Mayorkas ordered internal review of massive immigration contract: Emails reveal
Anna Giaritelli
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EXCLUSIVE — Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas privately voiced concern about the award of a half-a-billion dollar government contract to Endeavors for immigrant housing, according to documents obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request.
Internal emails obtained through a lawsuit filed by the American Accountability Foundation in 2021 and shared exclusively with the Washington Examiner revealed that Mayorkas had called for a look at how the noncompeted $530 million award was paid out. The Biden administration failed to turn over documents in the matter despite AAF’s Freedom of Information Act requests.
The two emails show that on April 14, 2021, DHS Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs Marsha Espinosa sent Mayorkas an email that included a news story that questioned the legality of a $530 million contract to house immigrant children at the border.
Less than two minutes after Espinosa sent Mayorkas and five other DHS employees the email, Mayorkas responded: “We need to inquire of Contracting/Management to determine whether principles and rules were followed scrupulously.”
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Tom Jones, AAF founder and a former Trump White House official, said Mayorkas’s response was suspect.
“The email from the Secretary underscores that even he knew this contract was highly suspect and likely subject to inappropriate influence,” Jones wrote in an email. “Further, it seems to underscore his ignorance of this important contract and that he was concerned that people within his agency were awarding multi-tens of million dollar contracts without the top leadership of the agency signing off. “
Scott Amey, general counsel for the independent watchdog group Project On Government Oversight in Washington, has tracked the Endeavors contracts over the past two years.
“Family Endeavors has large federal contracts with HHS and DHS, and my guess is that Secretary Mayorkas wasn’t pleased with the ethical and contract award concerns that were raised in the media reports,” Amey wrote in an email. “At the end of the day, he’ll likely have to answer for any cozy dealings, and it appears that he was trying to get to the bottom of it.”
In its rush to respond to the influx of immigrants who came across the southern border shortly after President Joe Biden took office in January 2021, the Biden administration signed two no-bid deals with Endeavors to house immigrants in private facilities for more than $600 million. Until this point, Endeavors had never received a contract from HHS or the DHS and had no experience caring for immigrants or ever been awarded a federal contract over $2 million.
In March 2021, the Washington Examiner first reported that the DHS’s U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement signed an $87 million contract with Endeavors to acquire and oversee the detention of migrant families across half a dozen hotels in Arizona and Texas for six months.
The Washington Examiner reported in April 2021 that HHS awarded Endeavors another contract without letting other organizations compete for it. The $530 million HHS contract paid for additional housing for migrant children in Pecos, Texas.
Government contracts are supposed to be awarded through an open, competitive process outlined in the Federal Acquisition Regulation. Pushed for why it did not do so, ICE later cited “unusual and compelling urgency” as the reason for not going through the normal steps.
The AAF submitted two FOIA requests with the DHS and Department of Health and Human Services in April 2021 in an effort to determine if there was a “quid pro quo” between government officials and a former Biden transition team official who joined Endeavors as its contract broker the first day Biden was sworn into office, Andrew Lorenzen-Strait.
Lorenzen-Strait had helped select which political appointees would get top jobs at HHS, which awarded the $530 million contract to his organization.
Endeavors took in $43 million in 2018, compared to receiving two government contracts worth more than $600 million in 2021, according to tax documents from that year.
In January 2022, HHS disclosed that it had 5,700 pages of materials but did not release them. The DHS confirmed receiving the request in July 2022, but it also did not release documents.
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After 11 months of waiting, AFF sued in federal court in Washington, D.C., in March 2022.
A spokesman for Endeavors said the organization had cooperated with department oversight.
“As a humanitarian, faith-based organization, Endeavors works to uphold the dignity of all people. Transparency and trust are foundational to our organization, and we worked closely with DHS and the Investigator General’s Office in their review, which concluded last year,” Jeff Eller wrote in an email. “From veterans to communities devastated by disasters to unaccompanied children, our mission is to serve all people in times of crisis.”
The DHS did not respond to a request for comment.