Sorry to all of you who follow RRW regularly to have to keep repeating myself, but I want to blow a gasket every time I see a story about “plummeting” refugee admission numbers.
The story that steamed me this morning is one Drudge has listed (what is going on with Drudge, losing his mojo?).
Here is the story from Pew(I know what Pew is!) with this blaring headline:
Pew: Refugee arrivals in U.S. decline sharply as world crisis grows
What Pew is doing in its story (besides skewing the news against Trump), read it yourself, is comparing October FY17 (9,945) the first month of this fiscal year when Obama was pouring refugees in at an unheard of rate to April FY17 (3,316) when frankly Trump is bringing in a moderate number of refugees.
Look at this chart (again!) (from Wrapsnet):
After you note that October FY17 was the largest first month (by far) of any fiscal year in the last eleven, then take note that Trump’s April (3,316) is larger than Bush’s April 2007 (2,060) or even Obama’s April 2011 (2,190). So what the h*** are they talking about! I don’t recall any story in 2011 bashing Obama for his huge drop from October FY11 to April FY11!
I also had a chuckle as I read the Pew story about how the numbers are plummeting in Texas, but not a mention that the state withdrew from the program and that although it is up and running now (without the state government), the transition to the Wilson-Fish program did cause a slight slowdown. Texas is still the number 2 state behind California for refugee admissions this year.
Remember that when Trump came in to office he wanted a MORATORIUM on refugee resettlement for 4 months while they reviewed the program for security concerns and, now long-forgotten, they wanted to look into the issue of notification to communities. That would have caused “plummeting” admission numbers.
With no talk of reforming the program anywhere in sight, Trump is now on schedule to admit to the US somewhere around 60,000 refugees this year. Compare that to Bush in 2007 and Obama in 2011 and 2012—all three years under 60,000!
Endnote: As of today we are at 45,732 for this fiscal year. See my right hand sidebar where I am tracking the numbers every few days.
And check out the fact that they have removed the CEILING (which is not a target!) from the chart for this year—the Obama dream number for FY17 of 110,000 has been removed. (See that Obama never had a ceiling that high for his previous 7 years! Why was that?)
The President’s budget for next year is out, but I have to be completely honest with you, going through these numbers is not my thing!
And, consider that it is Congress that will in reality set the agenda and budget for refugee admissions by how much money they are sending to the program and ultimately out to the federal resettlement contractors.
In searching around this morning, I’ve found several indicators of what Trump might do, what he has done, what the budget might dictate, and how the contractors are reacting, and I will leave it to you (who have more patience to wade through numbers than I) to analyze the numbers. Just so you know, as of today (5/24/2017), note (from Wrapsnet) that Trump is now at 45,172 admitted refugees for this fiscal year (FY2017 ends on September 30th). (Average refugee admissions for the last ten years is around in the low 60,000s.)
Resettlement contractors happy with FY17 budget!
I missed this: The Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society was very happy with the Continuing Budget for the present fiscal year. See here earlier this month:
Today (May 5) President Trump signed into law a $1.1 trillion government spending bill to keep the government running through September 30, the end of the current fiscal year.
Sigh of relief! Maybe no salary cuts for the top executives? https://refugeeresettlementwatch.org/2016/11/13/hebrew-immigrant-aid-society-lectures-trump-never-mentions-its-pecuniary-interest-in-refugees/
Within that massive bill are a few items of particular importance for refugees who, after fleeing war and persecution, have either found safety abroad or are beginning new lives in the United States.
The spending bill funds the Office of Refugee Resettlement at a level equal to last fiscal year.ORR oversees the domestic side of U.S. resettlement and facilitates refugees’ integration and economic success in this country. This funding will allow ORR and its partner agencies (including HIAS) to continue providing services for refugees, asylees, unaccompanied refugee and asylum seeker children, Cuban and Haitian entrants, and Iraqi and Afghan Special Immigrant Visa recipients.
Also included is $3.06 billion for Migration Refugee Assistance, which is $99 million more than the Trump administration requested.
This funding will enable the U.S. State Department to provide humanitarian aid to refugees overseas as well as resettle refugees in the United States.
The bill also extends the Lautenberg Amendment, which ensures a safe means of exit for religious minorities from Iran and the former Soviet Union who are approved to come to the United States. [Bunch of hypocrites! They say Trump can’t legally select Christians over Muslims, but they have supported choosing Jews as a priority from Iran and Russia for decades!—ed]
This funding agreement, which originated in the House of Representatives and passed both chambers of Congress before it reached the President’s desk for signature, ensures that the U.S. refugee resettlement program will be sufficiently funded for the remainder of this fiscal year.
This means that communities in states across the country will be able to continue doing what they already do so well every day: welcoming newly arrived refugee families and helping them to integrate by providing a strong start in their new home.
Today marks a victory for our partners in Washington and around the country, who have been advocating for continued U.S. support for welcoming and protecting refugees. But there is still so much more we can and should be doing.
We continue to urge the Trump Administration to resettle at least 75,000 refugees this fiscal year.
That was May 5th. They have friends in the Republican Congress!
A couple of days ago (May 22nd), the President unveiled his FY18 budget and here at the Daily Caller we learn that it includes enough funding for 50,000 refugees for FY18 (begins September 30th, 2017), but just like the CR discussed above, Congress can, and likely will, add more money for MORE refugees! Why would Republicans who control Congress want more refugees? That is easy: cheap immigrant labor for their big business donors and for the Chamber of Commerce!
The markers are being laid down!
Trump wants 50,000 and they want 75,000 for FY18!
Here is what the refugee industry is saying about this budget, from their lobbying arm in DC yesterday—the Refugee Council USA:
WASHINGTON, DC—Refugee Council USA (RCUSA), a coalition of 24 U.S.-based non-governmental organizations*** dedicated to refugee protection, urges Congress to fund refugee programs at levels that reflect the reality that the world is currently experiencing the worst refugee crisis since World War II. The last thing that the United States should do during a time of historic refugee crises is to cut lifesaving refugee budget accounts.
The lobbying arm of the refugee industry is RCUSA. Its present chair is a Dutch citizen, Hans van de Weerd, lecturing us about American values. Bio: http://www.rcusa.org/staff/ Photo twitter: https://twitter.com/hansvandeweerd
“Now more than ever, we must allocate funding to programs that align with our American values of freedom, compassion and opportunity,” Hans van de Weerd, Chair of RCUSA, said. “The United States has historically been a global refugee protection leader, both through strong support for refugees overseas, as well as through funding a robust domestic refugee resettlement program. We can, and must, continue to do both. During this challenging and tumultuous time, we urge the Committees on Appropriations to demonstrate support for America’s leadership in the world and our longstanding tradition of welcome by robustly funding these important humanitarian accounts during the FY 2018 appropriations process.”
[You see, they know they can get to Congress even if Trump has slightly reduced the numbers—ed]
RCUSA is requesting that at least 75,000 refugees be resettled in FY18, and believes that the Administration’s budget proposal that would support the resettlement of 50,000 is inadequate and an abdication of U.S. leadership.
RCUSA is advocating for a continuance of FY17 funding levels, and therefore recommends funding of $1.688 billion for the Department of Health and Human Services’ Refugee and Entrant Assistance (REA) account. The REA account, which funds the Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR), is a crucial component of fostering refugee integration and self-sufficiency. In addition to providing services to resettled refugees, ORR is tasked with implementing social services for unaccompanied minors, asylees, Cuban and Haitian entrants, Special Immigrant Visa holders, victims of human trafficking, and survivors of torture. The President’s budget proposes a 31% cut to refugee services that help refugees achieve long-term integration and economic success and assist communities and local partners in welcoming new Americans. RCUSA also recommends $3.604 billion in funding for the Department of State’s Migration and Refugee Assistance (MRA) account. The MRA account provides overseas assistance to displaced refugees, supports admissions to the U.S. of the most vulnerable refugees, and funds lifesaving services in humanitarian emergencies.
[….]
RCUSA also strongly opposes the president’s proposal to eliminate the Department of State’s Emergency Refugee and Migration Assistance (ERMA) account, which for example, in recent years has provided stabilizing assistance to countries of first asylum that have given safety to South Sudanese and Syrian refugees. RCUSA urges a continued funding level of $50 million for this account in FY 2018.
I’ve included that last paragraph above because this ERMA fund is nothing to fight about. It is no great shakes for Trump to have omitted funding for it. Yes, it saves US taxpayers some money, but readers in the past have confused it with money used to bring refugees to America. It is for assistance abroad and not for resettlement here, so don’t let Trump people tell you this is some sort of victory. The battle lines are shaping up and it is pretty clear that the refugee industry is going to the Republican Congress to stop the President from reducing numbers to 50,000, a number that we think is outrageously high for a President who campaigned on stopping the program, at least temporarily, all together.
Sadly, instead of a fight about abolishing or reforming the UN/US Refugee Admissions Program (and getting the fraud out of it!) it sure looks likes it is going to be a fight simply over numbers—50,000, 75,000, or somewhere in between. At this stage it appears that the Trump Administration hasn’t any fight left for this issue.
***Go here to see all members of the Refugee Council USA. All nine federal resettlement contractors are a part of this lobbying office. I suppose one could look at this 75,000 demand as a comedown for them. In August of 2016 they urged Obama to set the ceiling at 200,000, see here. But, again, they are always pushing, pushing and pushing.
For new readers, the nine federal refugee contractors you pay to bring refugees to your towns and cities:
But, are they really persecuted refugees or are they economic migrants from yet another African country whose government is a mess? And thus the fundamental question for us, as always, is: So why are they our problem? Pordenone, Italy. 15th April 2015 — (A group of 47) Somali and Eritrean migrants on the run as they try to escape from a police station in Pordenone while being round up for identification, Italy. https://reported.ly/2015/04/15/african-migrants-make-desperate-attempt-escape-italian-detention/
I did my usual end-of-the-week look at Wrapsnet just now. If you are following my updates in the right hand side bar here at RRW, note that as of today we have admitted 44,888 refugees this fiscal year (the FY ends on September 30th).
Checking the numbers this week I was interested to see that only a little over a quarter of the 813 admitted since last Friday are Muslims. The Syrian numbers are way down (18 of the 22 admitted this week are Muslims). We did admit another 57 Somalis, but of the 49 Iraqis admitted, the vast majority (38) are Yezidis. There were zero Iraqi Christians admitted this past week.
I was also interested to see that our Burmese Muslim numbers are growing with 35 admitted this past week (from 5/12-5/19), but of most interest to me was the large number of Muslims admitted during the week from Eritrea (68!).
I have to admit, I’ve never really paid any attention to the flow of Eritreans to the US. We know they are one of the larger groups flooding in to Europe mostly passing through Hillary’s failed state of Libya, but apparently our US State Department is scooping up a fair number of them as well. They have an African “authoritarian government,” but why is that our problem? Eritrea and Ethiopia have been on-again, off-again at war forever. Why is that our problem?
One of the ‘human rights’ complaints about Eritrea is its mandatory conscription to military service, so,again, why is that our problem? Felix Horne photo: https://www.hrw.org/about/people/felix-horne
Indeed, many question whether the Eritreans are legitimate “refugees” or are they “economic migrants.”
“In refugee law, it can be tricky to draw the line between an economic migrant and someone who is fleeing persecution,” says Felix Horne, a researcher at Human Rights Watch. “Eritrea is the best example of that…”
Admissions of Eritreans are on the rise in the US
I explored Wrapsnet a bit to see what we have been doing for about the last ten or so fiscal years with Eritreans and sure enough, the numbers we admit are on the rise.
In FY2008 we admitted only 251. That number jumped to 1,571 in Obama’s first year. In 2016 it was 1,949 and, in the first seven and a half months of this fiscal year, the number stands at 1,307. In the past week, ending this morning, we admitted 90 Eritreans and 68 of those are Muslims. That was the highest ethnic group of Muslims in the week. Are they getting “extreme vetting?” If we continue to admit 90 a week*** for the remaining weeks of the fiscal year, the Trump Administration could reach 3,000 by September 30th (well above any year during the Obama Administration).
Since FY2007 we admitted 16,897 Eritreans to the US.
There is a lot of useful information in the article I linked above and here from the Council on Foreign Relations if you want to learn more about the Eritrean tide spreading to Europe and America. One of the points that jumped out at me is one we discussed, here, recently.
Note that US dollars sent out of the US economy prop up Eritrea’s economy:
Eritreans in the diaspora also contribute to Eritrea’s economic survival by sending their families remittances, which provide the country with foreign reserves and keep families afloat.
So, as Syrian and Somali refugee numbers decline slightly, we are seeing an increase in Burmese Rohingya Muslims to the US as well as the Eritreans we have featured in this post.
*** Here is the breakdown of the Eritrean refugee admissions for the week of May 12-May 19, 2017 from Wrapsnet:
His “clients” are refugees admitted to the US in recent months.
Yes! for resettlement agencies paid by your tax dollars, the ‘refugees’ they resettle are “clients.” I think that is a better word than ‘refugee’ since most aren’t legitimate refugees in the first place. US Togetheris a subcontracting resettlement agency of the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society,see here.
Here is a bit of the interview at IdeaStream (All things considered) entitled: Uncertain Future Remains For Northeast Ohio Refugee Resettlement Agencies.
After you listen, I want to give you some facts about what the US Together employee is talking about and on resettlement to Ohio in general.
White House press secretary Sean Spicer yesterday said President Trump’s travel ban order is fully lawful, and he was confident the order would be upheld by an appeals court. The comments came after a three-judge panel from the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in Seattle heard arguments in Hawaii’s challenge to the ban. [As is the case with most reporters, they don’t know the difference between the ‘ban’ and the President’s lawful power under the Refugee Act of 1980 to set refugee admission numbers each fiscal year.—ed]
After the first executive order in January affecting travel from mostly Muslim countries, Northeast Ohio refugee resettlement agencies feared lay-offs and uncertain finances [because they are paid out of the federal treasury!—ed].
Yesterday I spoke with Evan Chwalek with agency Us Together, about how things were going:
CHWALEK: “The way I like to think about it is, there are the things that the judiciary can affect, and the things they can’t affect, and we’ve been able to continue the resettlement process, but because the President has essentially cut the number of refugees admitted to the country in this fiscal year in half, we have fewer refugees to resettle, and unfortunately because of that we had many lay-offs.” [You see how they do this, “cut…in half!” From what, from Obama’s 2017 dream number of 110,000 for a year he would be in the WH for only 3 and a half months!—ed]
GANZER: “How many would you say?”
Hear the whole interview with US Together employee Evan Chwalek here: http://wcpn.ideastream.org/news/uncertain-future-remains-for-northeast-ohio-refugee-resettlement-agencies
CHWALEK: “Somewhere in the neighborhood of 10, I would say, across the Cleveland office, and then we have offices in Toledo and Columbus, as well.” [Chwalek identifies the employees let go as “contractors.”—ed]
GANZER: “And you personally were affected by this. You were laid-off, right?”
CHWALEK: “That’s correct. I was laid-off in February and because of the changes in staff, they actually brought me back on as a full-time employee just three weeks ago.”
GANZER: “Not knowing many of the things that will come through the courts, or what the Administration might do next, what is the mood would you say around Us Together? Is it one of fear, or panic, or optimism?”
CHWALEK: “Fear isn’t the word I’d use. Resiliency comes to mind. Despite the uncertainties of the future, we have to continue offering the day-to-day services to our clients: getting them from medical appointments, applying for Social Security, making sure they understand how to use the bus on the way to work.” [If only poor Americans knew ‘refugee’ “clients” get such “services!”—ed]
[….]
GANZER: “How many families do you think will come to Cleveland this year, projected, would you say?”
CHWALEK: “I don’t really know the answer to that, but I would say somewhere around 175 individuals by the end of this fiscal year, which ends in September.”
GANZER: “In a pre-Trump Administration era, can you compare how many families we can look at?”
CHWALEK: “I look at the arrival sheets, and they are almost completely blank now. We probably had 400 resettled in the last fiscal year, individuals that is.”
[….]
CHWALEK: “We recommend that our clients don’t leave the country.
Chwalek goes on to say they are waiting to see what Trump does for the next fiscal year after admitting that Trump can change the numbers within a fiscal year (either up or down). We too are waiting to see what the Trump State Department does in September when the Presidential Determination is sent to The Hill for FY18.
First, on this last point I snipped above, if a ‘refugee’ is truly a persecuted person, why would he/she leave the safety of America to risk the danger they supposedly escaped?
I went toWrapsnet to get a feel for the numbers that Chwalek is talking about.
Look up data for Ohio and you can readily see how deceptive they can be to reporters who don’t have their facts in advance.
I went back to FY12 (in the Obama Administration) and found that the average number of refugees admitted to the whole state of Ohio for FY12, 13, 14 and 15 was 2,709 per year. Then the numbers jumped in Obama’s last year as he pushed for the huge increase in Syrians. Ohio “welcomed” 4,194 in FY16 (obviously well above the previous average for 4 years). So far in FY17 (about 7.5 months) Ohio has received 2,274 refugees. Again the pre-FY16 average for Ohio is 2,709 for the whole year, so they will likely hit their average this year (excluding the anomaly year FY16).
As for numbers for Cleveland/Cleveland Heights, the average resettlement there was about 75 per month during that anomaly year of FY16 and at this moment Cleveland/Cleveland Heights is getting an average of 60 per month—clearly not so far off the FY16 banner year. Chwalek was rehired because the numbers are not that drastically lower and paying “clients” are still coming in, but they don’t want reporters like this guy Ganzer to know that! The story line they are selling is that Trump is bad and the agencies need money (so please give!).
(There are several resettlement contractors in addition to US Together vying for paying “clients” in Ohio so some of those going to Cleveland are clients of other federal contracting agencies.)
For new readers, in 2013, I alerted Ohioans that the big push was on to diversify Cleveland by seeding it with ‘clients’ of federal contracting agencies like US Together and its parent organization the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society.
You have probably seen them—bushels of stories about how the nine federal resettlement contractors are wailing and moaning as Trump cuts off their refugee/money flow—but I was surprised that the Wall Street Journaldidn’t do a little better job of putting it all in perspective.
For new readers like Nancy, here are the nine federal resettlement contractors (aka Volags, short for Voluntary Agencies, Ha! Ha!) that make up the “refugee-resettlement industry:”
The WSJ does make it clear that these NON-Profit groups (six are ostensibly religious groups) are paid by the head to place refugees in your towns and get them signed up for their stuff. For the first few years that I wrote this blog, mainstream media never mentioned that fact! So, yes, their budgets will vary as they have become almost completely dependent on federal money for their salaries/benefits, office rental, travel, etc. For them to be whining that they have to raise private money for their ‘religious’ charitable work as refugee numbers vary makes me want to scream. When the Refugee Act of 1980 became law it was supposed to be a public-private partnership, but as the years have passed, federal funding (and state and local funding!) has become a greater and greater share.
Before I give you the latest whine-fest from the WSJ, here is how the contractors got in to this pickle. Obama set the CEILING for FY17 at 110,000 in his final months in office. The WSJ tells us it was the highest ceiling since 1995. Thus the contractors were building their budgets on a pipe dream of more paying clients (aka refugees) than they have had for years and years. That 110,000 was, by far, Obama’s highest ceiling as we have reported ad nuaseum and as you can see in this chart from the Refugee Processing Centerand is beingused dishonestly as the benchmark for measuring the Trump flow:
Note that the US DOS has gotten around to removing the 110,000 ceiling for FY2017. This chart last month still listed it. See last month here: https://refugeeresettlementwatch.org/2017/05/05/despicable-usa-today-says-refugee-numbers-plummet-under-trump-but-were-silent-when-obama-monthly-numbers-were-low/
Last night I wondered just how the first seven months of the fiscal year matched up (FY17 runs from October 1, 2016 to September 30, 2017). At the end of April we are 7 complete months in to the fiscal year, and those wailing contractors have been paid handsomely for 7 months based on the fact that by April 30,2017 we had admitted more paying clients/refugees than any of the previous ten years. Do the math using the chart above!
As of the end of April, the US admitted 42,414 refugees, the highest number in the first seven months of any of the years since before FY07. In fact, Bush had the lowest first seven months in 2007—17,150, but even Saint Obama had only 26,181 in FY12 as of April 30th. He never had a year with this high number (by April 30th) in his time in office.
Now here are a few snips from the Wall Street Journalgiving the contractors another opportunity to wail and moan!
Although, I have to laugh to see the phrase “refugee-resettlement industry” in the first line!
Even though President Donald Trump’s travel ban has been put on hold, his administration is already reshaping the refugee-resettlement industry.
The Trump administration has cut the rate of refugee arrivals in half in the first months of the year [this is so dishonest!—ed] and charity organizations that settle refugees are slashing their budgets in response.
Has Hetfield slashed his salary? https://refugeeresettlementwatch.org/2016/11/13/hebrew-immigrant-aid-society-lectures-trump-never-mentions-its-pecuniary-interest-in-refugees/
More than half of the nine agencies that are approved by the State Department to resettle refugees in the U.S. have already either laid off staff or frozen hiring. Some agencies have let hundreds of people go. Many are staging fundraising campaigns the help make up for lost federal funding, which is tied to new refugee arrivals but also supports programs for refugees already here.
“We’ve been asked by the State Department to cut our budget twice already,” said Mark Hetfield, president of HIAS, a Jewish nonprofit that resettles refugees in the U.S. HIAS has instituted a hiring freeze. “You can’t manage a program like this.”
[….]
In the last fiscal year, the federal government allocated more than $554 million for refugee admissions, and 84,994 refugees were resettled. More than $227 million of that money was distributed to the nine resettlement agencies, most of them religiously affiliated, that help newcomers adjust to the U.S.
[….]
World Relief, one of the resettlement agencies, began adding case workers in the fall, expecting a huge influx of refugees. At the organization’s 25 offices, case workers shepherd refugees through all aspects of life in America. They pick them up at the airport; set up housing, complete with furniture and clothes; advise them on searching for jobs; and help enroll children in school.
Oopsy! As Mark Krikorian pointed out on twitter last night the reporter left out one important duty of the contractor in that line above—they sign the refugee up for all forms of welfare and move on to the next client!
WSJ continues….
Resettlement agencies had been hoping 2017 would be a banner year. In September, before the Oct. 1 start of the fiscal year, Mr. Obama announced he would raise the number of refugees allowed into the country to 110,000, the highest total since 1995. Many agencies began staffing up. [Sniffle—ed]
[….]
The nine resettlement agencies contract much of the work settling new refugees out to hundreds of local affiliates. These organizations are paid $2,075 for each refugee they resettle, the majority of which goes directly to refugee assistance. [No! About half goes to the contractor for salaries and overhead!—ed]
[….]
Many resettlement organizations have started fundraising campaigns to try to make up for lost revenue.
Pity! They actually have to go out to the public and look for private charitable dollars for their humanitarian good works.
You know what it means if they can’t find private money? It means the public is generally not behind their efforts to import poverty and diversify American cities and towns with refugees from the Middle East, Africa and Asia.
Read the whole article hereand be sure to see that Mark Krikorian is quoted.
