And, they are accompanied by a paper company executive who wants a small community nearly 60 miles from Harrisburg, PA to ‘welcome’ refugees the company wants to employ.
I have been saying for twelve years that there is an unholy alliance between businesses seeking cheap labor and ‘religious’ resettlement contractors acting as their head hunters!
Additionally, in case you thought I didn’t have my facts, here we see clearly that this US Conference of Catholic Bishops’ subcontractor*** is talking about the 100-mile radius from their office in which refugee resettlement agencies can place refugees.
We should be thanking the President for his September Executive Ordereven if the contractors succeed in killing it in the courts because we are learning new things every day and citizens like those in Juniata Terrace, PA, like those in Beltrami County, MN, are being educated.
Catholic Charities is out and about lining up new locations within a hundred miles of Harrisburg!
JUNIATA TERRACE–The public was out in full force Tuesday night for the Catholic Charities group presentation of their refugee resettlement plan to the Juniata Terrace Borough Council.
Anne Lusk and Amin Habeeb [Egyptiansee here.—ed] from Catholic Charities spoke about the resettlement to the public and the council. Lusk and Habeeb wanted to lay out the facts so the council and the public had a better understanding of the program. The resettlement will not be happening any time soon. [But they are getting people primed because they think that when the Dems regain the White House, the gates will open wide.—ed]
Programs like this are popping up all over the country and Pennsylvania is no exception. Lusk spoke on the major presence of resettled refugees in areas like Lancaster County, noting that Cumberland County had also recently passed the program for their area. [Juniata Terrace is in Mifflin County so it appears the county itself has not consented (so far).—ed]
Seeking locations within 100-mile radius!
The program is based out of Harrisburg and is attempting to resettle refugees within a 100-mile radius. These refugees are fleeing issues in their home country, whether religious prosecution, war or other struggles.
Catholic Charities lining up future locations!
For now, the charity is visiting different locations in Mifflin county to provide information to the boroughs so they can decide whether to adopt the program at a later time. The refugees who are part of the program are “very educated and very hard workers and are respectful to the community,”according to Lusk.
She has no idea if the refugees are “educated” and “respectful” because Catholic Charities, nor the county or state, is permitted to choose refugees—they will get what they get from anywhere in the world: impoverished and uneducated Congolese or demanding Somalis, or Iraqis who think low-skilled work is beneath them, for example!
We are paying for Catholic Charities to act as an employment service!
Here we see that Catholic Charities is working with business interests to supply them with workers! What the h*** ! Why are we, taxpayers, paying for this!
Donald Chapman III, president of Nittany Paper, was also present. Chapman contacted the Catholic charity for help finding workers for the paper company as they look to expand. The positions would be full-time. According to him, bringing in the refugees would not take away from the jobs for county citizens. The program is meant to have a positive impact on the local area as a whole.
The program would integrate, at most, 10 families and settle them into the area. They would have a jobs at Nittany Paper and a living space near the company, making transportation to work easier. [Living space near the company? Is the company paying for that, or are the taxpayers shelling out for the housing?—ed]
Attending members of the public expressed concerns about the program. Several citizens were worried about crime and an increase in drug problems if the resettlement were allowed. The public also expressed concern for how the community will support the influx of people. Tensions ran palpably high during the presentation, with several agruements breaking out between citizens. The Catholic Charities group will be present at next month’s Lewistown Borough Council meeting, according to Lusk.
Many thanks to The Sentinel!
*** I’m going back to correct my ‘Knowledge is Power III’post where I said I didn’t have a list of the Bishop’s subcontractors. I found it in the course of researching this story. Go hereto see the long list of subcontractors working for the US Conference of Catholic Bishops.
Pittsburgh’s Jewish refugee resettlement agency, HIAS vow to continue work after threats, Squirrel Hill shooting
The story paints a picture of a ‘non-profit‘ group that is all about welcoming the poor and downtrodden to America, but never mentions the fact that it is more than 50% funded by US and state taxpayers many of whom do not share its open-borders views and would prefer their tax dollars be spent on America’s needy people.
HIAS received $186 million from taxpayers in the last ten years, here. Its CEO is paid over $300,000 annually.
And, like virtually all mainstream media stories about the horrific attack on innocents, The Post-Gazette, mentions not one word about that fact that HIAS is paid to do its ‘good works’ by the US government.
It is fine and dandy if HIAS wants to hold anti-Trump political rallies, sue the President and organize for the Tuesday midterms, but doing those things while accepting millions of taxpayer dollars every year strikes most people as fundamentally unfair!
This is from an anti-Trump protest in January of this year put on by Church World Service, HIAS and CAIR https://refugeeresettlementwatch.org/2018/01/28/church-world-service-and-hias-join-cair-to-protest-at-white-house/
Here is a bit from the deficient Pittsburgh Post-Gazette story:
The Jewish refugee resettlement agency in Pittsburgh remains defiant in its work despite the connection Saturday’s mass shooting at a Squirrel Hill synagogue shared with its mission.
[….]
“These [sites] are echo chambers where people just get angrier and angrier and angrier about falsehoods,” said Mark Hetfield, CEO and president of HIAS — formerly the Hebrew Immigration Aid Society. “I mean, what harm was this congregation doing by welcoming refugees in a religious service?”
Charity Navigator reports that in 2016, HIAS was 58.5% funded by government grants mostly to resettle refugees. https://www.charitynavigator.org/index.cfm?bay=search.summary&orgid=3820
Mr. Hetfield said that he’s aware of several “hate sites and hate sites masquerading as issue-oriented sites” that have attacked the work of HIAS and JFCS.
“But they’ve just been words so far, but as we see now, words lead to action.”
Mr. Hetfield said HIAS has in the past had a designated person monitor social media for threats but the organization will be “totally changing” its strategy.
“I mean we did not know about this murderer on Gab, we were not following Gab.We do not follow these hate-filled fora, but we need to,” he said. “And then we need to figure out what do we do when we see things. We see things every day against us.”
That is an example of how out of touch with most Americans these open borders leftwing groups are, they didn’t know about Gab? This is a prime example of why the Dems were so shocked at the 2016 election of Donald Trump.
Mr. Hetfield said the physical security strategy has changed as well since Saturday. Armed guards now surround HIAS offices in New York City and Silver Spring, Md. He likened the change to how he felt after 9/11.
JFCS has begun closely monitoring social media and re-evaluating security since the attack happened; it had also not known about Mr. Bowers prior to Saturday.
See if you can find one word about how HIAS is a US State Department contractor that is paid by the head to place refugees in towns and cities of their choosing (behind closed doors in conjunction with the US State Department).
If HIAS, the US State Department, and the mainstream media were transparent and honest about how refugee resettlement is carried out in America, citizen taxpayers wouldn’t get so frustrated.
So, why aren’t they more transparent?
I have a guess, but I would like to hear what they say for a change!
Endnote: I did see an AP story sometime in the last week that did mention (briefly!) that HIAS receives taxpayer dollars, but couldn’t find it again.
Surely you know all about Democrat Mayor Bill Peduto shunning the President and his family when they went to Pittsburgh yesterday to pay their respects to those murdered in the synagogue attack last Saturday. Here is one of many stories about the Mayor’s snub.
And, here is Peduto with Chris Matthews:
By the way, the Rabbi, who was leading services on Saturday when the attack happened, welcomed the President saying “he is my President.”
So, what does this have to do with RRW?
Let’s take a trip down memory lane!
Mayor Bill Peduto was one of 18 mayors who signed a 2015 letter to then President Obama telling the President that 10,000 Syrian refugees for America in the upcoming fiscal year was too few and they wanted Obama to ultimately admit 100,000.
The letter was organized by Cities for Action which says it is: “A coalition of city governments who stand in support of stronger cities through immigration action.”
As you know, President Trump is permitting very few Syrians to enter the US at the present time.
If you missed it in 2015, here are the 18 mayors pressing Obama for more Syrian refugees for their cities:
Ed Pawlowski, Mayor of Allentown, PA
Stephanie Rawlings-Blake, Mayor of Baltimore, MD
Martin J. Walsh, Mayor of Boston, MA
James Diossa, Mayor of Central Falls, RI
Mark Kleinschmidt, Mayor of Chapel Hill, NC
Rahm Emanuel, Mayor of Chicago, IL
Edward Terry, Mayor of Clarkston, GA
Nan Whaley, Mayor of Dayton, OH
Domenick Stampone, Mayor of Haledon, NJ
Pedro E. Segarra, Mayor of Hartford, CT
Eric Garcetti, Mayor of Los Angeles, CA
Betsy Hodges, Mayor of Minneapolis, MN
Bill de Blasio, Mayor of New York City, NY
Jose Torres, Mayor of Paterson, NJ William Peduto, Mayor of Pittsburgh, PA
Javier Gonzales, Mayor of Santa Fe, NM
Francis G. Slay, Mayor of St. Louis, MO
Stephanie A. Miner, Mayor of Syracuse, NY
Some posts on that campaign by the leftwing open-borders mayors, especially Pittsburgh’s Mayor Peduto, worth revisiting:
Editor: First, let me be clear. Nothing in this post is meant in any way to suggest that we condone this horrific act of violence against innocent people. This was a vile act by someone whose hatred of Jews was so great that he had obviously abandoned all reason and we condemn it.
UPDATE 1-Who is Robert Bowers, the Pittsburgh synagogue shooting suspect?
Two hours before a gunman burst into the Tree of Life synagogue and opened fire during a Shabbat religious service, Bowers posted on chat site Gab.com about the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society (HIAS), a non-profit that helps Jewish refugees relocate to the United States.
“HIAS likes to bring invaders in that kill our people. I can’t sit by and watch my people get slaughtered. Screw your optics, I’m going in,” wrote Bowers, a heavy-set, white male.
[….]
Bowers, who is a registered voter with “no affiliation” in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, took aim in one post at U.S. President Donald Trump, accusing him of being a “globalist”who did nothing to stop the “infestation” of the United States by Jews.
“For the record, I did not vote for him nor have I owned, worn or even touched a MAGA hat,” he wrote.
Just so you know, the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society(rebranded as HIAS a few years ago), resettles very few Jews. As a federal resettlement contractor, it resettles refugees assigned to it by the US State Department from all of the usual hot spots around the world.
Charity Navigator reports that in 2016, HIAS was 58.5% funded by government grants mostly to resettle refugees. https://www.charitynavigator.org/index.cfm?bay=search.summary&orgid=3820
Curious to see how many Jewish people have been admitted to the US as refugees over the last ten years, I checked Wrapsnet.
In ten years the US admitted a total of 635,173 refugees representing a vast array of religions from all over the world.
Of that number only 1,893 (.3%) were of the Jewish faith with most of those coming from Iran(658) and Russia(545).
However….
HIAS has put itself out as the most politically active refugee resettlement agency making them not hard to miss on the internet!
Indeed, according to media reports (assuming they are accurate!), what drew the killer to a target was HIAS’s e-mail advertisement for their special services called National Refugee Shabbat held in hundreds of synagogues in the run-up to the November election.
As readers here know, there are nine federal resettlement contractors*** and based on my informal assessment going back several years, HIAS is the most politically active of the resettlement contractors and has been dogging Donald Trump unrelentingly since the 2016 Presidential campaign.
HIAS CEO Mark Hetfield at 2017 pro-refugee/anti-Trump rally in New York.
Not far behind as open borders political organizers and activists, I would put Church World Service and then the US Conference of Catholic Bishops/Catholic Charities.
Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Serviceis also very politically engaged.
Free speech!
They don’t just advocate for refugees!
I think we all agree everyone is entitled to free speech, and HIAS can demonstrate in the streetsagainst the President and for open borders, they cansue the Administration, they can cheer on the migrant caravan and they can campaign against Republicans in the midterms, but what is so patently unfairto the average citizen who is learning about their community organizing activities (from alternative media) is that they receive millions and millions of taxpayer dollars each year while promoting a political agenda that many Americans vehemently disagree with.
If they were truly a private non-profit organization, they could pay big salaries and politically organize to their hearts content, but when they are a government partner, ostensibly to care for refugees, we expect them to be neutral on what is the greatest concern facing the country now—-immigration.
Where is Congress?
The mainstream media rarely tells the public about the source of the resettlement contractors’ funds, and Congress has never, in the ten years I’ve followed the US Refugee Admissions Program, ever done any oversight of the federal contracting system that these nine have monopolized, in some cases for over three decades.
Funding the Open Borders Left!
See just for starters this graph from the Capital Research Centershowing the last ten years of taxpayer dollars subsidizing the nine VOLAGS.
HIAS is in column 4 under VOLAGs. $186 million from the US Treasury in ten years. I think you can see that many of these refugee agencies involved in political activities could not survive without your tax dollars.
Again, there is no excuse for violence, but there is great frustration out there that a serious effort to be more open and transparent with the public might begin to quell.
So, how about the mainstream media does its job and gives the public the facts about groups like HIAS so ‘conspiracy’ theories don’t develop, and then it would be refreshing if Congress took its role seriously, investigated where our tax dollars are going and what they are being used for, and thus give us confidence that our government cares about us—Americans first!
I’ll update this post as we get more information.
*** The nine major contractors (VOLAGS) that monopolize the US Refugee Admissions Program are these:
Church World Service (CWS)
Ethiopian Community Development Council (ECDC) (secular)
Episcopal Migration Ministries (EMM) (DFMS is its other name)
Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society (HIAS)
International Rescue Committee (IRC) (secular)
Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service (LIRS)
US Committee for Refugees and Immigrants (USCRI) (secular)
United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB)
World Relief Corporation (WR)
Update: CWS didn’t have to wait for long. Secretary of State Pompeo has announced a ceiling of 30,000 refugees for FY19. But, will the administration be ready to welcome those ‘new Americans’ in two weeks from today? See the news here.
In what I thought was going to be another ho-hum whinny story about Church World Service, a Lancaster, PA refugee agency director dropped this bomb:
Sheila Mastropietro
Mastropietro [Sheila Mastropietro, director of the CWS Lancaster office] said the CWS national office is being kept in the dark.They just found out this week that the fiscal year will be extended to Dec. 31, delaying the decision of who will be fundedand leaving CWS “on pins and needles for an additional three months,” she said.
If you have been a regular student of Refugee Resettlement Watch, you know that the fiscal year ends on September 30th, and for decades September is the month when we learn how many refugees will be admitted in the following year and from where they will come.
And, surely you haven’t missed my many posts on the PR campaign the federal contractors*** have been promoting as they demand that Trump admit 75,000 refugees beginning on October 1.
I can only guess that if true, that there will be no announcement this month, it means there is an internal battle of ginormous proportions going on, or it could be a complex funding issue involving the whole federal government.
The story, thanks to Joanne for sending it!, is at LancsterOnline:
With funding at risk, Church World Service ‘on pins and needles’ about future of refugee program
As President Donald Trump took office in January 2017, the 30th year of Church World Service resettling refugees in the county, Lancaster city was deemed “America’s refugee capital” by BBC News for resettling 20 times the number of refugees per capita than the country as a whole.
The distinction led to a visit from Nobel Peace Prize winner Malala Yousafzai, who went on to promote Lancaster’s efforts on a national stage.
Now, in the 20 months since Trump’s travel ban, Church World Service has resettled about half as many refugees here as it did in the previous 20 months, according to data provided by CWS.
Mastropietro says, if Trump cuts the refugee funding, they will continue their advocacy (like this?) with other private and PUBLIC money!
The reporter continues with many paragraphs featuring personal refugee stories and about what President Trump is doing to the refugee program. Then this:
Church World Service, headquartered in Elkhart, Indiana, is one of nine national organizations funded by the Department of State for refugee resettlement. Each of them is a large operation with multiple local offices spread throughout the country.
Indiana?
Actually, CWS still has it original headquarters at the famous 475 Riverside Dr. building in New York City, home to dozens of hard Left ‘religious’ groups, like the National Council of Churches, and other similar socialist organizations. I’m guessing the lower level staffers work in Indiana to keep costs down.
But with fewer refugees making it to America’s doorstep, the Department of State’s Bureau of Population, Refugees and Migration “expects to fund a smaller number of recipient agencies” in the next fiscal year, according to a notice provided by a State Department spokesperson.
How many fewer agencies — and what factors might lead to the decision — is unclear. Mastropietro said the CWS national office is being kept in the dark. They just found out this week that the fiscal year will be extended to Dec. 31, delaying the decision of who will be funded and leaving CWS “on pins and needles for an additional three months,” she said.
While stripping refugee resettlement funding may be a fatal blow for some of the nine agencies, Mastropietro said CWS in Lancaster will carry on even if resettlement — its largest program — goes away.
Carrying-on will be tough!
Church World Service is in column one at James Simpson’s incredible table of how many taxpayer dollars each resettlement contractor consumes. CWS is 71% government funded and received nearly a half a billion dollars since 2008 from taxpayers! https://refugeeresettlementwatch.org/2018/09/16/capital-research-center-publishes-an-overview-of-the-us-refugee-admissions-program/
Lancaster Onlinecontinues….
With other public [public of course means taxpayer dollars!–ed] and private funding avenues, CWS would continue operating programs such as legal immigration counseling, employment services and advocacy.And if it does lose the resettlement money, Mastropietro is convinced it will be a temporary, if difficult, setback.
And, she confirms what I have been saying!
“We’re just going to wait it out,” she said. “If anything happens, we’ll wait it out until the next president.”
Ambitious readers might like to learn more about refugees in Amish country. See my complete archive on Lancaster by clicking here.
Do not become complacent!
If the Trump Administration only reduces numbers of refugees and funding for a few years nothing will change!
A few of the smaller contractors may go belly-up, but it only will mean a greater monopoly for the surviving contractors like Church World Service.
Those contractors will be working to elect the next president, they will continue to lobby for more federal dollars and more refugees, and they will resume placing refugees quietly in to your unsuspecting towns and cities!
***Here below are the nine federal refugee resettlement contractors.
You might be sick of seeing this list almost every day, but a friend once told me that people need to see something seven times before it completely sinks in, so it seems to me that 70, or even 700 isn’t too much!
And, besides I have new readers every day.
The present US Refugee Admissions Program will never be reformed if the system of paying the contractors by the head stays in place and the contractors are permitted to act as Leftwing political agitation groups, community organizers and lobbyists paid on our dime!
And, to add insult to injury they pretend it is all about ‘humanitarianism.’
The number in parenthesis is the percentage of their income paid by you (the taxpayer) to place the refugees into your towns and cities and get them signed up for their services (aka welfare)! And, get them registered to vote eventually!
