The IRC has a lobbying office in Washington and it should be busy today

05/20/2013 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

For some unknown reason information on the International Rescue Committee’s D.C. lobbying office came up in one of my alerts this morning. Maybe it’s because last week they put out an alert to tell supporters of the refugee resettlement industry to call US Senators working on the Gang of Eight plus Grover bill being marked up in the Senate Judiciary Committee today.

We told you about that here last Thursday. (Go there to see what you must do!)

You need to call today too! S.744 will increase the number of refugees and asylees in the US and it provides a slush fund for “non-profits” like the 9 BIG federal refugee contractors and their 300 plus subcontractors.

I recommend that you tell Senators that due to recent refugee-perpetrated terrorism cases that they should strip all references to the refugee program from S.744 and hold separate hearings!

To add insult to injury, the word is that the US State Department helps to fund the lobbying offices for the contractors. I have written about that before especially as it relates to the US Conference of Catholic Bishops (or any of the nine)—it infuriates me to think the Bishops are taking your hard-earned tax dollars to fund their lobbying campaigns!

Here is what the IRC says about their DC shop. And, btw, they were not at the State Department hearing on Wednesday. Where were they? Or did they feel they had an inside track to the State Dept and didn’t need to provide their wishlist for 2014 before their critics in public?

Asst. Secretary of State for PRM, Anne Richard, in Philadelphia recently with an Iranian transgender refugee.

Oh, yeh, they do have an inside track—Anne Richard, the Asst. Secretary of State for the refugee program, just recently left the IRC as one of its 6-figure salaried veeps. Classic Washington DC case of the revolving door (federal contractors in and out of government jobs)!

The International Rescue Committee office in Washington, DC maintains relations with U.S. government offices, especially those that support some of the IRC’s programs. This includes the State Department’s Bureau of Population, Migration, and Refugees and the U.S. Agency for International Development. The IRC meets regularly with decision-makers on both sides of the political aisle, and in both the Executive branch and Congress, to raise issues of concern and advocate for change in U.S. government policies. The IRC is also active working in coalitions and with other non-governmental organizations. Members of IRC’s public policy and advocacy department in Washington, DC also plan and guide IRC’s global advocacy efforts [Like snuggling up to Hamid Karzai?—ed]. The Washington, DC office houses staff from IRC’s International Programs Department and the Women’s Refugee Commission.

International Rescue Committee
1730 M Street, NW – Suite 505
Washington DC 20036
Tel: 202-822-0166
Fax: (202) 822-0089
e-mail: advocacy@rescue.org

Gang member, Senator Graham, has amendments to S.744 for the purpose of increasing security in the refugee program.

Senator Lindsey Graham still has two amendments pending that are apparently inspired by the Boston refugee bombers ‘success’ in killing and maiming innocent Americans on April 15th. We told you about them here and here. It will be interesting to see if those commonsense security enhancements make it through mark-up. You can bet the IRC is lobbying hard against them today!

Here is our entire archive on the IRC for the ambitious readers among you! They just hired former British Foreign Secretary David Miliband to step into his $450,000 a year job as its new CEO.

Photo is from Philadelphia Gay News, here. Muslims persecute gays, so there is a big push to bring in refugees who are LGBTs from Sharia-loving countries.

This should be a banner year for refugee resettlement in America

05/19/2013 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Iraqis top the list!

At the State Department hearing this past Wednesday in Washington, representatives from contractors US Conference of Catholic Bishops, Church World Service and the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society all praised the US State Department for the expeditious arrival (so far) of refugees in FY2013.

So, just now as I checked the Palestinian arrivals at WRAPS, I see that, for only being a little over half way into the fiscal year, we have brought a larger number of refugees than usually arrive by this time. So far, as of April 30th, we have brought in 39,778 refugees. We could easily hit 80,000 at that rate which would be higher than previous years.

Waad Ramadan Alwan. His fingerprints were on an IED in Iraq, but he got into the US as a refugee!

Here are the top 5 nationalities of refugees resettled so far:

Iraqis: 11,066 (The State Dept. knows how many of these are Muslims and how many are Christians! See Muslim share of immigrant population growing, here)

Burmese: 9,336

Bhutanese (really Nepal): 5,067

Somalis: 4,387 (This number is so high because they re-opened family reunification for Somalis. It had been closed beginning in 2008 due to high levels of fraud detected. At this rate, 2013 will come close to the highest Bush years.)

Cubans: 2,199 (could Florida’s wealthy Cubans be pushing Senator Marco Rubio?)

Hurry! Someone tell Senator Rand Paul! Just now as I searched for a photo of one of Bowling Green, Kentucky’s Iraqi refugee terrorists, I came across a story only a few weeks old where Paul is asking, why the heck are we bringing so many Iraqis? Maybe Senator Paul doesn’t know that S.744 (The Gang of Eight plus Grover bill) will make it easier and provide more money for refugees and asylum seekers to get into the US! He could do something about that!—strip all refugee/asylum provisions from the bill and hold separate hearings on the program!

If you are a new reader here, scroll back through the previous few days for stories on Somali, Chechen, and Uzbek refugee terrorists in the US (and Palestinian immigrant terrorists too!).

Palestinian alleged terror-funders arrested in Maryland

05/19/2013 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Editors note: This is cross-posted from my other blog, Potomac Tea Party Report. We don’t know how these Palestinians got into the US (the mainstream media is rarely curious about that), but readers here at RRW should know that we (US State Department and refugee contractors) are now taking some Palestinian “refugees” to your towns and cities (101 so far this fiscal year). And, sheesh, I thought that this morning I could get back to my posting backlog of more mundane issues such as the State Department hearing this past week, but these Muslim terrorist stories keep breaking like the waves on Ocean City beaches!

Thanks to Jeff, here is a mind-blowing story in the Baltimore Sun on Friday about the arrest of a pair of Palestinians who have been running a multi-million dollar cigarette smuggling scam for years. Because they lived a modest lifestyle and no one knows where all the money went, it’s a good bet it was leaving the country to fund Islamic terrorists around the world (or maybe funding them right here at home!).

We need to thank the NYPD and Commissioner Ray Kelly who unraveled the scheme from the New York end. In Maryland our police are way too busy swatting benign conservative Americans like Terry Porter in rural towns.

And, as is the usual case, there is no mention of the brothers’ immigration status—how did they come to be living legally in America in the first place (assuming they were legal immigrants)?*

From the Baltimore Sun:

The Palestinian immigrant and his brother lived next door to each other in homes in West Ocean City, over the years opening a number of businesses throughout the area — three pizza shops, a Mexican restaurant, a liquor store, gas stations, and development companies, court records show.

This week, however, authorities in New York alleged that Basel, 42, and Samir Ramadan, 39, were also at the top of a multimillion-dollar cigarette-smuggling ring and said they believe members of the organization may have funneled some of their proceeds to terrorist groups. [Update: Photos of the Palestinian alleged terror funders are here—ed]

New York Attorney General Eric T. Schneiderman and New York Police Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly said the Ramadan brothers had deposited more than $55 million from their untaxed cigarette sales into small banks in and around Ocean City, making a profit of $10 million along the way.

[…..]

Only a fraction of the money has been recovered, and the brothers’ lifestyles were described by authorities as modest. That, along with alleged links among some of the members of the ring to known terrorists such as Omar Abdel-Rahman, the blind cleric serving a life sentence for a conspiracy to blow up New York City landmarks, raised concerns that the money might be funding militant groups.

There is a lot more! Read it all!

LOL! Someone should check to see if they were political donors to O’Malley and the boys!

Just for your information, we write often about food stamp fraud (trafficking) busts here at Refugee Resettlement Watch (archive here). The majority of the scams are coming from immigrant-run convenience stores.

* We don’t resettle very many Palestinian refugees (a few in recent years) mostly because the militant Islamists in the Middle East want to leave them right there in their supposed “camps” funded largely by US taxpayers so as to remain a thorn in Israel’s side. I don’t know how these Palestinians got into America legally. I do think the food stamp scammers are using the Investor visas we give out like pez candy.

Pew: Christians still make up most of US immigrant population, but Muslim share is growing

05/18/2013 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

No worries! Only a quarter of a million US Muslims say violence against civilians in the name of Islam may sometimes be justified!

The Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life came out with a new study just yesterday about the religious make-up and size of the mostly legal immigrant population in the US.

As you read through this ponder these facts (I’ve rounded the numbers):

~ The US population is around 315 million.

~Pew says the US Muslim population as of 2011 was 2.75 million.

~We are adding roughly 1 million immigrants a year (for the past 20 years) and 100,000 of them are Muslim.

~Christians make up the largest share, but the share of Muslims and Hindus is growing.

Here are some interesting segments of Pew’s conclusions (I’ve highlighted the parts that interest me):

Over the past 20 years, the United States has granted permanent residency status to an average of about 1 million immigrants each year. These new “green card” recipients qualify for residency in a wide variety of ways – as family members of current U.S. residents, recipients of employment visas, refugees and asylum seekers, or winners of a visa lottery – and they include people from nearly every country in the world. But their geographic origins gradually have been shifting. U.S. government statistics show that a smaller percentage come from Europe and the Americas than did so 20 years ago, and a growing share now come from Asia, sub-Saharan Africa and the Middle East-North Africa region.

With this geographic shift, it is likely that the religious makeup of legal immigrants also has been changing. The U.S. government, however, does not keep track of the religion of new permanent residents. As a result, the figures on religious affiliation in this report are estimates produced by combining government statistics on the birthplaces of new green card recipients over the period between 1992 and 2012 with the best available U.S. survey data on the religious self-identification of new immigrants from each major country of origin. [US refugee program does track religious affiliation, they just don’t make the information public.—ed]

While Christians continue to make up a majority of legal immigrants to the U.S., the estimated share of new legal permanent residents who are Christian declined from 68% in 1992 to 61% in 2012. Over the same period, the estimated share of green card recipients who belong to religious minorities rose from approximately one-in-five (19%) to one-in-four (25%). This includes growing shares of Muslims (5% in 1992, 10% in 2012) and Hindus (3% in 1992, 7% in 2012).

More coming from Asia, the Middle East and Africa.

The geographic origins of new permanent residents have shifted markedly during the past two decades, according to U.S. government data. In 1992, a total of 41% of new permanent residents came from the Asia-Pacific region, the Middle East-North Africa region or sub-Saharan Africa. By 2012, more than half (53%) of new green card holders were from those regions.

No surprise! Most Muslim population growth in US is coming from immigration.

The estimated number of new Muslim immigrants varies from year to year but generally has been on the rise, going from roughly 50,000 in 1992 to 100,000 in 2012. Since 2008, the estimated number of Muslims becoming U.S. permanent residents has remained at or above the 100,000 level each year. [Readers, that means that probably the biggest chunk of legal Muslim immigration is coming through our refugee and asylum programs—ed]

Between 1992 and 2012, a total of about 1.7 million Muslims entered the U.S. as legal permanent residents. That constitutes a large portion of the overall U.S. Muslim population (estimated at 2.75 million as of 2011).

Most Muslim immigrants coming from Pakistan, Iran, Bangladesh, Iraq, Somalia and Ethiopia.

The most common countries of origin among Muslim immigrants in 1992 included Pakistan, Iran and Bangladesh. Those countries, as well as Iraq, also were among the most likely birthplaces of Muslim immigrants to the U.S. in 2012.

In recent years, a higher percentage of Muslim immigrants have been coming from sub-Saharan Africa. An estimated 16% of Muslim immigrants to the U.S. in 2012 were born in countries such as Somalia and Ethiopia. In 1992, only about 5% of new Muslim immigrants came from sub-Saharan Africa. [Whew! That means about 16,000 Somalis and Ethiopians came last year! Higher than I thought!—ed]

Now just for fun, go to Pew’s worldwide Muslim survey last month, here.

Don’t you just love it how Pew spins this with the word ‘few’!

Few U.S. Muslims voice support for suicide bombing or other forms of violence against civilians in the name of Islam; 81% say such acts are never justified, while fewer than one-in-ten say violence against civilians either is often justified (1%) or is sometimes justified (7%) to defend Islam. Around the world, most Muslims also reject suicide bombing and other attacks against civilians. However, substantial minorities in several countries say such acts of violence are at least sometimes justified, including 26% of Muslims in Bangladesh, 29% in Egypt, 39% in Afghanistan and 40% in the Palestinian territories.

So, if we have roughly 2.75 million Muslims in the US and 8% say it’s often or sometimes justified to use suicide bombings and violence against civilians in the name of Islam, that means that 220,000 American Muslims think violence against civilians is justified (someone check my math, maybe I have too many zeros!). Ahhhhh!

I’m confident (aren’t you?) that when we take immigrants from Egypt, Bangladesh, Afghanistan and the Palestinian territories that we are only getting those from the percentage who do not approve of violence against civilians in the name of Islam—right!

I bet there is a lot of juicy stuff in here for anyone with the patience to dissect it!

Chechen refugee friend of Tsarnaev interviewed by FBI in Manchester, of all places!

05/18/2013 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Update: Jeannine reports that the story gets better, Musa was aide to a Chechen rebel leader, here. What? Are we doing favors for Russia by taking their troublemakers, just like we did with the Uzbeks? Is that what we were doing with the Mesketians too?

Longtime readers know that Manchester, NH is one of the (few!) cities fighting back against the refugee resettlement industry for overloading their city with needy third-worlders. We have dozens of posts at RRW on Manchester (here).

Musa Khadzhimuratov, Manchester NH resident and friend of Marathon bomber. VOA Photo

Now the residents have one more reason to be up in arms. It seems that Tamerlan Tzarnaev was a regular visitor, and that he went shooting with a wheelchair-bound Chechen there who had clearly come as a refugee (although there is only an oblique reference to the UN bringing him to Manchester). I’ll bet you a buck that, adding insult to injury, Musa Khadzhimuratov is living off the generosity of US and New Hampshire taxpayers in addition to “helping” Tsarnaev.

And, btw, do we give gun permits to former Chechen rebels? (just wondering)

Sheesh, I want to get back to more mundane topics like the State Department meeting this past week, but all of these refugee terrorist stories keep getting in my way (Uzbeks, Somalis, and now the Chechens again)!

Here is the story from the Union Leader, but do not skip the comments! (Hat tip: Jeannine)

MANCHESTER – Boston Marathon suspect Tamerlan Tsarnaev went target shooting at a Manchester firing range and met up with an exiled former Chechen rebel living in the Queen City a month before the attack that killed three and wounded more than 260, according to a Voice of America report.

FBI agents on Tuesday searched the Manchester home of Chechnya native Musa Khadzhimuratov, and examined the hard drives on his computers, VOA reported. Police in Manchester confirmed the FBI agents searched Khadzhimuratov’s home, according to the story, but Manchester Police Chief David J. Mara said police will not confirm anything because it is not their case.

The FBI, Mara said, also are not commenting on the matter.

[….]

The Khadzhimuratovs keep to themselves, the resident said, and do no socialize with other tenants. She thought his wife works but does not believe Khadzhimuratov is employed. He is paralyzed from being shot in the back in his native Chechnya.

Khadzhimuratov told a VOA reporter that FBI agents went to his home Tuesday with search warrants and took DNA sample and his fingerprints.

He said he repeatedly met with Tsarnaev over the past several years and that the FBI first questioned him on April 29, two weeks after the deadly attack. Tsarnaev died in a shootout with police while his brother, Dzhokhar, 19, was wounded and later captured.

[….]

He said he came to the United States from Chechnya in 2004 through a United Nations program. He is paralyzed from the waist down from gunshot wounds suffered in Chechnya in 2001, according to the VOA article.

He said he first met Tsarnaev seven years ago at the annual meeting of the Chechen Society of Boston. Tsarnaev visited him three times in Manchester and once came with his wife and child.

Chechen Society of Boston? We were told, in many articles (I wish I had saved them) that there are only a small handful of Chechens in the whole US, but obviously there are enough in the Northeast to have a ‘society.’

There are some great comments at the Union Leader, please read them.

Here is one I liked a lot! From Eric Boyle:

Well done everyone. Every ones comments are dead on. We need to be more vocal about all of this. The liberals get their way because they are loud. Let’s get vocal about what we believe in!

Right on! Right on! Right on!