Lavinia Limon: budget cuts would “essentially shut down the US Refugee Program!”
I don’t have time to do it justice but for those of you wanting to delve into the pleas from refugee resettlement contractors, who get their salaries and offices etc. from the taxpayer, below are some recent blasts at the Republicans who now control the House of Representatives:
Refugees International (they don’t resettle refugees just lobby for the refugee industry) “expresses alarm” over cuts to foreign aid, here. The North African revolutions could not have come at a better time, you watch, they will be using those as the excuse that we need to send even more money to Muslim countries.
Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Services (one of the top federal resettlement contractors), gave testimony to some public relations forum hosted by NOW ranking minority member of the House Judiciary Committee, Rep. John Conyers. This wasn’t even a Congressional hearing, just a propaganda event. Here is what LIRS said. However, they never say a word about how much of taxpayers money goes to their own salaries and overhead (and lobbying for more money). And, of course, not one mention of the fact that they could just say NO to more refugees until our budget crisis is resolved. We are still aiming for 80,000 refugees to be resettled this year!
I already told you about the US Conference of Catholic Bishops (another federal contractor) begging here even before the House vote.
Then Lavinia Limon head honcho of the US Committee for Refugees and Immigrants (yes, another federal contractor) wrote this in a Washington Post opinion article Sunday:
The budget cuts proposed in the House would essentially shut down the U.S. Refugee Program, sending a clear message to the world that we as Americans are closing our doors. That is not the message we should be sending.
By the way, Ms. Limon is a prime example of the government/contractor revolving door. She headed the Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR), the agency that doles out the money, in the Clinton administration and now makes a six-figure salary as a government contractor. We’ve written a lot about her and USCRI, so just use our search function to learn more. Oh, and this is really funny! Her recent Vice Pres. at USCRI, Eskinder Negash, is now head of ORR. There ought to be a law!
There are probably more pleas, it’s just that these were backing up in my queue so I thought I better get them out.