Month: December 2007

Iraqi refugees to Houston, another “lack of will” story

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

It’s laughable to watch how these refugee stories spread around the country using the same phraseology.   Here is another one from Houston, TX.    And, yet another organization involved.  These refugee groups are breeding like rabbits it seems.   The Refugee Council USA has a website but there appear to be no financial documents available to the public;  it looks like a lobbying outfit seeking more money all around for refugee resettlement.  [It is the same M.O. as the global warming ‘crisis’.  Hype = more government funding]

“There is a huge need and a lack of will,” said Elizabeth Campbell, director of Refugee Council USA, a Washington-based coalition. “They are failing to meet their own targets. People who worked for the United States find their lives are in imminent danger, and to simply leave them there is despicable.”

Then we have our old buddy Jacob Kurtzer from Refugees International, but this time he is a “researcher” (not a “congressional advocate”) trumpeting the same theme:

“When we talk of the lack of political will by this administration, we are thinking of President (Gerald) Ford, who gave a presidential order so there could be an airlift of 135,000 Vietnamese at the time of the fall of Saigon. He recognized the vulnerability of a huge population of South Vietnamese,” Kurtzer said.

There is one big differance here, maybe two.  First, the war is not over and we haven’t abandoned Iraq like we did Vietnam, and secondly the Vietnamese didn’t have terrorists hiding in their refugee ranks who wished to kill us.

It is so blatantly political it’s disgusting.  There are definitely some desparate Iraqis, the Christians, but these refugee lobbyists are so partisan they hurt those with a  legitimate claim to protection.

By the way, Refugees International is headed by Mr.Partisan himself, Ken Bacon.  Maybe you will recall that he was the guy working in the Clinton Defense Department who released Linda Tripp’s personel file to reporters during the Monica Lewinsky scandal.

Follow the Money! OMB database now available

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Your tax dollars: 

The Washington Post reported yesterday that OMB (Office of Management and Budget) has launched a new site called USAspending.gov, and here’s what they say about it:

The story began late last year, when two other political opposites, Sens. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) and Tom Coburn (R-Okla.), sponsored legislation requiring the federal government to set up a searchable online database tracing federal budget spending by Jan. 1, 2008.

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The goal was to make both the executive branch and Congress accountable for their spending decisions by allowing regular taxpayers to follow the money.

As you will see when you read the article, there is already a site called OMB Watch.   So between the two we should be able to spend some long winter days pouring over the finances involved in Refugee Resettlement.  And, if you don’t find what you are looking for, contact the site and tell them what you need because new data is being added daily, according to one of those involved in designing the site.

“It’s a work in progress. The site doesn’t include as much data as we want, but we are like a gerbil in an exercise wheel, loading data as we speak.”

Alrighty then, let’s give those “gerbils” some work!

Time Magazine paints Ft.Dix Six as sympathetic characters

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Time Magazine this week ran its “investigation” of the Ft. Dix terrorism case and at every turn attempts to show the alleged perpetrators of a plot to kill US soldiers as misquided youths who could not possibly pull off such a brazen attack.   We have followed this case here because one of those charged is a former refugee (three others were illegal aliens) who had actually been initially resettled at this Army base in the wake of Bill Clinton’s Bosnian War.   And,  because it interests me having grown up on the edge of the N.J. Pine Barrens where Ft. Dix is located.  See our earlier stories here and this one about Albanian blood feuds.

What you won’t see in this on-line version of Time’s story is a large photo of one defendants 26 year old wife, an American convert to Islam,  whom he married in a religious ceremony when she was 16 and their five cute kids.  It’s really quite sickening to see the blatant attempt to play on public sympathy. 

At one point the reporter tells us this:

It’s worth mentioning, of course, that it’s not at all clear that the alleged plot would have succeeded. The base, which trains soldiers before they are deployed to Iraq, is heavily protected. Delivery vehicles are thoroughly searched before entry.

Just this little comment sealed my opinion of this so-called “investigation.”  I was at Ft. Dix not long after the arrests of the six suspected terror plotters and was stunned at the easy access my brother and I had to the base.   The guard house contained 2 guards, one just lounging in a chair.  The other came to our car took a quick look at our drivers licenses and signalled us to proceed into the base.   We had at least expected they would want us to open the trunk and have a look inside, but I guess white middle aged types aren’t dangerous.  We also learned that even after the scare, food vendors and pizza delivery guys had easy access to soldiers’ barracks and roamed about freely.

Tired of getting no answers?

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Are you a frustrated citizen who can’t seem to get any straight answers out of various levels of government on how or why your city or town has become a refugee/asylee receiving center?  Have you done all you can do with your internet research?   Maybe you would like to know who is working with whom both in government and outside government in what appears to be a less than open manner?   Or, would you like to know what nationalities are planned for your town?   Maybe it’s time to step up your research.   

First, start with letters to the agencies you have identified so far.  Ask for specific information, like what non-profits have contracts to resettle refugees, what cities are targeted refugee receiving centers.

 * Write a polite but pointed letter to the State Agency responsible for refugees in your state and ask them what the plan is for your city.  (this is the state level).

 * Write to the US State Department (the federal level).   Address your request to:

Barbara Day                                                                                                                                                                          Bur. Bureau of Population, Refugees and Migration,  U.S. Department of State
2201 C Street NW
Washington, DC 20520

 * Write to the Office of Refugee Resettlement here.  (Again, this is the federal level)

If you are not satisfied with the response, then proceed to identify your state’s Public Information Law, for example in Maryland there are very clear guidelines on how to ask for information under the state law here. Just google your state and Public Information law and you will probably get what you need.

By the way, the state Public Information laws also usually apply to city and county government, so be sure to look into how to ask your local government for documents under the public information laws of your state  (assuming county/city officials have not been forthcoming).

For information on the more complex Federal Freedom of Information Act go here.    It may take awhile and they may stonewall you but just the very act of taking time to write a request will signal that you are very serious about getting answers.   For a guide on using the Freedom of Information Act at the US State Department go here.

Write formal letters to your federal legislators, your Congressman and two US Senators, and ask them to get you the information.  They are ultimately responsible for funding refugee resettlement.   Publicize the fact that you have written such a request and later publicize the answers you receive.

Write letters to any private organization you have identified as working in your community on refugees/asylees and ask them what you would like to know politely and in a straightforward fashion.   If they give you answers that’s a good sign, if you feel that you are getting the runaround report it to the federal agency from which they receive their funding.

Good luck!  If you have any questions just e-mail me at the address to your right and I will try to help.

Iraqis headed to Everett, WA, get warning from local Iraqis

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Today the Herald Net announced that Everett will likely be an Iraqi receiving area in the new year.   The story pretty much starts out in the usual template format for feel-good refugee stories, like this standard pitch about the plight of the Iraqis who worked for us.

“One of the most vulnerable groups is those people who have worked for the United States,” said Jacob Kurtzer, a congressional advocate for Refugees International in Washington, D.C. “If a man has been embedded with our troops, how can he then be a security risk?”

First, I just loved this newfangled terminology “congressional advocate”.   Mr. Kurtzer is obviously a lobbyist for Refugees International whose job it is to keep the refugee flow flowing into US and thus keep the refugee industry alive.  He is throwing out what he considers the most appealing argument to get ’em here soon, but the actual number of Iraqis “embedded with our troops” and seeking resettlement is minuscule, probably numbering less than 1000. 

Every refugee, whether a teenager from Myanmar or an adult from Afghanistan, undergoes a strict screening process, Kurtzer said. The federal government’s claim that additional security measures were needed reflected a lack of political will to remove Iraqis from danger, he said.

Mr. Kurtzer, if we call your office in Washington, will you tell us exactly what the “strict screening process” is? We would really like to know!

I’m no fan of the the Bush Administration, but this statement suggesting that the Administration has some irrational “lack of political will” to resettle refugees demonstrates that Mr. Kurtzer does not know or is not saying that there has been an on-going internal battle within the government between the US State Department and Homeland Security on the security question.  We reported this to you last week.   It is not in Mr. Kurtzer’s best interests to let the citizens of Everett in on this bit of information.

This is what really caught my attention in the Everett news story:

It’s unclear how many Iraqis live in Western Washington, but those who live in Everett say their community numbers nearly 1,000 people and is one of the largest and most close-knit in the western U.S. Many of Everett’s Iraqis came here from Basra in the early 1990s, after they resisted Saddam Hussein during Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait, and more trickled in early this century.

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If more Iraqis come to Everett, the Iraqis who already live here will welcome them only if they have never been connected to Hussein’s Baathist government, al Ali said. “We have a good life here,” al Ali said. “If we know that somebody worked for Saddam, we’ll tell the FBI.”

We have asked in many previous posts in our Iraqi refugee category if we are just going to import thousand- year-old Middle East problems to America.  Sooner or later we are going to find out.

By the way, Washington State has received 89,719 refugees between 1983-2005 according to Appendix A of the 2005 Annual Report to Congress.  A quick look confirms that Washington State is the 4th largest refugee resettlement state in the US.