House Republicans are launching an investigation into the Biden administration’s disbursement of billions of dollars for immigrant shelters to government contractors following a jarring admission by an official who brokered the deals.
Biden transition team official Andrew Lorenzen-Strait was caught on video this week bragging about how he used the border crisis to help unqualified organizations make backdoor deals with federal agencies and called the humanitarian crisis a “boom for my business.”
HAWAII FIRE: FIREFIGHTERS DROP 150,000 GALLONS OF WATER AS FIRE DEVASTATES ISLANDS
“The alarming allegations of Mr. Lorenzen-Strait’s corruption and his recently recorded statements only further justify the Homeland Security Committee’s continued oversight of ICE’s suspect contract procurement processes,” said House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Mark Green (R-TN) in a statement to the Washington Examiner. “Awarding massive, sole-source contracts for illegal immigrant services to ill-equipped non-profits such as Endeavors, possibly because of connections to President Biden’s 2020 transition team, could prove to be an unacceptable abuse of taxpayer funds, and ICE must answer for these allegations.”
Subcommittee on Border Security and Enforcement Chairman Clay Higgins (R-LA) and Subcommittee on Border Security, Facilitation, and Operations Chairman Dan Bishop (R-NC) joined Green to call on Immigration and Customs Enforcement to turn over years worth of documents and communications about an $87 million deal to house immigrants at the border in hotels instead of existing government-owned family residential centers. The Washington Examiner first reported the no-bid contract in April 2021.
The incident has resurfaced after Project Veritas published videos of Lorenzen-Strait talking at length about his Endeavors winning contracts.
At the time of the $87 million deal, the Department of Homeland Security’s Office of Inspector General responded by launching a yearlong investigation into the award from ICE to Endeavors. It concluded in April 2022 that the contract was unjustified and that Endeavors pocketed $17 million of funds it failed to use.
The inspector general also concluded that ICE had never put out a notice to contractors that it needed to rent space to house immigrant families. Endeavors sent ICE a proposal that stated it could house immigrants, an unusual offering given that ICE had not disclosed any need for housing.
Lorenzen-Strait’s prior work was a conflict of interest, the inspector general found, because he had crafted ICE policy as a transition team official while simultaneously advising Endeavors.
Lorenzen-Strait publicly signed on with Endeavors as a senior employee on Biden’s first day in office and shortly after locked down the $87 million backdoor deal and a $530 million noncompete contract to shelter unaccompanied immigrant children for the Department of Health and Human Services.
“Mr. Lorenzen-Strait referred to what appears to be the Endeavors contract as a ‘corrupt bargain,'” the lawmakers wrote in a letter to acting ICE Director Patrick Lechleitner on Friday. “He further discussed ‘brokering’ a deal that won Cherokee Federal, a team of tribally owned federal contracting companies, a nearly $2 billion contract with the federal government to provide services to unaccompanied alien children.”
In the video, Lorenzen-Strait divulged that the contractor that he helped get the contract, Cherokee Federal, did “not have the acumen and the ability to win in a competitive right” and that it was given to Cherokee Federal “because of patronage.”
“Cherokee Nation is not this benevolent humanitarian actor. They make most of their money with alcohol and gambling,” Lorenzen-Strait said in the video. “I helped them move into the migration or refugee space this year. So they’re now becoming more evolved, more enlightened, more pragmatic only because they built it on a bedrock of understanding the capitalist law. We’ve got to make money.”
Lorenzen-Strait also said he publicly uses the company Deep Water Point & Associates but does his business through two unknown names: VerdinPoint and The Tanager Group.
“Despite clear conflicts of interest and prior scrutiny, Mr. Lorenzen-Strait may be influencing ICE’s contracts for migrant services with non-governmental and non-profit organizations,” the letter states.
Republicans have also looped Lorenzen-Strait’s former subordinate at ICE, Claire Trickler-McNulty, now-assistant director of ICE’s Office of Immigration Program Evaluation.
“In this position she reviews and approves ICE contracts for migrant housing, supervision, and services. Ms. Trickler-McNulty previously worked with Mr. Lorenzen-Strait in the Custody Programs Office,” the letter states. “Additionally, Ms. Trickler-McNulty and Mr. Lorenzen-Strait previously worked together evaluating ICE contract awards. Mr. Lorenzen-Strait’s relationship with the current ICE contracting official calls into question ICE’s impartiality in contracts.”
Republicans gave ICE until Aug. 24 to provide all communications to, from, and between Lorenzen-Strait, Trickler-McNulty, VerdinPoint, The Tanager Group, Deep Water Point & Associates, the ICE Office of Immigration Program Evaluation, ICE’s Technical Evaluation Team, and organizational charts.
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER
The committee’s new investigation is on top of its six-part hearing series examining DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas‘s job performance.
ICE did not respond to a request for comment.
