A message to NGOs: Do your good works elsewhere!

05/21/2013 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Editors note: This is one more in a series of statements presented to the US State Department for their hearing last week (May 15th) on the “size and scope” of refugee admissions for FY2014. I will continue to post testimony from the hearing in between the pressing news of the day. Between refugee terrorist stories and the US Senate bill S.744 (Senate terrorist stories!) I’ve been pretty distracted. This forcefully delivered statement by Anne Turner of Maryland wrapped up the public meeting last week. All other testimony that we’ve posted is archived here in our special category for the meeting.

Anne Turner (emphasis added is mine):

I come here today not as a member of an organization or a political activist but as a concerned citizen and fearful mother. I am very much afraid for my country, for my family and for myself. We have maintained an immigration policy in this country that has put all that I consider a treasure at risk. There was a time when immigrants coming to this country respected our laws, understood our culture (wanted to be a part of it) and were equally proud to become Americans. This is no longer the case. All the chaos and violence that exists in the world today is being imported into our borders with no consideration for the destruction it is causing. We are building our very own “Tower of Babel”.

I remember a time when I was able to visit a shopping mall with no sense of fear. A time when I could get on an airplane and not feel my life was potentially at risk. A time when I could travel to a major city and not have to worry that there might be a terrorist attack. A time when I would tell my children “let’s go to the 4th of July celebration” and now I tell them “stay home”. The days are gone when I felt my life was my own, my home my sanctuary, and my country free.

Immigration policies, through this Resettlement Program, have been totally corrupted. There has been collusion between this administration and the NGO’s with dangerous consequences. The money being funneled through these organizations and their never-ending appetite for money and power have removed all reason and common sense. Under the guise of “good works and humanitarianism”, the fabric of this nation has been dramatically altered, if not destroyed. This “Resettlement Program” has stolen our very identity. Our freedoms are disappearing. To be safe we now live in a world where the government has to keep a constant surveillance on its own countrymen. We have soldiers in the streets threatening law-abiding citizens (have you seen those pictures of Boston?), data from our phone conversations is being monitored, and our ability to protect ourselves is being challenged. Even with the imposition of government into every facet of our lives, the task of keeping us safe is becoming increasingly impossible,

You don’t even know who you are bringing into this country! They cannot be properly vetted because they have no reliable form of identification, not even birth certificates. How can you even know who they are or what their intentions are? And what is this nonsense that women from Pakistan and Afghanistan should automatically be able to come to this country to escape persecution? Do you really think that by the very nature of a woman’s existence she is an innocent? Do you think having an open border policy for women excludes us from terrorist threats? Have you already forgotten that the one responsible for radicalizing the Boston Marathon Bombers was their mother? Women are as easily radicalized as any man. These are just two of many examples of the twisted logic of your immigration policies.

(In response to another speaker)

I hear you speak of the plight of women in other countries being the victim of the Sex Slave Trade. Well, we have a brought this problem into our own country with present immigration policies and I strongly recommend we clean up our own back yard before we start trying to cure the ails of the rest of the world.

You sit in this bubble called “Washington” totally out of touch with the results of the decisions you make and the impact they have on our lives. Then you have the audacity to say that “it is for our own good, the good of the country”. Well, I would like to see one of you living in the middle of the consequences of your actions. I would love to have you live across from a development that reeks of sewage because these immigrants don’t’ even have the most primitive of sanitary habits. I would love for you to have to live amongst a crumbling infrastructure because all the communities are spending taxpayer’s hard-earned money on supporting these people instead of repairing our roads, our drainage system, and our schools. They have no desire to educate themselves, no desire to learn our language, and don’t even understand the basics of a civilized society. Yet, you dump them on us and then call us “racist” if we dare to complain. I think it is time for you to experience the realities of your lofty decisions.

If it is so very important for you to help these people, and I do understand the necessity to help people, then go live amongst them and change them. Go live amidst their squalor and teach them to be clean, go live amidst their poverty and teach them to be entrepreneurs, go experience the violence of their daily lives and teach them reason. Go do your good works…………. JUST DO NOT BRING THEM HERE!!

Ms. Turner went on to conclude by asking where are the legally mandated annual reports to Congress, something we too have been harping on here for years. The Office of Refugee Resettlement is required by law to produce a detailed report of the refugee program within three months of the close of the fiscal year. They are three years behind. Turner continued:

And I, also, would like to know where the annual reports are. You are mandated, by law, to make them available to every citizen in this country and you have not done this since 2009. As a citizen, I want to see those reports now!

Readers, do any of you have testimony you wish to share publicly? We received a very large packet of statements at the hearing and many of you sent testimony—there were many more statements against bringing more refugees in 2014 then there were promoting more refugee resettlement.

Senator Chuck Grassley wants to strip refugee/asylum sections from Gang’s bill!

05/20/2013 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Update May 21: His amendment lost of course, the Dems teamed up with Graham and Flake have defeated just about everything Grassley and Sessions tried to do. I’ll have more tomorrow, but for now check out this letter of all those opposing the bill when it comes to the floor. We are among some great patriots!

This is such good news! Really, really, really good news! [Amendment lost but thank Grassley anyway and tell him to take the fight to the floor!]

You must call Senator Grassley this morning to tell him you support this effort! (see below)

Senator Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) is offering an amendment to S.744 to remove all references to refugees/asylum from S. 744 until after a report is completed about how the Tsarnaev terrorists were granted asylum! I could kiss the Senate Judiciary Committee ranking Republican!

Erol Kekic of Church World Service does not want more security provisions added to S.744.

I stopped in his office last Wednesday when I went to DC for the State Department hearing and left a letter for him asking him to do just what the Washington Times is reporting (LOL! But, I am sure he figured this out without any help from me!).

From the Washington Times (hat tip: Joanne). Emphasis below is mine:

The Boston Marathon bombing hasn’t derailed the immigration debate, but it has sent lawmakers back to the drawing board on some key provisions, including changes to the asylum system that the two suspects in the bombing used to come to the U.S.

Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev were brought to the U.S. a decade ago by their parents, who fled the deteriorating economy and burgeoning conflicts in the Central Asian region the family had called home.

Now, as the Senate Judiciary Committee works its way through the 867-page immigration bill, some lawmakers say it’s a chance to make changes that could help prevent a future incident.

Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa, the ranking Republican on the committee, has introduced an amendment that would prevent any changes to the asylum or refugee systems until at least a year after an audit of what went wrong in Boston.

“The Boston bombing probably made us take a closer look at the asylum provisions in the underlying bill,” Mr. Grassley said. “My asylum amendments don’t address Boston specifically, but they will require a look back by the inspector general before any changes to weaken the current asylum law goes forward.”

The asylum program is for those who apply from within the U.S., while the refugee program is for those applying from outside the border. The U.S. is the most generous country in the world in granting protections, but the programs also have seen periods of fraud and abuse.

Mr. Grassley said the bill written by the “Gang of Eight” senators actually waters down some of the security measures in current asylum and refugee law, and he said he would prefer to see the process stiffened instead.

Let the whining begin!

Refugee contractors are out in full force trying to protect their turf. You see, they are paid by the head (with your tax dollars) to resettle refugees and get asylees hooked up with welfare goodies. They don’t like Senator Graham’s amendments one bit either!

Human rights groups [Federal contractors—ed]…. are gearing up for a fight over another proposal by Sen. Lindsey Graham, South Carolina Republican, who wants to prevent anyone granted asylum or refugee status from returning to their home countries, unless they got a waiver from the Homeland Security Department.

And, who is one leading whiner—Erol Kekic of contractor Church World Service. Kekic testified at the State Department hearing on Wednesday for CWS and for the lobbying arm for contractors—Refugee Council USA. Mr. Kekic is from Bosnia, here is his bio.

Erol Kekic, director of the Church World Service’s immigration and refugee program, said there are situations where someone wants to return home to see a dying relative or to try to play a role in constructive politics. And then there are the situations where someone was granted asylum years before, but their home country has since stabilized.

“If we’re going to deny protection for people like that I think that’s really taking away from any common sense,” Mr. Kekic said. [Most people would see it’s common sense that if a person returns to the place of his persecution he is either crazy or never persecuted in the first place!—ed]

He said it wasn’t even clear whether Homeland Security officials could track every person they suspected of returning to their home countries.

We better damn well be able to track these people after what we learned in Boston!

NOW! Please call or fax Senator Grassley’s office and tell him to strip out all refugee and asylum references in S.744. No matter what happens with his amendment, thank him for his concern for our security!

Here is his fax and phone number. If you call it will ring for awhile…they are being swamped with calls.

(202) 224-3744
Fax: (202) 224-6020

This is the most important thing you can do today if you want to get this refugee program under control. And, don’t forget to call Senator Rand Paul too. Although he isn’t on the committee he will eventually play a huge role in determining whether this monstrous bill—S.744—passes.

PLEASE ALSO GET THIS AROUND VIA SOCIAL MEDIA—PLEASE TWEET!

Update: The refugee contractors are tweeting like crazy esp. IRC, CWS and Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society (HIAS).

The IRC has a lobbying office in Washington and it should be busy today

05/20/2013 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

For some unknown reason information on the International Rescue Committee’s D.C. lobbying office came up in one of my alerts this morning. Maybe it’s because last week they put out an alert to tell supporters of the refugee resettlement industry to call US Senators working on the Gang of Eight plus Grover bill being marked up in the Senate Judiciary Committee today.

We told you about that here last Thursday. (Go there to see what you must do!)

You need to call today too! S.744 will increase the number of refugees and asylees in the US and it provides a slush fund for “non-profits” like the 9 BIG federal refugee contractors and their 300 plus subcontractors.

I recommend that you tell Senators that due to recent refugee-perpetrated terrorism cases that they should strip all references to the refugee program from S.744 and hold separate hearings!

To add insult to injury, the word is that the US State Department helps to fund the lobbying offices for the contractors. I have written about that before especially as it relates to the US Conference of Catholic Bishops (or any of the nine)—it infuriates me to think the Bishops are taking your hard-earned tax dollars to fund their lobbying campaigns!

Here is what the IRC says about their DC shop. And, btw, they were not at the State Department hearing on Wednesday. Where were they? Or did they feel they had an inside track to the State Dept and didn’t need to provide their wishlist for 2014 before their critics in public?

Asst. Secretary of State for PRM, Anne Richard, in Philadelphia recently with an Iranian transgender refugee.

Oh, yeh, they do have an inside track—Anne Richard, the Asst. Secretary of State for the refugee program, just recently left the IRC as one of its 6-figure salaried veeps. Classic Washington DC case of the revolving door (federal contractors in and out of government jobs)!

The International Rescue Committee office in Washington, DC maintains relations with U.S. government offices, especially those that support some of the IRC’s programs. This includes the State Department’s Bureau of Population, Migration, and Refugees and the U.S. Agency for International Development. The IRC meets regularly with decision-makers on both sides of the political aisle, and in both the Executive branch and Congress, to raise issues of concern and advocate for change in U.S. government policies. The IRC is also active working in coalitions and with other non-governmental organizations. Members of IRC’s public policy and advocacy department in Washington, DC also plan and guide IRC’s global advocacy efforts [Like snuggling up to Hamid Karzai?—ed]. The Washington, DC office houses staff from IRC’s International Programs Department and the Women’s Refugee Commission.

International Rescue Committee
1730 M Street, NW – Suite 505
Washington DC 20036
Tel: 202-822-0166
Fax: (202) 822-0089
e-mail: advocacy@rescue.org

Gang member, Senator Graham, has amendments to S.744 for the purpose of increasing security in the refugee program.

Senator Lindsey Graham still has two amendments pending that are apparently inspired by the Boston refugee bombers ‘success’ in killing and maiming innocent Americans on April 15th. We told you about them here and here. It will be interesting to see if those commonsense security enhancements make it through mark-up. You can bet the IRC is lobbying hard against them today!

Here is our entire archive on the IRC for the ambitious readers among you! They just hired former British Foreign Secretary David Miliband to step into his $450,000 a year job as its new CEO.

Photo is from Philadelphia Gay News, here. Muslims persecute gays, so there is a big push to bring in refugees who are LGBTs from Sharia-loving countries.

You did it! Your testimony flooded State Department hearing yesterday

05/16/2013 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Ed Hunter of Maryland testified against bringing more refugees to America in FY2014. Photo from a recent Maryland Thursday Meeting.*

I don’t know where to begin telling you about the State Department meeting yesterday to determine the “size and scope” of refugee admissions for Fiscal Year 2014.

Thirty or so people who attended the meeting at the D.C. office of the State Department each received a voluminous stack of testimony, and it will take me a few days to find enough time to go over it all. Suffice it to say, on a quick glance, it looks like 90% of those testifying oppose bringing tens of thousands of third-worlders into the US next year.

Will it amount to anything more than a speed bump for the federal agencies and their non-profit contractors, only time will tell.

It is important that anyone concerned about high refugee numbers from countries that have a track record of producing terrorists, or are concerned with the fiscal cost of importing impoverished people, must let your Senators and Members of Congress know how you feel. That is especially so right now because the Gang of Eight plus Grover bill in the Senate (S.744) will make it easier for more refugees and asylum seekers to get here, and it will grant more $$$ to non-profits!

Only about ten people actually testified verbally. And, it was pretty much evenly split between those who want more refugees and those who said stop this program now!

Testifying for more refugees were contractors: Mark Hetfield for Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society, Anastasia Brown for the US Conference of Catholic Bishops, Erol Kekic of Church World Service (doing double-duty** because he testified for the Refugee Council USA as well. RCUSA is the lobbying arm for the non-profits), someone they all seemed to know, but I didn’t get his name from the Ethiopian Community Development Council, and not from a major contractor Pary Karadaghi from the Kurdish Human Rights Watch (who brought along two refugees to speak).

There is testimony in our packet from Duncan Breen of Human Rights First, but honestly if he testified he made no impression on me!

Where were the other five major contractors? Where was their testimony? Who knows, maybe they didn’t want to make it public. Maybe they didn’t want you to know what refugees they wanted for their collection in 2014. They probably have their own back-channels at the State Department. Heck, Anne Richard, the Asst. Secretary of State for Population Refugees and Migration, revolved into the State Department door from the International Rescue Committee.

Here is the list with links for all nine major resettlement contractors. The International Rescue Committee was not represented, nor was World Relief, Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Services, Episcopal Migration Ministries, or the US Committee for Refugees and Immigrants.

The hearing was presided over by: Laurence Bartlett, Director of Admissions US State Dept, Ken Tota, Deputy Director Office of Refugee Resettlement (that is in the Dept. of Health and Human Services), and Barbara Strack, Chief, Refugee Affairs Division, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, Department of Homeland Security.

Those testifying to rein-in this program were Ed Hunter, testimony here, Anne Turner, Jim McDonald, Mark Tenney (here), and myself (I’ll post what I said in a separate post, just haven’t gotten to it yet). Critics focused on security concerns, fiscal impact, community disruption and the cultural degradation of America.

This does not conclude my discussion of this meeting. I need to now go back and review the written testimony. Watch for more news later.

For new readers who don’t know what this is all about, go to our category set-up to report on this hearing, here. (Scroll down through 14 posts prior to this one.)

* Maryland Thursday Meeting website.

**Double-duty! So next year some of us can request to get more time to speak for other groups—help me remember that!

Rep. Mo Brooks (R-AL): hundreds of millions would immigrate to America if they could

05/16/2013 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

…..but we don’t have the financial resources to accept the world’s immigrants!—not to mention the fact that we would be culturally finished as a country.

Six Members of Congress standing in Speaker Boehner’s way!

That is it in a nutshell! That is the truth of it all—of the Gang of Eight plus Grover bill now before the Judiciary Committee of the US Senate and the Refugee and Asylum program, the diversity visa lottery, and the list goes on. When I ask critics of my work here at RRW at what number would they stop before fully closing the borders, they can’t answer.

Six Members of Congress held a press conference on Tuesday maintaining their steadfast opposition to the amnesty plan being labored over in the Senate. Rumblings on the Hill are that Speaker Boehner wants a bill, and these Members stand in his way of unifying the Republican caucus.

I visited Hill offices yesterday (with a request to strip all refugee and asylum changes from S.744) since I was in DC for the State Department hearing on refugee admissions for FY 2014.

One stop I made was to Rep. Michele Bachmann’s office. I was surprised that the prominent member of the Tea Party caucus, was not on the steps with Rep. Steve King and the others since she was opposed one month ago! Getting squishy? Her new staff person on immigration is Javier Sanchez (Javier.Sanchez@mail.house.gov), you might let him know where you stand.

Here is the NumbersUSA report on the press conference:

Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa) was joined by five other House Members on Tuesday denouncing the Senate Gang of Eight’s amnesty bill, S.744. Rep. King was joined on the steps of the Capitol by Reps. Mo Brooks of Alabama, John Fleming of Louisiana, Paul Gosar of Arizona, and Steve Stockman and Louie Gohmert of Texas. The six Congressmen said they were concerned about the huge negative impact an amnesty for 11 million illegal aliens would have on the national debt, and they said they stood by the rule of law.

The press conference took place as the Senate Judiciary Committee was continuing its markup of the Gang of Eight’s bill.

[….]

“In each of the past five years, 620,000 to 1.05 million foreigners have been given American citizenship,” Rep. Brooks said. “No country on earth comes close to being as generous as America is with its citizenship.

“The immigration issue is not about whether America is compassionate and generous. We are. The immigration issue is about whether America has the financial resources to accept all the world’s immigrants into America. There are hundreds of millions of foreigners who, if they could, would immigrate to America.”

Readers, more soon on my trip to DC and the State Department hearing. There is much to report. But, I will leave you now with this—you came through with testimony and completely swamped the refugee contractors with the number of comments you sent in. Thank you!