Forget asking nicely, time to use freedom of information laws (Michigan model)

09/15/2016 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

We learned this week that the Obama Administration is setting the table for a huge increase in the number of refugees to be admitted to the US for the new fiscal year which begins October 1, presumably setting things up for a Hillary presidency (and making it harder for a Trump administration to pull those numbers back in January without hate-filled attacks against him when/if he does. There will be wailing and gnashing of teeth—waahhh!—with refugee contractors saying they are already in the pipeline).
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We also know that the REPUBLICAN Congress has the final word because they can appropriate money for the program or withhold the funding in the next few weeks and months.
However, now that the Presidential determination has been sent to Congress there is no reason a local refugee office or a state refugee coordinator*** should withhold from you the Reception and Placement Abstract which lays out how many the local resettlement contractor is planning for your town.
I know many of you have been asking nicely for those important planning documents and are being rebuffed.
They like to use the excuse that they were in the deliberative stage with their plans for your communities, but that excuse is now gone! All of those documents were used to prepare the determination that has been delivered to the House and Senate Judiciary Committees.
(BTW, you might look at the rosters for both committees and see if your Member of Congress or Senator is on the committee, then get on the phone and call their office and tell them you want the R & P Abstract for ____federal resettlement agency working in your town/city. Put the office to work for you! LOL! I’ll bet your Washington rep has never seen the documents that will ultimately change his or her district forever!)

However, you may just have to go the FOIA route.

dearborn-michigan — The US State Department and supposed ‘religious’ charities are working tirelessly to increase the Muslim population of places like Dearborn, Michigan.

Every state has a Public Information law (it might not be called FOIA where you live, FOIA usually refers to the federal law) managed by your state’s attorney general. For example, here is Maryland’s.
Find the site where you live and then use the request letter template they provide. When using the state FOIAs, response time is pretty quick (usually).
If you have months to wait, then try the federal FOIA on the US State Department or the Office of Refugee Resettlement in HHS (but be sure to find the correct request template or they will just kick your letter back).
Michigan as a model….
Concerned citizens in Michigan used their state’s public information law and finally received their planning documents for the resettlement cities in that state.
Here is Michael Patrick Leahy at Breitbart reporting on what they found:

Breitbart News has obtained the FY 2017 refugee resettlement proposals from the five leading resettlement agencies that operate in Michigan showing they plan to jam down a 40 percent increase in refugees from the “Middle East-South Asia” region, which includes Syria, on residents of Michigan in the fiscal year that begins on October 1.

These plans in Michigan are completely consistent with the nationwide “refugee number determination” the Obama Administration presented to Congress on Tuesday: an increase of the FY 2017 ceiling by 29 percent to 110,000, up from the ceiling of 85,000 that was approved for FY 2016. The actual final number for FY 2016 is likely to reach or exceed the original ceiling number, if the run rate of the last few months continues for the final two weeks of the fiscal year.

In their FY 2016 plans, these five agencies–Lutheran Social Services (which recently changed the name of its Michigan operation to Samaritas), Church World Service, Catholic Charities, HIAS (formerly the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society), and Episcopal Migration Ministries— proposed 4,060 refugees overall to be resettled in Michigan, 2,567 from the “Middle East-South Asia” region, which includes Syria. As of September 13, 3,783 total refugees, 1,217 of whom are from Syria, have been resettled in Michigan to date this fiscal year. At the accelerated run rate of the past few months, year end numbers are likely to hit or exceed the FY 2016 plan for 4,000 total refugees in Michigan, of which over 1,300 are Syrian refugees.

The FY 2017 plans, obtained through Freedom of Information Act request made to the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services by a local Michigan grassroots group (as were the FY 2016 plans), show that that these five resettlement agencies have proposed a 38 percent increase in overall refugee resettlement, up to 5,606 refugees. This includes a 40 percent increase in refugees from the “Middle East-South Asia” region that includes Syria, to 3,586.

There is much more, continue reading here. Can you believe it! They are sending impoverished third worlders to Flint starting in October!
Also, visit Secure Michigan to get some ideas about what you can do in your state to fight back!
***State refugee coordinators are listed here.

The report to Congress that accompanies the Presidential determination is always useful

09/14/2016 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Yesterday the Dept. of State delivered Obama’s final ‘determination’ about refugee numbers for the upcoming fiscal year to Congress. For all of you sleuths out there in ‘pockets of resistance’ the document that goes along with the determination is always a very useful source of information.
For example on page 60 the State Department predicts that Obama’s 10,000 Syrian Muslims by September 30th, 2016 will actually be 13,000.
Also, be sure to go to near the end (p.69) to see how they are estimating a much lower cost than would be expected for 110,000 refugees. Are they trying to fool the Judiciary Committees in to thinking it is all less costly while the Appropriations Committees know the truth (do they talk to each other?).
Click here to see the full (very useful) document (if you find anything juicy let me know!):

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ORR snubs Michigan elected official, says it is his duty to find out about quarterly meetings

09/09/2016 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

We have reported on the legally required quarterly ‘stakeholder’ meetings that are held (or should be held) in every community being seeded with refugees. Those meetings are largely secretive with few (if any) being announced in local newspaper public notices. (Here is what we said in May 2015, and in October 2015 about the quarterly consultations). LOL! they have only been holding the legally required consultations since 2013 as you will see in my October 2015 post.

bob_carey_large_photo_1-1 — This is Bob Carey, the Director of the federal Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR). ORR is in Health and Human Services. Carey was formerly a VP at the federal contractor International Rescue Committee. Where is Congress, couldn’t they disallow this revolving door between government agency and contractor (and back again!)?

We assume that the resettlement contractors only want to include ‘their’ people and the fewest number possible representing impacted agencies in the community, thus the secrecy.
From Michael Patrick Leahy at Breitbart:

Robert Carey, the Obama administration’s director of the Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR), recently told Oakland County, Michigan that the agency he directs has no intention of complying with the Refugee Act of 1980‘s requirement that it “consult regularly …with local governments concerning the sponsorship process and the intended distribution among the States and localities before their placement in those States and localities.”

[….]

Carey places the burden for finding out about these “consultation” meetings and attending them on Oakland County. The Refugee Act of 1980, however, requires both the director of ORR and “the federal agency administering the program,” which could mean an employee of ORR, to consult with the locality prior to the placement of refugees there. The statute does not include any provision to accomplish this consultation through the State Refugee Coordinator, who actually is an employee of the state government, not a representative of the federal bureaucracy.

Continue reading here to see the exchange between Carey and local elected government officials in Oakland County.

Now you should call Carey out on his assertion that the State Refugee Coordinators are the ones to call to get invited to the quarterly consultations.

Here is the list of State Refugee Coordinators. Get on the phone today and tell yours that you are a stakeholder (a taxpayer footing the bill) and you want to be notified of the next quarterly meeting near where you live. There will likely be one in September.
If you get snubbed, or get no response….
Then take the next step and call or write to your elected officials in Washington (your Member of Congress and US Senators) and complain and tell them you want the budget cut for refugee resettlement for FY2017 as well! Nothing short of cutting off the taxpayer spigot will stop the invasion and the Republicans in Congress control the flow of money!
Our complete Michigan archive is here. And, don’t miss Leahy this week as well about how Michigan health officials are hiding information on the health status of refugees resettled to the state.

Visit Secure Michigan! This is a model for what you should be doing where you live—publish a state blog on the refugee program. It does no good if you do all sorts of research and then not share the information you find with a growing number of concerned citizens in your state!

This federal refugee contracting agency is 97% taxpayer funded

09/05/2016 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

I’m talking about the US Committee for Refugees and Immigrants (USCRI) which is the contractor responsible for refugees arriving in Twin Falls, Idaho. USCRI is also the agency embroiled in the controversy about bringing Syrian Muslims to Rutland, VT.

Screenshot (14) — This is Lavinia Limon, CEO of USCRI, sharing the stage with Mr. Chobani (Hamdi Ulukaya) at the same Clinton Global Initiative gathering where Bill Clinton and Ulukaya thought it was a great idea to repopulate Detroit with Syrian refugees. Chobani Yogurt actively seeks refugee employees for their yogurt plants in New York and Idaho. Ms. Limon supplies the town of Twin Falls with refugees. Cozy huh? Watch here: http://livestream.com/CGI/events/4386105/videos/100644641

This is the second in my series on the US State Department’s nine major resettlement contractors***. I told you about Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service (LIRS) here a couple of days ago. I’ve reported on the nine (really quasi-government agencies) many times over the years, but it’s been about 2 years since I examined each of their financial statements closely, and since we have so many new readers I figured it was time to do it again.
The information on USCRI is from its 2014 Form 990 to the IRS:

They had a total revenue that year of $51,524,570

Of that $46,560,452 is from government grants (that is you).

They had another $3.4 million from various fees and contracts. $1.9 million of that was from those air fare loans I told you about in the post on LIRS. I expect that most of the $3.4 comes from government sources of funding.

Run those numbers and you will see this means that 97% of their funds are from federal, state and local tax payers.
Forget that warm and fuzzy spin about charity and “humanitarianism!”

They couldn’t exist without your money and without Congress shelling it out to them!

Here is page 11 of this 2014 Form 990:

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Go to page 10 and check out the salaries:
USCRI’s head honcho is Lavinia Limon (Breitbart told you about her recently). Formerly Bill Clinton’s director of the Office of Refugee Resettlement, she pulled down a salary and related income package of $302,519 in 2014. Another Limon (family member?) collected $159,344.
Dear critics, if you find it outrageous that we report this information, remember this: If these were real charitable organizations raising private money I would not care how much they take in or how much they pay their employees, but these are in effect quasi-government agencies and therefore we are entitled to know where our money goes! By way of comparison, go here and see that federal elected officials and judges do not make nearly as much as Ms. Limon because they are accountable to you, she isn’t! Yikes! She makes more than Vice President Joe Biden!

Wow! I just went back to the accounting I did using the contractors 2012 Form 990s. Go here and see how much their revenues have jumped in two years!
Is USCRI working in your town, go here and find out!
***These are the nine major resettlement contractors that monopolize all refugee resettlement in America, under them are 350 or so subcontractors:

Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service is 95% funded by taxpayers

09/03/2016 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

It has been awhile since I had a look at Form 990s for the nine federal resettlement contractors, so I thought over this weekend I would re-examine their financials especially because I want you all to focus on the fact that it is the Republicans in Congress who have the power to slow the flow of refugees by cutting the funding for certain groups masquerading as Christian and Jewish ‘religious’ NGOs.

Lynda Hartke — LIRS CEO Hartke rakes in nearly a quarter of a million bucks a year (doing well by doing good!).

For all the new readers arriving here, there are nine faux non-profit groups which monopolize refugee resettlement in America. They are US Conference of Catholic Bishops, Episcopal Migration Ministries, World Relief (Evangelicals), Church World Service, Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society, Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service, Ethiopian Community Development Council, International Rescue Committee and the US Committee for Refugees and Immigrants.
Under the nine majors are 350 or so subcontractors.

Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service

I’m taking them one by one and going to their most recent available Form 990. This Form 990 for Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service is for 2014 and was submitted to the IRS in August 2015. (BTW, there are some state Lutheran agencies that are larger than the national organization).
So from page 9 (reproduced below) we learn that:

Total revenue for that year was $59,862,898

Total federal grants were $55,341,275

And, they also received from your money $1,817,755 for a loan service fee.

This $1.8 million is from collecting air fare loans from refugees plane fare to America. The original plane tickets were bought (with your money) by another federal contractor (IOM) and the refugee is supposed to reimburse the American taxpayer. The contractor, here LIRS, is the dunning agency and they get to keep a cut for themselves of everything they wring out of the refugees.
If you go to page 8 of their Form 990 you can see the salaries of the head honchos. Linda Hartke, the CEO made $236,386 which includes income from related activities. There are a total of 6 employees pulling down 6-figure salaries. And, you should know that last I heard they had 2 lobbyists in Washington to assure their (your!) funds keep flowing their way.
Here is page 9:

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Note the income from ‘higher training fees’ that could be taxpayer reimbursement as well, but I don’t know that for sure.

So I am giving them the benefit of the doubt when I conclude that they are 95% funded by you—-the taxpayers of America! It could be higher.

Remember! They are not passing the plate on Sunday to pay for their supposed Christian charity!
Go here to see if you have a subcontractor of LIRS at work where you live.
For more details on their federal grants go to USASpending.gov and type in Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service and see their hundreds of millions in grants and contracts over the last 8 years or so.

The buck stops with the Republican Congress!

Tell your representatives in Washington starting now, starting on Tuesday morning! to withhold funding for the US Refugee Admissions Program for fiscal year 2017 which begins in 4 weeks—on October 1, 2016! Let these supposed non-profit groups raise private money for their charitable pet projects!