Left-Wing Group Secured $158 Million Taxpayer-Funded Contract to Help Illegal Immigrants Avoid Deportation

A progressive group that views immigration enforcement agencies as a “threat” to civil liberties secured a $158 million taxpayer-funded contract to help unaccompanied minors avoid deportation, records show.

The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) awarded the Vera Institute of Justice, a left-wing nonprofit that backs defunding the police, the contract in 2021 to “provide immigration related legal services to unaccompanied minors,” according to USASpending, a federal contract database.

“The Vera Institute of Justice is a behemoth progressive nonprofit based out of New York City with well over a $140 million budget, which they use to fund a slate of progressive causes and initiatives across the country,” Jason Hopkins, an investigative associate with the Immigration Reform Law Institute, told Fox News. “Whether that be criminal justice reform, bail reform and also immigration.”

Hopkins said the institute gets around half of its funding from the federal government. In fact, between July 1, 2019, and June 30, 2020, nearly $137 million of the group’s $174 million in revenue came from government grants, the institute’s most recent tax forms show.

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The federal government has funded such initiatives since the mid-2000s. The recent contract appears to be the Vera Institute’s highest value contract for a single year, according to a review of USASpending records.

Hopkins’ group, the Immigration Reform Law Institute, estimated that taxpayers will locally dish out at least $5.6 million in some cities for a deportation legal defense initiative Vera is  involved with, Fox News Digital reported Tuesday.

“Vera Institute of Justice has an initiative called Safety and Fairness for Everyone,” Hopkins told Fox News on their state-based endeavors. “This began several years ago, and it focuses on providing taxpayer-funded legal representation to aliens – even illegal aliens – that are placed in deportation procedures.”

The immigration reform group said this initiative used public funding in 50 jurisdictions, including 22 that are considered formal partners with the Vera Institute.

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Hopkins told Fox News: “That really opens up the door to—is this an illegal alien who’s been charged, convicted of murder, rape and any other heinous crime? Vera is very open that they really don’t care about their criminal history.”