Republicans push State Dept. on loans to refugees, warn resettlement orgs have 'vested financial interest'
Fox News
FIRST ON FOX: House Republicans, led by Rep. Lance Gooden, R-Texas, are pushing for more information from the State Department about a program to issue travel loans to refugees via the United Nations -- with the lawmakers expressing concern that it gives resettlement organizations a "vested financial interest" in pushing the U.S. to take in more refugees each year.
1.12 Letter to State Dept. on IOM Travel Loans by Fox News on Scribd
Those agencies, which includes major groups like International Rescue Committee and the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, in turn collect the repayments from the refugees themselves. However, the lawmakers highlighted that the agencies themselves can keep up to 25% of the total payments -- which could give them a financial interest to lobby for the U.S. to take more in.