John Barrasso Declares Programs Protecting Christian Minorities and Combatting Migration “Wrong”
On an appearance on Fox News Sunday yesterday, Senator John Barrasso claimed Democrats are “filing lawsuit after lawsuit because they want the border to remain open, they want to have boys playing in girls’ sports, and they want to spend money on things that people think are ridiculous — these transgender comic books, operas, surgery in foreign countries — all of these things are wrong.”
It’s unclear whether Wyoming’s Senator has simply pickled his brain with too much Fox News, made the grave mistake of believing any single thing Karoline Leavitt and/or Elon Musk says, or simply been ill-served by his staffers.
Several of the spending issues he alluded to, for example, have been publicly explained (and represent State Department funding, not USAID funding).
The rest were awarded by the State Department’s Office of the Under Secretary for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs. In 2022, it granted $70,884 to an Irish company for “a live musical event to promote the U.S. and Irish shared values of diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility.” A grant for $25,000 was awarded in 2021 to a university in Colombia “to raise awareness and increase the transgender representation” through the production of an opera, with an additional $22,020 coming from non-federal funding. And $32,000 awarded in 2022 to a Peruvian organization funded “a tailored-made comic, featuring an LGBTQ+ hero to address social and mental health issues.”
The bigger problem for the badly misled Senator Barrasso, however, is in claiming that “all of these things are wrong,” he is saying he opposes a bunch of programs that did get shut down, including protecting the religious freedom of Christian minorities in Asia and Africa and combatting migration to the United States at its source.
That’s what declaration after declaration after declaration submitted in lawsuits reveal. Many these lawsuits haven’t been filed by Democrats; some of which have been filed by representatives of small businesses devastated because Donald Trump has decided to renege on billions of dollars of signed contracts, which is the key injury alleged in one of the more sweeping Temporary Restraining Orders thus far.
More importantly, rather than halting things that Barrasso is sure are wrong, they’ve halted programs that go to the core of what Trump claims he supports.
Disrupting migration at its source in El Salvador and Venezuela
One USAID contractor, Chemonics, describes several programs designed to disrupt migration to the US at its source. It describes the disruption of a program targeting El Salvador:
Working with urban municipalities and communities to counter incentives to join gangs and creating safe public spaces, addressing the root causes of migration to the U.S. from El Salvador;
[snip]
In El Salvador, each day the stop work order is in effect undermines progress made by Chemonics enhancing safety, economic opportunities, and safer environments. These work stoppages disrupt services designed to prevent organized crime and reduce migration, and they impede the development and implementation of long-term policies and organizational capacity of our government counterparts to sustain these gains.
And another program facilitating Venezuelan migration to Colombia, in lieu of migration to the US.
Helping resettle Venezuelan migrants permanently in Colombia by supporting Colombian visa processes and assisting with job skills training and placement to prevent migration to the U.S. southern border;
[snip]
In Colombia, 11 one-stop-shops for Venezuelan migrants to obtain temporary visas and nine workforce development centers now lack the resources necessary to operate, leaving migrants without access to social integration services. Agreements that Chemonics had negotiated with four banks to provide bank account registration and other financial services for migrants could not be signed, resulting in reputational harm. Similarly, each day the stop-work order remains in place, we lose the engagement of more than 1,500 private sector companies across different sectors that had agreed to promote job hiring and placement of Venezuelan migrants and connect migrant-led businesses to market opportunities. Chemonics fears that, without access to these services, more Venezuelan migrants will turn to illegal smuggling and human trafficking to on-migrate to the U.S. border.
Protecting Christian minorities
One contractor described that its human rights defenders protecting Christian communities from terrorists are at risk.
In Burkina Faso, human rights defenders who are working to track violence by the military junta and terrorist groups that have targeted Christian communities are at risk of being killed because the program can no longer help them relocate to safer locations and provide them with food, shelter, and subsistence support.
The American Bar Assocation also described having programs supporting religious freedom in Asia shut down.
With our partners in Indonesia, ABA is actively pursuing six religious freedom cases, including 4 representing Christian churches who were denied necessary permits to hold worship services and 2 representing Shia and Ahmadiyya Muslims who were accused of blasphemy/heresy
Combatting human trafficking
The ABA also supports programs fighting human trafficking in the Congo and Colombia.
The ABA is building the long-term capacity of the Congolese government, lawyers, and local service providers to combat human trafficking and violence against women, children, and other vulnerable groups around the country. ABA’s partners include medical, legal, psychological, shelter, and economic support providers alongside security actors, Congolese government representatives, and judicial personnel who receive training, technical assistance, capacity building, and direct distribution of goods or services for survivors. The project also works with local NGOs to raise public awareness on existing laws, rights, referral pathways, and resources for survivors to collectively improve long-term attitudes toward victims of trafficking and violence against women, children, and other vulnerable groups.
[snip]
In Colombia, ABA ROLI is implementing the Child Protection Compact (CPC) Partnership program, which aims to strengthen investigations, prosecutions and adjudications of child and adolescent trafficking cases through institutional strengthening as well as advocacy and increased access to justice. Emphasizing sustainable outcomes, this program adopts highly participatory approaches that increase commitment of the government, ensures sustained technical knowledge, and has developed tools and standard operating procedures, and improved law enforcement’s practices to obtain reliable data. As a result of the funding freeze, despite Colombia’s efforts to address the worst forms of child labor, children will still remain subjected to commercial sexual exploitation, illicit activities, forced labor, and recruitment by criminal groups.
Competing with China for Congo’s resources
One USAID employee describes how the evacuation and defunding has put programs designed to provide Congo alternate markets to those of China have been put at risk.
My portfolio focuses on establishing conflict-free supply chains of critical minerals from the DRC to the U.S. The overarching objective of my role is to strengthen the supply chain of DRC’s vast critical minerals sector to the U.S. Much of my job is establishing relationships with Government of DRC officials and informing them of the benefits partnerships with the U.S. offer. Over 70% of the world’s cobalt is produced in the DRC, which is almost entirely shipped to China. My job was to help reduce the country’s dependence through increased trade with the U.S.
[snip]
[T]he shutdown is ruining the U.S.’s strong relationship with the DRC government and private sector partners in the mining sector. USAID had many partnerships and programs active in the DRC’s mining sector focused on improving the environmental and social aspects of mining so that minerals could be legally exported to the U.S. Likewise, USAID was the primary donor supporting the development of the Lobito Corridor in the DRC. We have essentially “ghosted” all of our partners and our reputation may forever be tarnished as a result. Over the past few years, the DRC had expressed their preference for U.S. partnerships and USAID worked hard to develop strong, mutually beneficial partnerships that increase trade, benefitting the DRC economy and U.S. consumers who rely on the critical minerals that only the DRC produces. This is in jeopardy. China is ready to immediately jump in and take over.
John Barrasso has a job to do, and that is to oversee the actions taken by the President, of either party.
And rather than doing the least due diligence to learn about the damage that Trump’s shutdowns have caused, Barrasso instead went on TV and — presumably without knowing the least little bit about what he was talking about — cheered the shutdown of programs protecting Christian minorities around the world.
