Month: March 2017

Refuting, once again, the big lie about 18-24 months of vetting!

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

I feel like every day I have to swat the same flies! It is maddening. Yesterday it was the c*** once again about the 110,000 PROPOSED refugee admissions ceiling for FY2017.

City councilwoman Jennifer Metzger does NOT have the facts! https://www.facebook.com/electjenmetzger

And, today I see that the big lie—that refugees are vetted for 18-24 months—is being perpetuated by ignorant town leaders!
It might take that long for the bureaucracy to move papers around, but refugees are not security-screened for 2 years.
IN FACT, in April 2016, the Obama State Department, desperate to get its promised 10,000 Syrians placed across America, REDUCED THE PROCESS TO 3 MONTHS!  He sent a team of interviewers to places like Jordan to push their papers through faster.

What got my attention this morning was a short news story from Rosendale, NY where the Town Board voted to declare their support for refugees so that they could educate the public—what with a big fat lie!
Here is the Daily Freeman:

ROSENDALE, N.Y. >> The Town Board members has declared its support of having refugees resettled in Rosendale and is asking the federal government to continue participating in a program that provides safety to people fleeing armed conflicts and human rights abuses.

A resolution adopted by the board at its most recent meeting was “partly motivated by the need to get the facts out there about the refugee crisis and the U.S. resettlement process,” Councilwoman Jennifer Metzger said.

The resolution notes, among other things, that every refugee seeking to enter the United States undergoes a vetting process that takes 18 to 24 months to complete.

NO! Not “every” refugee is vetted for 18-24 months!

Gina Kassem oversees the State Department’s refugee resettlement program in North Africa and the Middle East admits the process was shortened to THREE months.

Here at AP in April of last year, we learned that Obama accelerated the time required to process in refugees from Syria.

Obama REDUCED THE ‘VETTING’ TO THREE MONTHS!

Associated Press (emphasis is mine):

Gina Kassem, the regional refugee coordinator at the U.S. Embassy in Amman, said that while the target of 10,000 applies to Syrian refugees living around the world, most will be resettled from Jordan.

“The 10,000 (figure) is a floor and not a ceiling, and it is possible to increase the number,” Kassem told reporters.

While the resettlement process usually takes 18 to 24 months, the surge operation will reduce the time to three months, Kassem said.

Continue here for more of the AP story.  My report on it is here.
What the Trump Administration says they want to do during their proposed ‘pause’ in resettlement is review the ‘vetting’ process to make sure it is the strongest security screening possible.
The refugee contractors*** behind efforts like this propaganda campaign in Rosendale, NY, never mention that the FBI Director Comey has repeatedly said, refugees from Syria (a failed state) cannot be thoroughly screened because there are no records on them or even any way to verify who they are! (Same applies to Somalis! Rohingya! Others wandering around the globe!)
***Federal refugee resettlement contractors which are paid by the head to place refugees in most US states:

 

Hawaii judge places restraining order on Trump EO involving refugee pause

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Unless I find a definitive article about what exactly the judge in Hawaii ruled on the Trump Executive Order in the next couple of hours (I have a doc appt.), here is one news story from the AP (thanks to reader Theodore).
Also, according to several news sources discussing other pending cases, including Fox News , one argument in the Maryland case is absolutely nuts.  I worry that judges ruling on the cases have no idea about what the US Refugee Act of 1980 says or how the program has been administered for 37 years!

Judge Derrick Watson. Photo and story “One Unelected Leftist Judge in Hawaii Decided Security for the Entire Nation” http://www.independentsentinel.com/one-unelected-leftist-judge-hawaii-decided-security-entire-nation/

It makes me want to scream!
The line that I see while searching just now, that is being spread by many news sources, is this one:

“The Maryland lawsuit also argues that it’s against federal law for the Trump administration to reduce the number of refugees allowed into the United States this year by more than half, from 110,000 to 50,000. Attorneys argued that if that aspect of the ban takes effect, 60,000 people would be stranded in war-torn countries with nowhere else to go.”

We are assuming that comes from the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society suit we reported here. The true gist of their argument is that they, the federal resettlement contractors, were expecting more paying “clients” and had built their budgets around the per head payment they were expecting with the unrealistic 110,000 refugees Obama said would come in the year he no longer was president!
For the umpteenth time, that 110,000 that Obama set last fall is a CEILING that the Administration says it will not surpass, it is not a goal!
And, that 110,000 was the highest Obama had ever set in his presidency.  Trump has the absolute authority to reduce the ceiling, but more importantly he can bring in any number under whatever he set, or whatever Obama set!
Forget the EO!

President Trump has all the authority he needs to not import any more refugees this entire year (I’m not sure that his team even knows that he has no legal obligation to bring in even 50,000!).

As of this morning, we have admitted 38,106 refugees this fiscal year (2017) via Wrapsnet.  783 refugees arrived in the ten day period from the announcement of this EO and today when the “moratorium” was to go in to effect.
I repeat!  The President does not have to call it a moratorium or include it in this EO. He can simply stop processing new refugees abroad with no further explanation!

President George W. Bush had 4 years under 50,000! His lowest year was 39,554.  Even Obama had two years under 60,000 and well below the ceiling!  See here.

Now look at this chart (below) very carefully.   When I found it at Wrapsnet, the last year, 2016, was not complete.  Know that we brought in just short of the 85,000 ceiling (a rare occurrence).
The federal refugee resettlement contractors have long wanted the president’s ‘determination’ each year to be a GOAL (a target) not a CEILING! But, the law says it is a ceiling. Look at the column for CEILING and the column for the number actually admitted!
What do you see?  Rarely does the number admitted reach the CEILING.
In FY2006, they were 28,777 below the CEILING. Did anyone sue the President?
In FY2007, they were 21,718 below the CEILING. Did anyone sue the President?
In FY2008, they were 19,809 below the CEILING. Did anyone sue the President?
In FY2009, they were 5,346 below the CEILING. Did anyone sue the President?
In FY2010, they were 6,689 below the CEILING. Did anyone sue the President?
In FY2011, they were 23,576 below the CEILING. Did anyone sue President Obama?
In FY2012, they were 17,762 below the CEILING. Did anyone sue President Obama for leaving thousands “stranded in war-torn countries”?
Obama got closer to the lowered CEILING over the next few years.
You get my drift!
 

Be sure to note that Obama never set a ceiling as high as 110,000 in all his previous years as president. That 110,000 was set in the final months of his final year! The average admissions over the years shown here is around 65,000. I could not find the chart that includes the last month of FY16, but we admitted only a few refugees short of the 85,000 ceiling because the Administration was hell-bent to get in thousands of Syrians.

 
I’m begging ignorant and lazy reporters to get the facts!
And, I am sure you are scared as heck, as I am, to see judges making decisions based on sheer ignorance of the law.
See my post from last Friday about how Hawaii hypocrites! have “welcomed” only a tiny number of refugees over the years—none from Africa and only 5 (total) from two Muslim countries.
This post is filed in our Trump Watch! category as well as ‘refugee statistics’ and ‘where to find information.’

Sterling Heights mosque could be delayed further as local community files its own lawsuit

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

For background see our earlier post, here. And, take note that the Obama US Attorney who sided with the mosque builders was one of those asked to resign by President Trump a few days ago.
From Leo Hohmann at World Net Daily (Christians who escaped persecution in Iraq are fighting back!):

The saga of the 21,000-square-foot mega-mosque in Sterling Heights, Michigan, is not over yet.

The mayor and city council voted Feb. 21 to settle a lawsuit by a Shiite Muslim group and allow it to build a mosque in a residential neighborhood populated largely by Chaldean Christian refugees who escaped Islamic persecution in Iraq.

A companion suit against the city by Barack Obama’s Department of Justice alleging the city had denied the mosque a permit based on “anti-Muslim” sentiments in the community was also settled at the Feb. 21 meeting, paving the way for the mosque to start construction.

Nahren Anweya: “This minority group consists of more than four generations of refugees and genocide victims under radical Islam.”

But the counter-lawsuit filed Monday argues that city officials were actually favoring the Shiite Muslims of neighboring Madison Heights while ignoring the wishes of its own citizens who were overwhelmingly against the mosque.

If built, the American Islamic Community Center, or AICC, will become the third mosque in Sterling Heights.

Second DOJ-imposed win for Muslims in less than year

It was the second bitter mosque battle in Southeastern Michigan in less than a year.

Obama’s DOJ forced a madrassa on Pittsfield Township, near Ann Arbor, and that town had to pay out $1.7 million to the mosque while sending township employees to be trained on how not to discriminate against Muslims.

After the contentious Feb. 21 meeting in Sterling Heights in which the mayor ordered police to empty the city-hall chambers before the council took a vote on the mosque deal, WND reported that the Chaldean Christians were upset and talking about a counter-lawsuit.

On Monday, they acted. They had Ann Arbor-based American Freedom Law Center, or AFLC, file a civil rights suit on their behalf against the city and Mayor Michael C. Taylor, alleging violations of state and federal law.

“The mayor and the corrupted personal interests behind him have outraged a community which is comprised of the largest minority Assyrian/Chaldean Christians from Iraq,” said Nahren Anweya, spokeswoman for the Chaldean and Assyrian Christians in Sterling Heights. “This minority group consists of more than four generations of refugees and genocide victims under radical Islam.”

CAIR crows and threatens:

Dawud Walid CAIR Michigan. Learn more about him here: http://www.investigativeproject.org/2438/dawud-walid-unhinged#

When the city agreed to settle the suit and allow the mosque to be built, the Michigan chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, or CAIR, said the victory for the mosque should teach Michigan cities a lesson.

“We hope that this settlement, along with last year’s settlement in Pittsfield Township regarding a previously blocked Islamic school project, sends a strong message to city governments in Michigan seeking to deny zoning of religious institutions simply because they are led by Muslims,” said CAIR-Michigan Executive Director Dawud Walid.

An attorney for the AICC mosque, Azzam Elder, threatened to “monitor” local residents he felt were Islamophobic.

“Moving forward, we’re very concerned about some of what you’ve seen at the public hearings with some of the residents,” Elder told the Detroit News. “We’ll be monitoring what we feel (could be) potential hate groups.”

Hohmann’s story is very thorough.  I have only snipped a small portion of it, go here to learn more.
Besides the lawsuit, I’m thinking that the citizens there might follow the Rutland model and work very hard to remove (at the ballot box!) the elected officials who caved!
One of the great and lasting legacies of a naive federal refugee program is that the US State Department and its contractors have placed Middle Eastern groups who have been in conflict for centuries in close proximity to each other in American cities assuming, we can only presume, that their religious conflicts will melt away in the great (mythical?) American melting pot.

Horowitz: Where is Congress? Why are they not helping Trump on immigration?

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

That’s been my question too!

Here at Conservative Review, Daniel Horowitz asks why Congress is not backing the President’s right to control immigration to America and determine how many refugees we admit and from where they originate.
Instead Congress is entangled in one major mess over Obamacare.  And, frankly, although important, repeal of Obamacare did not motivate voters to support Trump in the way immigration restriction did.
Here is Horowitz (emphasis mine):

Where is Congress?

Look at the House GOP’s agenda since January. It has been devoid of any substance. What other majority party with control of the White House has failed to act on a single significant issue in its first 100 days? Why are they not passing bills defending Trump’s executive order, and why are they not stripping the courts of jurisdiction over immigration?

While you are at Conservative Review, be sure to check out their very useful ‘scorecard.’ I think you will be surprised at the low scores of many members of Congress and Senators you might have once thought were conservative. https://www.conservativereview.com/scorecard

Trump’s only major accomplishment thus far was the refugee moratorium and that is hanging by a thread thanks to the erroneous outsourcing of legislative and executive authority to the courts. It’s time for Trump to work with House conservatives to bolster his immigration agenda against the courts, instead of fighting conservatives to enshrine Obamacare into law.

Trump must demand that Congress back his immigration order in the April budget bill by defunding the refugee resettlement program and the issuance of any visas from the six countries on his list. House conservatives should also work with Trump to defund Obama’s executive amnesty.

Instead of threatening conservatives with primary challenges if they fail to betray Trump’s own election mandate, why not threaten to primary the RINOs for not backing his immigration agenda? Or is it easier to go after conservatives because they are politically expendable?

Read the whole column here and see how “rogue” judges are taking control of the immigration issue in America.
For more on Congress, see my tag ‘Where is Congress‘ especially on the appropriations issue!

One report: Trump Dept. of State to cut funding to UN by 50%

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

That is the news from The Hill two days ago!
Finally an elusive number I’ve wondered about for years is mentioned here:

The US pays $1.5 billion of the $4 billion annual budget of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees.

UN High Commissioner for Refugees glass-fronted building in Geneva. Imagine what this costs to staff and run in Switzerland! American taxpayers pay 37% of it! ($1.5 billion of an annual $4 billion budget).

That is the agency of the UN choosing our refugees for your towns and cities!
The Hill:

President Trump’s administration has told the State Department to cut more than 50 percent of U.S. funding to United Nations programs, Foreign Policy reported.

The push for the drastic reductions comes as the White House is scheduled to release its 2018 topline budget proposal Thursday, which is expected to include a 37 percent cut to the State Department and U.S. Agency for International Development budgets.***

It’s not clear if Trump’s budget plan, from the Office of Management and Budget, would reflect the full extent of Trump’s proposed cuts to the U.N.

[….]

The U.S. spends roughly $10 billion annually on the U.N., and the cuts could have the greatest impact on peacekeeping, the U.N. development program and UNICEF, which are funded by State’s Bureau of International Organization Affairs.

The fate of other popular [?—ed] programs, like the World Food Programme and U.N. refugee operations, are less clear. The World Food Programme’s funding comes from the Department of Agriculture.

Let the wailing begin….

Richard Gowan, a U.N. expert at the European Council on Foreign Relations, said the alterations would spark “chaos” if true.

Richard Gowan, European Council on Foreign Relations, said cuts would bring “chaos.” Photo: http://www.ecfr.eu/experts

“[It would] leave a gaping hole that other big donors would struggle to fill,” he told FP, pointing to how the U.S. provided $1.5 billion of the U.N. refugee agency’s $4 billion budget last year.

“Multiply that across other humanitarian agencies like the World Food Programme and you are basically talking about the breakdown of the international humanitarian system as we know it.”

More here, and then yesterday The Washington Post reported the news as well, but does not mention the UNHCR.
The Post quotes Trump’s UN ambassdor Nikki Haley as saying the following in her confirmation hearing in January. (Just a reminder dear readers that Haley works for Trump, so let’s hope she is now on the same page as the President!)

  “I do not think we need to pull money from the U.N. We don’t believe in slash-and-burn.”

***Let’s talk about USAID for a minute!

We haven’t written much over the years about the Agency for  International Development which also gives gobs and gobs of (your) money to some federal refugee contractors.
I knew the International Rescue Committee couldn’t be pulling in millions from solely seeding refugees in places like Missoula, Montana, so I checked USA Spending just now to see what they were getting from USAID. Yikes!  Here is a screen shot of one tiny portion of one page. (These are grants from 2008 to 2016).

The IRC received nearly $1 billion from US taxpayers during the Obama years!

No wonder they have money to community-organize against citizens in small city America!
 

Six transactions of 971!

 
For our complete archive on the IRC, click here.

Cut Donald, cut!