Governors Kim Reynolds of Iowa and Bill Lee of Tennessee want the Senate to hold hearings on what they see as an outrageous affront to states’ rights as the federal Office of Refugee Resettlement is flying Unaccompanied Alien Children (refugee wannabes) in and out of their states with no communication with the governor or state officials.
We all know that a Senate hearing is nothing but a useless piece of political theater that won’t accomplish smack, but these grandstanding Republican governors obviously think they can trick you into believing they are doing something!
Is it any wonder we have such disdain for Republican governors like Reynolds.
And, what makes me steam over this little temper tantrum by Reynolds and Lee is that they had a chance to take a stand for states’ rights on the issue of the federal government dumping refugees on states and communities back when Trump was attempting to give them more rights (actually give them the rights they are due under our US Constitution) and they snubbed their noses at him.
Trump was trying to give them a chance to say they needed a break from refugees being placed in their states by the feds and unelected non-profit group actors, and they turned him down.
19 migrant children had a layover in an Iowa airport. Gov. Kim Reynolds wants Congress to get answers
With no notice to the state, at least 19 unaccompanied children were transported in an overnight flight through Des Moines from California in April, Gov. Kim Reynolds confirmed Thursday, saying she wants to know more details.
After deplaning, the children were taken on two buses to be transported to various locations for unification, according to a Thursday news release from Reynolds’ office.
“We weren’t able to get any answers about why there were chartered planes coming in the middle of night — chartered buses — and unaccompanied minors removed from the plane and then transported outside of the state,” Reynolds told reporters Thursday.
[….]
In April, a total of 163 unaccompanied migrant children were released to sponsors in Iowa, according to the federal Office of Refugee Resettlement statistics.
[….]
Good ol’ country boy, Lee with his pick ’em up truck.
Reynolds and Lee — who says unaccompanied minor children were brought to his state in May without any notification — wrote the joint letter to Grassley in support of the senator’s demands for a Senate Judiciary Hearing into the situation on the U.S. southern border with Mexico.
Gov. Bill Lee is asking the U.S. Senate to investigate the arrival of unaccompanied migrant children in Tennessee, a request that comes as the Republican governor continues to slam the Biden administration over a lack of transparency on the issue.
Lee and Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds, a fellow Republican, sent the letter on Thursday to U.S. Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa. Grassley in April requested that Senate Democrats hold hearings to discuss the influx of migrants at the southern border since President Joe Biden took office.
Their demand for a hearing is easy.
Their demand for “transparency” is their way of making you, voting citizens of Iowa and Tennessee, think that they are doing something, but when given a chance to really take a stand for a state’s right to know who is being placed in their states by the feds, and have an opportunity to say no, they just didn’t have the guts.
Albeit it was a different type of ‘refugee’…they are all refugees now, right! This letter below is what Reynolds sent to Trump’s Secretary of State.
Notice no interest even in finding out who is coming and how many.
So why would the present administration think they had to confer with these heretofore ‘welcoming’ Republican governors?
Texas Governor Abbot wrote a detailed letter that ended with him not giving consent to refugees being placed by the feds in Texas for FY2020.
Both Kemp of Georgia and DeSantis of Florida remained silent.
Word is that the Trump people were very shocked and disappointed that most Republican governors turned down the President’s attempt to give them more say, to give them some modicum of states’ rights, in advance of a refugee drop.
If you are wondering whatever happened to that reform effort via a Trump executive order, the refugee resettlement contractors (below) sued and stopped the initiative dead in its tracks.
By bringing in even greater numbers than we have in the past we can show the world that we have “moral authority” and even those dastardly Chinese will have to pay attention!
America needs more Rohingya refugees so we can show the world that we have moral authority and the rest of the globe will follow us to multicultural Nirvana.
They are all getting excited for Biden/Harris and here the Leftwing Brookings Institution*** in Washington says forget the idea of simply restoring our Refugee Admissions Program, it needs to be reformed to be even more robust when Biden gets to the White House in January 2021.
I thought I was going to be reading about real reform of the program when this headline was brought to my attention. But alas, reform=more poor (sick!) third worlders for your town.
COVID-19 and the chance to reform US refugee policy
COVID-19 has exposed the underlying fault lines in societies around the world and in modern globalization. Yet by revealing long ignored flaws, it presents a rare chance to reform.
Authors of this prescription for Biden. Yeh, we are going to take advice from a Turk telling us to go big with our refugee admissions numbers?
Unsurprisingly, refugees — the vast majority of whom live deeply precarious lives — have been among the most threatened by the pandemic.
A new U.S. administration should seize the opportunity presented by COVID-19 to build a better refugee policy, both for refugees’ benefit and for U.S. national security and strategic interests. [No one has ever shown me that our national security benefits from bringing in people from countries that hate us!—ed]
With the 70th anniversary of the 1951 Geneva Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees approaching in 2021, now is an opportune time for an update to U.S. refugee policy.
[….]
Today, vibrant[They cannot write a refugee story without using that word!—ed] refugee communities can be found in cities like Los Angeles, California, Nashville, Tennessee, and St. Louis, Missouri, which host the largest number of Vietnamese, Kurds, and Bosnians in the United States, respectively. [Notice they don’t mention the vibrant community of Somali Muslims in Minneapolis!—ed]
A compelling argument can be made that America needs refugees and owes part of its economic success to those who came to its shores seeking shelter from persecution and violence. The arrival of refugees helped to uphold America’s identity as a multicultural nation that accepts all victims of persecution who would come to its shores.
But that evil creature Trump has caused our “moral authority” to go into the toilet!
Blah, blah, blah…
I’m very interested to learn, if it’s true, that a battle is going on among Ds about whether to restore the program or go bigger….
As the 2020 presidential election draws near, a key division amongst Democrats who hope to see President Trump leave office in 2021 is between the restorationists, who think things can go back to the way they were before Trump, and the reformists, who see the hurricane of the Trump administration as an opportunity to build back stronger. COVID-19 should render this debate moot with regards to U.S. refugee policy.
Biden has already said he is going big in January (but won’t the pandemic still be raging in January)! And, I have no doubt he and Kamala will be eager to jump on the UN bandwagon on the Global Compact on Refugees!
There are already signs that a post-Trump United States could adopt a more helpful stance on refugees. Presumptive Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden has promised to rescind the Trump administration’s Muslim ban, restore access to asylum, and increase yearly refugee resettlement quotas to 125,000, a move that would show solidarity with countries hosting large numbers of refugees and likely spur U.S. allies to follow suit. There is also support in Congress for shouldering a greater refugee burden, as seen with Refugee Protection Act proposed in November 2019.
With a definitive end to the COVID-19 pandemic nowhere in sight, the threat facing refugees and the political stability of their host countries calls for the next administration to go beyond simply restoring the traditional U.S. leadership role on refugees. To address the challenge of rebuilding after COVID-19, the United States should endorse the Global Compact on Refugees (GCR).
And then this! By bringing in even greater numbers of refugees we can stick it to China, say the great minds at Brookings?
A revamped U.S. commitment to helping refugees carries direct benefits for U.S. national security priorities, in particular with respect to the strategic rivalry posed by a rising China.
Firstly, revamping its leadership role in managing refugee resettlement would go a long way in helping America reclaim the moral leadership it has enjoyed in past decades, which enabled it to create unique solutions to problems.
America’s support for refugees does more for it in a “battle of ideas” than its military and economic capacity alone: an America that actively protects the less fortunate might more easily win hearts and minds globally while also serving its own national security interests.
It drives me mad, when they say things like that—“win hearts and minds globally”—with not a bit of proof that anyone loves us more, surely not the Chinese!
And what about Americans’ hearts and minds!
The devastation wrought by the COVID-19 pandemic has exposed deep flaws in countries around the world and endangered the health and livelihoods of millions. To build a better, more democratic, more equitable world after the pandemic, the United States could start by helping refugees, rather than what it can do by merely seeking its own benefit.
In the wake of the Chinese virus crisis the US has only one obligation and that is to take care of Americans FIRST!
***Brookingstries to pretend it is centrist however,
Starting with the 1990 election cycle, employees of the Brookings Institution gave $853,017 to Democratic candidates and $26,104 to Republican candidates. In total, since 1990, 96 percent of its political donations have gone to Democrats.
It seems like an eternity ago that the Trump Administration, via an Executive Order, sought to give local governments and governors a say in whether their county/state would be open to refugee placement during a small portion of the present fiscal year.
In January a court in Maryland halted the President’s plan when refugee contractors filed a lawsuit challenging the reform effort and subsequently the Justice Department appealed the ruling.
Mark Hetfield, President and CEO of HIAS, here at an anti-Trump rally in NYC in 2017. HIAS sued to stop the President’s Executive order that would have given local governments a voice in resettlement decisions.
Now comes news that 19 states are asserting via an amicus brief that they don’t want local governments (or governors) to have any say and indeed assert that refugee resettlement is the right and responsibility of the federal government.
In effect they are saying that the UN, the US State Department, the Office of Refugee Resettlement, and nine federal contractors know what is best for your county!
This is some of the press releasefrom California Attorney General Xavier Becerra a week ago. The title is a joke because in supporting the resettlement contractors’ lawsuit they are agreeing to have no states rights when it comes to refugee resettlement decisions.
Attorney General Becerra Blasts Federal Overreach, Continues Fight to Protect Refugee and State Rights
California Attorney General Xavier Becerra
SACRAMENTO – California Attorney General Xavier Becerra, Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul, and Maryland Attorney General Brian Frosh today co-led a coalition of 19 attorneys general in an amicus brief filed in the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals in support of a lawsuit challenging President Trump’s unlawful executive order on refugee resettlement.
The executive order seeks to upend the existing process by requiring written consent from state and local authorities before being able to place refugees in their jurisdictions.
One of three primary opponents of the President’s efforts to reform the refugee program: Maryland Attorney General Brian Frosh
Following a multistate amicus brief at the district court level, the U.S. Department of State was blocked from implementing the executive order while litigation is ongoing.
In this latest amicus following the Trump Administration’s decision to appeal the preliminary injunction issued in HIAS, Inc. v. Trump, the coalition again asserts that the executive order violates the Refugee Act of 1980, undermines family reunification efforts, and disrupts the states’ ability to deliver essential resources that help refugees contribute to the communities that welcome them.
“Our nation is already reeling from an unprecedented economic and public health crisis,” said Attorney General Becerra.“ Now is not the time for the federal government to throw a wrench into a system that helps bring billions of dollars to communities across the country. Standing up for refugees who are lawfully admitted to this country isn’t just right, it’s the smart thing to do. Despite what President Trump might say, refugees are welcome here in California.”
What the heck! The refugee program costs federal and state taxpayers billions of dollars. They are such liars and no one ever calls them on it. The comment about family reunification is a lie too—the order specifically says families can be reunited.
So here are the 19 states that ‘welcome’ any and all refugees that the feds and their contractors want to send them!
In submitting the amicus brief, Attorney General Becerra is joined by the attorneys general of Illinois, Maryland, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont, Virginia, and Washington.
We are only a few months away from the November Presidential election and if the Democrat candidate wins, it will be all over on the issue of refugees. Biden has already signaled that he will start with 125,000 a year if he wins the White House.
125,000 divided by 19 = 6,578 for each of the welcoming states and then leave the rest of America alone!
What does that mean for the masses of refugees and other immigrants waiting to find a spot on the chicken or pork processing line in America?
Frankly, it spells doom and our great minds in Washington had better be working on a plan for managing the millions admitted to the US each year as cheap expendable labor.
“As companies have recovered their revenues and reopened their supply chains, they have increasingly invested not on rehiring the workforce but on automation and on reducing their dependence on manpower.”
(Leslie Joseph at Foresters)
The story is from Forbesand it addresses one of the many changes coming to America in the wake of the Chinese virus ‘crisis.’
Coronavirus Is Forcing Companies To Speed Up Automation, For Better And For Worse
Coronavirus will force companies to speed up their plans to replace jobs with automation, according to a report published by analyst company Forrester. In its report, Forrester notes that many companies are set to invest more in automation than in rehiring in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic, corroborating earlier reports that had claimed many businesses were already planning to accelerate their automation strategies.
The news comes as businesses ponder how they can resume working amid lockdowns and social distancing. And while many will take the news as confirmation of their worst automation-themed fears, Forrester’s report urges companies who haven’t already done so to ramp up their automation plans. Indeed, Forrester holds that automation may become key to surviving a coronavirus recession, at least as far as businesses are concerned.
Let’s hope some in Washington are thinking ahead, but don’t hold your breath!
Update: After I had posted this story, I spotted this one at The New Yorkerentitled:
An A.F.L.-C.I.O. Adviser Considers the Future of American Workers
It is all about Presidential politics, race and voting, but a key word is missing when Michael Podhorzer, the former political director of the A.F.L.-C.I.O., who now serves as a senior adviser to the union’s president, Richard Trumka, discusses the future of the American worker in the wake of COVID.
Although stymied by the courts at other levels, the important Tenth Amendment case involving the Constitutional challenge against the federal government’s ever increasing cost-shifting to the states for the care of refugees is still alive.
There was a time when I thought that the political process was the place to change refugee policy in America, but truthfully I am seeing little hope of any real change as Trump enters his fourth year in the White House.
Cutting the number of admissions is fine, but no real structural changes have been sought for the UN/US Refugee Admissions Program by the administration. (The governor approval process seriously backfired, and Congress is useless as members cower in fear of being called racists.)
Maybe there is still some hope that the courts will see how unfair and unconstitutional it is for states to carry a financial burden placed on them by the feds.
Eagle Forum Files Brief Supporting Thomas More Law Center’s ‘Federalism Challenge’ to Tennessee Refugee Resettlement Program
ANN ARBOR, MI – The Eagle Forum and its Tennessee chapter added their influential voices urging the U.S. Supreme Court to grant the Thomas More Law Center’s request to review (“petition for certiorari”) a Sixth Circuit Court decision which held that the Tennessee General Assembly lacked institutional standing to challenge the Federal Refugee Resettlement program. Their amicus brief (“friend of the court brief”), authored by Nashville attorney Joanne Bregman, was filed late last week.
Bregman observed, “The ongoing conversations between the President and state governors concerning recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic is bringing a renewed interest in federalism – the same constitutional principle of dual sovereignty which is the basis of the General Assembly’s lawsuit against federal commandeering of state dollars to fund the federal refugee resettlement program.”
The Thomas More Law Center (“TMLC”), a national nonprofit public interest law firm based in Ann Arbor, Michigan, and John Bursch, a nationally prominent appellate lawyer are representing the General Assembly without charge. Bursch authored the General Assembly’s petition for certiorari, which asks the Supreme Court to overturn the Sixth Circuit’s ruling.
The petition for certiorari, filed on March 16, 2020, objects to forcing Tennessee taxpayers to pay the costs of the resettlement: “If a state legislature cannot vindicate its rights in court when the federal government picks the state’s pocket and threatens the state if it dare stop providing funds, then federalism is a dead letter.”
Richard Thompson
The Eagle Forum, a national conservative organization with 80,000 members founded by the late legendary Phyllis Schlafly in 1972, has significantly impacted public policy at both state and national levels. The Tennessee chapter headed by Mrs. Bobbie Patray was the first state chapter to question the power of the federal government to coerce state legislators to use state revenues to fund the federal refugee resettlement program.
Richard Thompson, TMLC’s President and Chief Counsel, commented:
“Justice Scalia considered the principles of federalism, the same principles that undergird our challenge to the federal refugee resettlement program, more important to the American democracy than the Bill of Rights.
Considering the continued controversy between the Nation’s governors and the President over the best way to recover from the COVID-19 pandemic, a grant of certiorari would present the Supreme Court with an opportunity to calm the waters over their conflicting claims of power by expounding on Federalism 101.”
Continued Thompson, “Because of the significance of this issue, I’m grateful that the Eagle Forum and its Tennessee chapter were able to assist our efforts to obtain Supreme Court review.”
According to the amicus brief: “Forcing state legislators to expend state resources outside of the normal appropriations process directly interferes with their duties to the state and to their constituents. If the federal government cannot compel a state to fund federal programs, then a state should not be forced to divert funding from essential and traditional state government services in order to operationalize a federal program from which the state has withdrawn.”
Tennessee initially agreed to participate in the federal refugee resettlement program. But when the federal government refused to cover the state costs as it originally promised and as the 1980 Refugee Act intended, Tennessee withdrew from the program in 2008. Nevertheless, the federal government merely designated Catholic Charities of Tennessee, a non-governmental private organization, to continue the program while still forcing the state to pay for it.
Bregman notes the threat to state sovereignty powers by federally coerced spending, especially at a time when the needs of Tennessee’s citizens are dire, referring to the COVID-19 pandemic and a series of deadly tornadoes which ripped through 100 miles of Tennessee counties.
The amicus brief concludes, “There is no room in the Constitution’s framework to permit the federal government or its agencies to take state funds without the express consent of the state’s appropriating body.”
Coronavirus will force companies to speed up their plans to replace jobs with automation, according to a report published by analyst company Forrester. In its report, Forrester notes that many companies are set to invest more in automation than in rehiring in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic, corroborating earlier reports that had claimed many businesses were already planning to accelerate their automation strategies.
ANN ARBOR, MI – The Eagle Forum and its Tennessee chapter added their influential voices urging the U.S. Supreme Court to grant the Thomas More Law Center’s request to review (“petition for certiorari”) a Sixth Circuit Court decision which held that the Tennessee General Assembly lacked institutional standing to challenge the Federal Refugee Resettlement program. Their amicus brief (“friend of the court brief”), authored by Nashville attorney Joanne Bregman, was filed late last week.
