Federal law prohibits agencies from awarding grants to companies with unpaid federal taxes. But Deployed Resources, a New York-based contractor that owes $585,075 in unpaid taxes, received $964 million in federal contracts this year to house illegal immigrants in North Carolina and Texas. That windfall comes as Deployed Resources cultivated ties to the Democratic Party.
Tom Ziemba, an executive at Deployed Resources and president of its sister company, Deployed Services, has contributed more than $34,000 to Democrats, and has consulted for various Democratic groups. His ex-wife, Julie Mason, served as chief of staff for Vice President Kamala Harris’s husband until June 2022. Mason joined Deployed Services earlier this year as executive vice president for communications.
"The federal government has numerous controls to ensure award recipients are lawful and ethical actors, but these appear to be disregarded amid the Biden administration’s humanitarian crisis at the border," said Pete McGinnis, the communications director for the Functional Government Initiative, a government watchdog group.
Contracts to Deployed Resources, awarded largely by the Department of Homeland Security and Department of Health and Human Services, ballooned from $147 million in 2020 to $944 million in 2022. The IRS filed tax liens against the New York-based company in October 2022 for unpaid taxes from 2020 and 2021, according to documents obtained by the Washington Free Beacon.
