How Closely Do You Need to Follow the Money?
Border Slaves, Bivalves, and Picking the Taxpayer Pocket
Hello again, friends,
We’ve been chewing over some recent food for thought that we read in another publication where a former CIA spook jumped all over the Southern Border Crisis and broke things down in a very simple way.
If you want to understand why so many of our elected officials seem determined to play dumb— seem determined to look the other way— seem determined to avoid addressing things in any truly meaningful fashion whatsoever, it helps to think of this whole thing not just as the humanitarian crisis it is becoming, but also as a vehicle with which to loot the public treasury. This behavior can be found in both parties. It just so happens that right now, a certain party is in control and facilitating things.
It all amounts to a way to legally rip off the taxpayer.
And we’re not just talking about Texas and we’re not just talking about the NGO’s. Elaboration in just a moment.
First, let’s consider the source.
Former CIA agent Sam Faddis is someone we do not know. But a little research suggests he’s been enjoying a second career as a conservative-leaning private analyst and pundit after leaving the Agency. Some would tell you such folks never really retire from the CIA, but we digress.
One shouldn’t always believe everything they hear from such sources. We’re reminded of counter-culture documentaries from the 1970s, where ex-agents would explain how they subvert journalism in developing countries by “feeding” reporters truthful information right up until the point they needed to start feeding them lies.
This was actually a common practice for both the CIA and the KGB in the cold war, and many believe it continues today in an updated fashion, facilitated by “private” and “boutique” corporate intelligence analysis organizations similar to past well-known operations like “stratfor.com”
In this case, however, it’s hard to see much to disagree with in Faddis’ analysis, which we will now begin to dive into as he attacks the way money is being spent just in the State of New York.
The piece is called: Somebody Is Getting Rich Off The Migrant Invasion – It Just Ain’t You
And it’s a doozy. Think about the no-bid contracts to resettle migrants all around the nation. Border Patrol agents and other government workers aren’t the ones actually physically resettling people.
It’s all being done by outfits like the one Faddis highlights, called “DocGo.”
What’s interesting in this case, is that DocGo used to make a living handling bulk Covid-19 testing. It appears that when that money dried up, they simply pivoted to the new hotness: Migrant resettlement.
It’s like some kind of matyroshka doll of an operation— open it up, you find another tax-sucking vampire of an operation inside, ready to go to work on the next thing. How long before they start lining up to “help” Maui?
DocGo is a mobile medical services company. It used to make money doing Covid testing and the like. Now it moves migrants out of New York City, dumps them in towns upstate, and funnels them into illegal, low-paying jobs.
New York City awarded DocGo a $432 million no-bid contract for the work. In doing so it bypassed the city comptroller who is charged with overseeing city finances. There was no discussion about this expenditure.
DocGo then apparently fed migrants in New York City lies about lucrative jobs waiting for them upstate, loaded them up in buses, and drove them out to cities all across New York. DocGo also reportedly gave the migrants fake work and residency permits, some printed on phony New York City letterhead. The false documents were rejected when the migrants then took them to the local Department of Motor Vehicles to secure identification documents.
—Sam Faddis, in his publication “AND Magazine”
Faddis buttresses his assertions with reporting by former Texan Jay Root, who is now working for the New York Times, but we’d honestly find it compelling enough even without such sourcing.
None of this was coordinated with the cities where the migrants were dumped. Officials in those jurisdictions said they weren’t even given the names of the individuals transported to their locales.
The town supervisor for the Albany suburb of Colonie sued New York City after two busloads of migrants arrived at the SureStay Hotel in that town in May and then simply remained warehoused there beyond the 28 consecutive days allowed by law. DocGo seemed unfazed. It sent three more busloads of migrants to the same hotel in July.
At the SureStay, security guards working for the hotel are reported to have ordered migrants not to talk to the press. At least one individual was threatened with physical violence because he was talking too much.
There is nothing unique about what is happening in Colonie. The movement of migrants out of New York City is occurring on such a vast scale that jurisdictions all over the state are declaring states of emergency. At the Super 8 motel in Schenectady as of a couple of weeks ago, there were 238 migrants housed. That is one motel in one town Dec
—Faddis, Again
One motel in one town. Sounds familiar, doesn’t it? Folks around here can attest to the state of things at the motels and hotels in Del Rio, TX. Every night, a long anonymous line of motor coaches line up outside the local Motel 6. Drivers, getting some rest before scooping up the next round of people to take into the rest of the country— just one leg in a constant streaming shuttle of transportation that we’ve likened in the past to a sick variation of “Just-in-Time” shipping, applied to people instead of product. We examined that feature of the crisis, along with some curious behavior in the courts, almost a year ago in the piece below:
Analysis Paralysis: Allegations that ACLU Quietly Squelching Anti-OLS Lawsuits
Good Morning Friends, Highly recommend taking a look at Texas Monthly’s website sometime today. Reporter Aaron Nelsen has a short, but great piece based on the curious question: After about a year of Operation Lone Star, why hasn’t the Justice Department or activist organizations really been able to effectively grapple with OLS in the courts?
Now, back to Faddis’ analysis:
The declaration of emergency for Schenectady says that the county Department of Social Services (DSS) houses 150-250 individuals in need each night, primarily in local hotels. That is in addition to the individuals DocGo is bringing in.
A total of 34 New York counties have issued states of emergency related to migration since April. New York City has responded by suing 30 such jurisdictions in an attempt to secure judicial orders forcing these counties to accept the migrants DocGo is pumping upstate.
None of the individuals being transported upstate by DocGo have the legal right to work in the United States. They are all technically waiting for hearings and claim to be asylum seekers. It seems very strange then that many if not most of these individuals are apparently finding their way immediately into the labor market.
Speaking about this issue recently, Albany Mayor Kathy Sheehan said, "The very first thing that two of the asylum seekers asked me was, 'Can we work? We really want to work.'" In a subsequent statement, the city of Albany said, “We have learned through our communications with New York City and their vendor, DocGo, that approximately 90% of asylum seekers in Albany County are employed in less than a week.”
—Faddis, again
Huh. That’s weird, don’t you think? And these are just the folks willing to do honest jobs. We’ve talked in the past about how at some point, more than a few will start going grey and black market because cleaning hotel rooms doesn’t pay enough.
Faddis wraps it all up by noting: This represents a more-than hundred-million-dollar taxpayer funded enterprise in just the state of New York.
Migrants are being bused all over the Country.
Do you see now? No wonder certain lawmakers seem so determined not to get in the way of this money train. Even if they’re not getting paid directly, they probably don’t want to get run over after trying to mess with someone else’s ricebowl.
We find our thoughts returning to a recent point we made elsewhere about how you have to judge some of what’s being done by Governor Abbott, by the reactions he’s generating among those determined to oppose Operation Lone Star.
His floating barrier of buoys and concertina wire has gotten the biggest rise out of the Federal Government yet, not to mention open border activists.
This suggests that barriers (and walls) work! If they didn’t— there’d be no outcry.
The latest— is a sudden surge of concern for the Mexican Fawnsfoot Mussel. It’s endangered!
They would have you believe that the buoys are a problem for the mussel— but the well-documented human waste, garbage, and abandoned clothing left by migrants rushing the border are A-OK for the bivalves.
Perennial favorite Todd Bensman took a close look at this particularly cynical ploy by open border proponents.
But what about Kinney County? What’s going on here? It seems to us that residents are channeling some of the resilience found in Communities South of the Rio Grande— getting on with life in the face of a new normal that should be anything but.
Yes— they do have to watch out for and dodge high speed pursuits on Highway 90 and other thoroughfares between Del Rio, Eagle Pass, and Uvalde.
But they also have to live their lives. So they do. They’re picking up and getting on with things.
We find ourselves having to press for details about local pursuits, while Sheriff’s Deputies push back— wanting to know from us “which one.”
In other words, for local deputies, it’s all running together. It’s becoming all too common. We imagine it’s much the same for individual troopers in the Department of Public Safety.
Contrast this idea with recent reporting from the interior of Mexico by Journalist Ioan Grillo— who describes stumbling upon a narco-murder scene in a cafe one morning some years back, only to find the cafe open for business later that afternoon.
People in Mexico are getting on with it, as it seems murder and narco violence has become routine. In Colombia, we are told, they use the curious phrase “la violencia” to refer to the decades long unrest predating even the time of Pablo Escobar. Let us hope that any such resilience will be ultimately unnecessary for us here in the US.
That should do it for now. With all that’s happening, it’s easy to take one’s eye off of what should be some of the most infuriatingly cynical aspects of this border crisis— so thanks to Sam Faddis for his attempt at wrenching things back to the looting of the public treasury.
The way it is masquerading as humanitarian effort just gives it that chef’s kiss of perfect cupidity.
It is so outrageous that it becomes difficult to address in an articulate fashion.
Kind of like the endangered mussels.
Meanwhile, with every day that goes by, more and more people are being exploited at all ends of the border. Historically, we are told about the triangle trade in the Atlantic, that brought black Africans to the new world.
What will future generations come to call this? This shameful, greedy, and so far largely ignored effort to import all manner of South and Central Americans, and essentially force them into a twilight criminal existence of unescapable exploitation?
Ironically, Kinney County, Val Verde County, and Maverick County are bound to escape most of the long-term consequences of this. The area is so dry, dusty, and destitute that no migrants or their cartel handlers will be lingering here in the long term. You can’t hardly sell enough meth, let alone cocaine here to make it worth the hassle.
No, the long-term troubles will all nest and take root in Houston, San Antonio, Austin, Dallas, Tulsa, Chicago, and other major points north as the Cartels expand the franchise .
In the background, those facilitating this will be pivoting to the next scheme that will see further transfers of wealth from the Community Chest to their own bank accounts.
Lucky us.
That should do it for now. Thanks for reading. The month of August will be over before you know it— youngsters will be back in school all over the State of Texas. Drive carefully, and don’t forget to stop behind yellow school buses while loading and unloading.
We’ll be back again soon— until then, we should mention as always in the spirit of full disclosure, our dayjob fielding public information requests for Kinney County, and how this newsletter is an independent effort kept as separate from the County as possible. No one should mistake it for any sort of a formal communication on behalf of the County. Indeed, it is published without oversight, and without any editing beyond what we manage in the wee small hours of the morning before publishing.
Have a great day, and if you find yourself anywhere near Kinney County at some point, don’t hesitate to visit one of the fine local dining establishments. Ziggy’s Roadside Barbecue is perhaps the most well-known at this time, frequented by Reporters, Law Enforcement, and for all we know, Smugglers alike. Visit on a Friday night for a ludicrously delicious ribeye steak.
Always enjoy your blog. Though today's was a sad food for thought it also made me chuckle. Always funny when folks substitute a lie for a truth. Keep up the good work. Appreciate your writing style.