Despite rising complaints that the State Department under President Donald Trump is continuing the previous administration’s policies of indifference toward Iraq’s embattled Christian community, federal officials insist they have not abandoned religious minorities.

A State Department official told LifeZette that the U.S. government has provided nearly $1.7 billion since fiscal year 2014 for humanitarian assistance for Iraqis inside and outside the country — including “vulnerable communities” like the Yazidis and Christians. That includes an additional $64 million announced September 20.

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“Any assertion that the U.S is not providing support to vulnerable communities in Iraq is false,” the official told LifeZette.

The official, who asked not to be named as he is not authorized to speak on the record, pointed to $115 million — with more pledged — that has been directed toward the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) Funding Facility for Stabilization, which has helped 2.2. million Iraqis return home. U.S. humanitarian assistance is based on need, not religious affiliation, according to the State Department official.

Despite the assurances, critics of U.S. policy argue the rhetoric does not match the facts on the ground. In Defense of Christians will kick off a three-day summit Tuesday to highlight critical challenges facing Christians in the Middle East. Vice President Mike Pence is scheduled to deliver the keynote address on Wednesday evening.

Nina Shea, director of the Center for Religious Freedom at the Hudson Institute, said the U.S. government has erred by channeling its aid through the United Nations.

“The money has been spent, but not on the Christian refugees,” she said.

Shea said reconstruction projects meant to benefit Christian towns are targeting places that are no longer Christian.

“The U.N. has proven itself to be extremely politicized and unaccountable and should be the last body charged with millions — even billions — of dollars of aid to help persecuted minorities on the brink of extinction,” she said.

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Shea pointed to the congressional testimony last month of Stephen Rasche, the legal counsel and director of Internally Displaced Persons Resettlement Programs of the Chaldean Catholic Archdiocese of Erbil, Iraq. He told the House Africa, Global Health, Global Human Rights, and International Organizations Subcommittee that the U.N. Development Program has failed the region’s Christians.

“While status reports from UNDP work in Nineveh purport to show real progress in the Christian majority towns, on the ground, we see little evidence of it,” he said. “Work projects are in most cases cosmetic in nature, and much of that cynically so.”

Rasche testified that “completed” projects include school rehabilitations in the towns of Teleskov and Batnaya, in which a thin coat of paint has been added to the exterior of buildings and newly stenciled UNICEF logos have been prominently displayed — but where inside rooms remain untouched and unusable.

Rasche also noted that the UNDP claims work done in areas with Christian majorities — like the town of Telkayf — where Islamic State fighters drove the Christians out. Those refugees are petrified to return, he said.

“The Christians won’t go back to it. They’re terrified.”

“Mr. Chairman, there are no more Christians in Telkayf,” he told the panel. “They were forced from this town by acts of genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes. ISIS was firmly in control of this town until last fall, and many of its Sunni Arab residents remained.”

Amazingly, Rasche said, Telkayf has been chosen as a settlement site for the families of ISIS fighters who died in battle.

“The Christians won’t go back to it,” Shea told LifeZette. “They’re terrified.”

In written testimony submitted to the subcommittee, Rasche maintained that “in effect, U.S. taxpayers are financing the spoils of genocide.”

Shea said the United Nations has failed to consult the Nineveh Reconstruction Committee, made up of the three main Christian churches in Nineveh, on where to spend relief funds. She urged the U.S. government to bypass the United Nations and fund reconstruction projects directly.

“What it has really shown is both the incompetence and indifference to these tiny minorities that don’t throw bombs,” she said. “If you don’t cause trouble, you don’t get much attention.”

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The House and the Senate Foreign Relations Committees have passed the Iraq and Syria Genocide Relief and Accountability Act, which would direct humanitarian and recovery aid to communities in Iraq and Syria toward ethnic and minority communities most in need. But the full Senate has not voted on the bill.

Shea says pronouncements of progress by federal officials cannot be trusted.

“The State Department echoes what the U.N. tells them,” she said.

Shea said a change in policy has been resisted by career bureaucrats and holdovers from former President Barack Obama’s administration.

“The new team isn’t in place yet,” she said.