A Texas lawmaker alleged Friday that a local nonprofit is misusing taxpayer funds through its purchase of airline tickets for migrants.
Catholic Charities of San Antonio is purchasing airline tickets for asylum-seekers in their care with federal grant money, Democratic Rep. Henry Cuellar alleged. The allegation emerges as millions of federal taxpayer dollars continue to be doled out to nonprofit groups that are helping manage the border crisis under President Joe Biden. (RELATED: ‘Out Of Room’: New York City Is Literally Paying For Migrants To Leave, But Many Refuse To Go)
The migrants are flocking to Cuellar’s district in search of free airline tickets to their U.S. destination of choice, the lawmaker told Border Report.
“We talked to Holding Institute and they said that when they talk to migrants they want to go to San Antonio and part of the reason is because they pay for transportation,” he said in an interview with Border Report. Cuellar noted that these migrants are specifically asking about the street name where the Catholic Charities facility is located: “And they call it the milk and honey place.”
WASHINGTON, DC – NOVEMBER 17: Rep. Henry Cuellar (D-TX) leaves a meeting with House Democrats at the U.S. Capitol November 17, 2022 in Washington, DC. Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) announced on Thursday that she would not be the Democratic leader in the 118th Congress. Pelosi is the first woman to be Speaker of the House and has served in the House of Representatives since 1987. (Photo by Drew Angerer/Getty Images)
While Cuellar noted that he helped start the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) program a decade ago, he never intended for these funds to be used this way.
“When I first started this program, I said it would only be used for food and shelter, maybe transportation inside a city, but not to be sending them up there. The family or somebody should pay for that, not the taxpayer dollars,” he noted.
Cuellar’s office declined a request for comment from The Daily Caller News Foundation.
He was joined by Texas colleague Rep. Monica De La Cruz, a Republican, who also voiced concerns over the idea of a nonprofit allegedly using federal funds to pay for airfare for illegal aliens.
“These tax dollars were not intended to be used to fly illegal immigrants all over their country to the destination of their choice,” De La Cruz said to Border Report. “They misused funds and sent these illegal immigrants where their preferred destination was with taxpayers’ hard-earned money. This is just simply unacceptable.”
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