Issa rips State Department for spreading 'knowingly false' info on funding migrant counseling to enter US

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Rep. Issa grills State Department on funding sessions coaching immigrants on how to use asylum laws to enter United States

Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., spoke to Fox News Digital exclusively following the hearing where he says the State Dept was caught with its hand in the ‘cookie jar.’ (House Foreign Affairs Committee Republicans)

EXCLUSIVE: Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., a member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, slammed President Biden's State Department for being caught with its hands in the "cookie jar" over taxpayer dollars going toward counseling migrants on how to use the asylum process to enter the U.S. 

"Your department is responsible for giving us knowingly false information," Issa told Julieta Valls Noyes, assistant secretary for Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration (PRM) at the State Department, during a Thursday hearing, referencing the department’s PRM program funding a nonprofit organization known as the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society (HIAS). 

"We were told… PRM has not funded and does not fund legal representation or counseling related to immigration proceedings," Issa explained, referencing a letter from the State Department to the committee. "Again, later, in December, from the government of Mexico, PRM does not fund legal representation or counseling related to U.S. immigration proceedings and legal assistance provided to those in Mexico is solely for the Mexican legal processes."

Issa continued, "Under the rules of US 18 Title 1001, is that a true statement? Either of those?"

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Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., grills State Department official Julieta Valls Noyes during a Thursday hearing. (House Foreign Affairs Committee)

"Congressman, the U.S. funds—" Valls Noyes responded before Issa interjected and said, "It’s a yes or no. It really is."

"Yes," Valls Noyes responded. 

Issa then presented a series of slides from HIAS that showed the group explaining in Spanish the best ways to use the asylum system to enter the U.S. and detailing the legal process to enter the country.

"Are you aware of this packet that was used throughout 2023," Issa asked, to which Valls Noyes responded, "Yes."

"Does it limit to legal activities in Mexico or does it on pages 9, 10, and 11 clearly advise people on how to get asylum in the U.S.?"

Valls Noyes responded by saying "this packet of information was not funded by PRM" and instead by the "U.N. refugee agency."

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"Was this organization at this time under funding from the United States," Issa asked. 

"The organization was, this packet was not," Valls Noyes responded. 

Valls Noyes said that she was not "aware" of the packet until the department was gathering documents to comply with House oversight, but said again that it was "not funded" directly by PRM.

"Ma’am, I’m going to make something very clear to you," Issa said. "The intent of Congress is not to use the fungibility of money to give to an organization that goes out with the people that you are funding and those people and that organization do something inconsistent with what you tell Congress your mandate is."

"Money is fungible. As long as you give to this organization, which I understand you’re still funding around the world, and they have a dual purpose, and they use that dual purpose to do something that Congress clearly doesn’t want. Nowhere in this deck — we’ll call it U.N. funded for a moment just to humor you — nowhere in this deck does it suggest you can seek refuge in Mexico, which under international law you have not only a right to but an obligation to," he said.

Issa went on to explain that the State Department was effectively encouraging migrants to avoid seeking asylum in Mexico and instead enter the U.S. at the "federal taxpayers' expense."

"If you fund the meeting, and you use the deck, how is it that you can say you’re telling us without trickery or any kind of misleading that this wasn’t funded, or at least enabled by the United States government, ma'am?" Issa asked later in the hearing. 

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Migrants walk along the highway through Suchiate, Chiapas state in southern Mexico, on July 21 during their journey north toward the U.S. border. (AP Photo/Edgar H. Clemente)

"Again, Congressman, we did not fund the production of the deck, but it is accurate that the deck was used in briefings where we were also informing migrants about the ability to seek asylum in Mexico," Valls Noyes said. 

"You’re a great diplomat," Issa responded. "Because diplomats tell people to go to hell and make them pack and look forward to the trip, I guess, because there is no truth to what you just said. It is extremely clear that if a group — I don’t care who printed it or handed it out — a group you were funding waters and transportation and everything else to bring to an event, host the event, under the color of the United States of America. Not the United Nations. And then you say, ‘Oh, we didn’t fund it. They got the money fungibly from somewhere else.’ Ma’am, there's not one American that would believe that."

Valls Noyes went on to say that the State Department ceased funding HIAS in 2023 and is in fully in compliance with the law and similar slides are not currently being passed out. 

"HIAS is the world's oldest refugee protection agency, working to provide vital services to refugees, asylum seekers, and other forcibly displaced and stateless persons around the world as a longstanding partner of the U.S. government and the American Jewish community," a HIAS spokesperson told Fox News Digital. "HIAS complies with U.S. law and our grant agreements, including those applicable to the HIAS project that was discussed at yesterday's hearing."

Issa spoke exclusively to Fox News Digital after the hearing and said the exchange represented an "outright lie" from the State Department, who, as recently as this year, in a letter to committee Chair Matt McCaul, distanced itself from the slides arguing that PRM did not directly fund the creation of the actual slideshow, but acknowledged funding the session it was used at.

"When you get caught with your hand in the cookie jar, the first thing you do is to deny the cookie jar," Issa said. "The next thing you do is deny the hand and that's really what she did. Confronted with a document that clearly said this organization was advocating on how to circumvent being rejected at the border. She said we only funded working with the Mexicans to comply with the government."

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Secretary of State Antony Blinken discusses Russia's invasion of Ukraine during a news conference at the State Department in Washington, D.C., on March 2, 2022. (Reuters/Elizabeth Frantz/Pool/File Photo)

"Then when confronted with, well, no, you paid for these people simultaneously. Well, yeah, but we didn't pay for that. Then, when confronted with, but you paid for events where they presented it. She said, "But we didn't pay for the production of the document they presented," he said.

Issa told Fox News Digital he cited the specific law he cited in the hearing "for a reason." 

"It doesn't just say outright lie," Issa explained. "It says to deceive, to trick. It is intended to make you vulnerable to a fine and even up to five years in prison for deceiving Congress. And clearly, her denials were intended to deceive at least the public. It certainly didn't deceive Congress because it was pretty obvious on the face of it that our government knowingly facilitated these people providing, circumventing going to the border and in no way were encouraging people to stay in Mexico or comply with Mexican law."

Issa continued, "You cannot fund an organization, fund the meeting they had, fund bringing the people there, provide lots of other funding, food, water, the like, and then say that the presentation given wasn't the presentation that was prohibited by law. She acknowledged that that presentation would have been prohibited by law, but she simply said, 'we didn't fund it.' And, you know, that's sort of like saying we took the person to the bank. Yes, we vouch for them, but the counterfeit bills were printed by somebody else."

The Center for Immigration Studies reported earlier this year that the Biden administration has been involved for several years in "mainlining taxpayer funds" to a variety of nonprofits that "then distribute them to keep hundreds of thousands of migrants comfortably moving toward illegal U.S. southern border crossings."

In a statement to Fox News Digital, a State Department spokesperson again denied that the slide presentation was directly funded by U.S. taxpayers.

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"The Department of State's humanitarian assistance through international organizations and NGOs does not encourage or promote irregular migration and U.S. taxpayer dollars were not used to produce the slides in question," the spokesperson said. 

"On the contrary, The Bureau of Population, Refugees and Migration supports programs that help displaced individuals obtain legal status, documentation, employment, and education in countries throughout the Western Hemisphere so people can find stability and integrate," the spokesperson continued. "All contributions to implementing partners prohibits the use of government funds for activities that "encourage, mobilize, publicize, or manage mass-migration caravans towards the United States southwest border; legal counselling on the United States asylum process; and/or referrals to legal representation in the United States."

Issa told Fox News Digital that "this is not the end of it all" and he intends to "pursue this into the next Congress."

"All the people involved in this have to be fleshed out because  you know, oversight is not about asking questions and going away and oversight is not about asking questions and when you're given the answers, even if they're untrue, going away," Issa said. "It's about not quitting until you have the truth and not quitting until people who attempt to obfuscate or hide have held accountable. And right now, she's not being held accountable."