When the Department of Government Efficiency hit the ground running, attempting to rein in waste, fraud, and abuse within the federal government, some of the loudest criticism came from nongovernmental organizations—and a recent hearing from the Subcommittee on Delivering on Government Efficiency revealed why.
As subcommittee chairwoman Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene highlighted, there are deep ties between NGOs, Democratic elected officials, and administration officials who write grants and contracts.
“This scheme works in a cycle,” she explained. “Democrat Administration officials work with leftist NGOs to implement programs in a manner that ensures those NGOs receive massive grants and contracts. The leaders of those recipient groups then turn around and donate to Democrat political campaigns.
“This intricate web of connections is how elected and appointed Democrat officials and allied NGOs work together,” Greene continued. “Federal agencies fund the NGOs and the NGOs shape the agencies’ behavior. It can be hard to tell where the government ends and the NGO begins. The non-profits essentially serve as an arm of the government. To put it another way, if the permanent bureaucracy is the de-facto fourth branch of government, then these leftist NGOs are the fifth.”
Witness Mark Krikorian, the executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies, revealed how taxpayer money aided organizations that helped flood the U.S. with illegal immigrants under the Biden administration.
“During the 2021-2025 administration of President Joe Biden, the United States devoted significant taxpayer funds to a network formed in 2019 that consisted of United Nations agencies and non-government organizations,” he said. “The partnership established aid waystations all along Latin American illegal-migration routes, and it encouraged and facilitated at least 10 million foreign nationals from 180 countries to cross the U.S. southern border during those four years – at U.S. taxpayer expense.”
Krikorian detailed how these organizations thumbed their noses at U.S. immigration law.
“They provided millions of intending illegal border-crossers with ‘cash-based interventions’ in the form of debit cards and even cash in envelopes, as well as legal coaching that involved narrative engineering for fraudulent asylum claims, transportation facilitation, food, camping equipment, trail advice, and lodging assistance,” he explained.
Witness Daniel Turner, founder and executive director of Power the Future, also exposed how this “life cycle” was present between green groups and the Biden administration.
“The 2022 Inflation Reduction Act set aside hundreds of billions of dollars for the green agenda. The Environmental Protection Agency received tens of billions,” he said. “[A] staffer from an environmental group called The Coalition for Green Capital named Jahi Wise joined the Biden EPA to direct $27 billion in green funding. For context, $27 billion is larger than the budgets of the Departments of Treasury, Interior, and Commerce, yet Mr. Jahi went through no confirmation process, and his decision to direct tens of billions to organizations of his choosing had no Congressional oversight. Conveniently, under his tenure at this new EPA office, $5 billion was granted to his former organization, the Coalition for Green Capital. The abundance of green dollars created a new, pernicious mechanism: create a group for the sole purpose of getting government grants. For example, Power Forward Communities was only a few months old when it applied for, and received, nearly $9 billion to distribute at its own discretion. One lucky recipient was an organization affiliated with two-time Georgia gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams. With only $100 in the bank this group received $2 billion.”
Greene argued this “Democrat Circle of Life” must end and more transparency on this “waste and abuse of taxpayer resources” will help drain these NGOs of any remaining government funds.
“If we don’t, Democrats can’t wait to return to power and continue funding their NGO friends through these slush funds to stop deportations, keep these illegal alien criminals in our country, and fund the Green New Deal scam,” she said.
The Democrat Circle of Life pic.twitter.com/wWc1Ba9XeH
— DOGE Subcommittee (@DOGECommittee) June 4, 2025