contract obligations, not only should they lose the contract, but they should also have to pay all the taxpayer money back with interest. No bid contracts are gifts from the administration to the lackeys that get their dirty work done. It’s legal bribery to the little guys on the bottom. They were pulling all the punches, breaking all the rules, and screwing you and me over.

If there was one honest congressman, one honest representative, or one honest senator they would bring a bill immediately to end no bid contracts. No bid contracts are the antithesis of capitalism, and we are a capitalist society. They allow cronyism, shoddy workmanship, and a lack of ethics. They are no different than corporate welfare. If there was one honest representative, the practice of no bid contracts would be before the House and the Senate every single solitary year until they ended. To save capitalism we need to end cronyism and to end cronyism we need to end no bid contracts. People love to be angry at young people for suggesting socialism would be better. What we have right now isn’t capitalism, not free capitalism, not market capitalism, no. What we have now is crony capitalism or socialism for the rich and well connected.