Day: February 16, 2011

Has the exodus from Egypt begun?

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

It begins—Italy is reporting Egyptians have begun arriving in boats.  But wait!  This can’t be!  Egypt is free now.  Egypt had a peaceful revolution (I swear that is what the news media has told us).  The people got what they wanted, right?

From AP at the Washington Post:

GENEVA — Nearly 100 Egyptians have arrived in Italy in two boats, international migration officials said Wednesday, as fears rose about a wave of people trying to reach Europe because of turmoil in the Arab world.

This week, a large boat carrying 66 migrants, including 10 possible minors, was intercepted in Sicily, close to Pozzallo, the Geneva-based International Organization for Migration said Wednesday. Another boat carrying 30 migrants, all but four of them under the age of 18, landed nearby in Ragusa, the group said.

More than 5,330 Tunisians have already arrived the Italian island of Lampedusa, off the coast of Africa.

You watch, this will turn into the big excuse to bring an even larger number of refugees to the US.

Migration officials say it’s too early to conclude there will be an exodus from Egypt.

“(Still) any kind of change has always been the trigger for some kind of human movement and it seems to be a moment for people to seize the change around them,” IOM spokesperson Jemini Pandya said Wednesday.

Simply because people have overthrown a dictator does not mean they can suddenly find jobs or feed their families, Pandya said, noting that the collapse of the old regime can create greater opportunities for escape.

European governments are bracing for a large influx of migrants due to turmoil in the Middle East…

Read on.

If you are sitting in the United States and thinking this is Europe’s problem, forget it.   The precedent was set during the Bush Administration when the US State Department transformed Africans arriving illegally on the island of Malta into refugees and brought them to the US.   I began writing about it in 2007.  The Obama administration has continued the practice under Republicans-for-Obama and Catholic Ambassador Kmiec.  Here is one recent post on this terrible precedent.  Refugees are to seek asylum in the first country in which they land—not make it a way station to America!

Be on guard! If there was ever a time to protest refugee resettlement this will be it! American Leftist/Marxist/Islamist agitators helped precipitate the Egyptian revolution let them deal with the fallout there, not in our towns and cities.

House voting today on cuts to immigration programs and cuts for refugee funding

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Action Alert!

This is a day for any of you who are concerned about your tax dollars going to federal contractors like the US Conference of Catholic Bishops I told you about earlier this morning, here, to contact your Congressman and let him or her know what you think about spending for more immigration and more immigrants.

MicEvHill (for February 16th) has a whole list of items to possibly be cut and I am overjoyed to see that there is a move to stop all funding for the Diversity Visa Lottery.  I just mentioned this incredible program recently that allows tens of thousands of immigrants to simply enter a lottery to add more diversity to America.  Just look at the countries sending us DIVERSITY!

Rep. Goodlatte (R-VA) has proposed an amendment #225 to kill the funding for the Diversity Visa!  Tell your Congressman to vote for the Goodlatte Amendment to HR 1 (the continuing resolution for FY2011 funding).

See MicEvHill here for more possible amendments seeking to cut refugee program funding.

Numbers USA is urging action on these immigration funding issues today (green is good, red is bad).

Get US Conference of Catholic Bishops off the US taxpayer dole!

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Your tax dollars!

[Editors note, when I first wrote this none of the USCCB links opened, they do now]

Nothing gets my blood boiling more than the Catholic Bishops running to Washington to beg for money for themselves! That is right, you might think they are standing up for the “poor and vulnerable,” but they are standing up for the millions of federal dollars they receive to run not only their field operations through Catholic Charities but their Washington, DC lobbying office funded by you!   [Full disclosure:  I am Catholic]

Before you read the story I’m steaming over this morning, check out some of my previous posts on how your tax dollars are holding up the Catholic Churches “social justice” activities and funding their far left political activism in the United States.  (And, I don’t want to hear that their position, often squishy actually, on abortion makes them conservatives or right wingers.)

Readers, this is only a small sampling of posts I’ve written to show how your money goes into Catholic “social justice” community organizing.

* In USCCB pushes the Dream Act note:

2009 USCCB annual report tells the story

Now check out the USCCB Office of Migration and Refugee Services annual report here.   Note that in an overall annual income stream of $62 million, $58 million comes from the taxpayer! Only $1.3 million comes from collections taken up during mass.

*Here the Bishops are pushing their global warming political agenda.

*Bishops funding illegal alien activity including CASA de Maryland, here.

*USCCB Catholic Campaign for Human Development and origins involving Saul Alinsky, here.

* Here is Accuracy in Media on the USCCB role in the pro-amnesty March on Washington last year.

O.K. so you get my drift…..Check out the Bishops yesterday using the poor and vulnerable propaganda to try and head off a cut in tax dollars from you to their budget for THEIR POLITICAL ACTIVITY!

From the Catholic News Agency:

Washington D.C., Feb 15, 2011 / 02:31 pm (CNA).- A group of more than 300 Catholic leaders met with members of Congress on Feb. 15, to share a message from the U.S. bishops – urging legislators to remember the needs of the poor and vulnerable, as they make cuts to the federal budget.

Participants in the 2011 Catholic Social Ministry Gathering (Feb. 13-16) took the bishops’ message to Capitol Hill, delivering letters from two committees of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops during a day of visits with U.S. representatives and senators. The letters express concern over what Bishop Howard J. Hubbard of Albany, chairman for International Justice and Peace, described as “disproportionate cuts in programs that serve the most vulnerable” to the Fiscal Year 2011 Continuing Appropriations Resolution.

Bishop Stephen E. Blaire of Stockton, California, chairman for Domestic Justice and Human Development, warned lawmakers against the temptation to “secure the nation while at the same time furthering the insecurity of the poor and vulnerable in our midst.”

“Decisions should be made that not only reflect a commitment to national and long term fiscal security but demonstrate justice, compassion and fairness,” wrote Bishop Blaire.

“Our plea, then, is simple: Put the poor and vulnerable first as you consider how to spend limited federal resources.”

You think they worked enough of their ‘social justice’ mumbo jumbo into their appeal for YOUR MONEY to do THEIR POLITICAL WORK!

As I have said on many previous occasions it is not Christian charity to take money from one group and give it to another (and lie about it to boot!).  It is up to the Bishops and Catholics generally to dig deeper for the poor and vulnerable—privately!  Gee, I kind of remember something about Jesus and Caesar and money….

Endnote: The USCCB is one of the top federal contractors resettling refugees and in some states Catholic Charities actually have taken over the role of  the State government in deciding who comes to the state and how many.  It is virtually impossible to track all of their federal funding because it is so widely dispersed through a network of Catholic organizations, but I suspect that the USCCB with its affiliates is the top federal contractor in the immigration field.