Refugees a big issue in Wyoming gubernatorial primary debate

What a relief to write about something other than the border crisis!

Action alert below! Help Haynes!

This is an update on another of our favorite subjects—why the Republican governor of Wyoming wants a refugee resettlement program in a state (the only state!) previously smart enough not to get entangled with the federal government by importing third-worlders to the state.

Dr. Taylor Haynes (left) is challenging incumbent Republican Governor Matt Mead in a primary scheduled for August 19th. Photo: Alan Rogers, Star-Tribune

On Tuesday night Republican candidates squared off over that issue (and the perennial public lands controversy) in a debate in Casper.

For background see our extensive archive that began with the Governor actually writing to the feds in September of last year inviting them to set up shop in Wyoming.

Wouldn’t you think that the public lands issue would be enough to keep them from inviting the US State Department and the Dept. of Health and Human Services into the state to assume a role in the state’s business?

From the Caspar Star Tribune (emphasis mine):

Gubernatorial candidates Dr. Taylor Haynes and Gov. Matt Mead disagreed in a Tuesday night debate on refugees in Wyoming and on how to respond to a Wyoming Republican pet peeve – intrusive federal government overreach.  [The issues are one and the same!—ed]

[….]

Haynes, a Cheyenne physician, rancher and business owner, opposes refugees resettling in the Cowboy State, after news earlier this year that the state is exploring having a refugee resettlement program. Wyoming is the only state without such a program.

Haynes is concerned about diseases such as HIV, Ebola or drug-resistant tuberculosis, he said. He worries some may have terrorist ties.

“I think they’re groups of people brought in to kill our labor and undermine our culture,” he said.

As a Christian, Haynes said his heart goes out to them, but there are too many refugees in the world. The best solution is to provide aid that benefits them, such as supporting Doctors Without Borders. [Excellent idea–ed]

Mead, a former U.S. attorney for Wyoming who was elected governor in 2010, said the state isn’t importing refugees. The state is exploring the idea of having a refugee resettlement program, he said.

“Count the number of refugees we’ve brought under my administration,” he said. “Zero.”

Mead said refugees may already be living in Wyoming, and he wants to know who they are and what services they use.

One of my favorite articles about the controversy is this one where Governor Mead as much as called RRW and me, your humble blogger—racist!—after we helped educate citizens of Wyoming about what they would be getting into when inviting federal contractors to bring refugees to Wyoming.

And here is something to think about:  the contractor the Governor wants to invite in is the Lutheran Family Services Rocky Mountains which tried to keep the Wyoming plan secret until it was further along.  Lutheran Family Services’ mothership is one of the major federal contractors moving ‘unaccompanied minors’ around the US at this moment.  So, maybe just on that front alone, Wyoming has dodged a bullet by not yet having formal immigrant/refugee ties with the feds.

Action Alert! 

If you want to support a Republican candidate who has the guts to speak his mind on this taboo topic and send the establishment Republicans (squishes, if not down-right open borders, on immigration) a message, send a donation to Haynes!  Click here for Dr. Haynes campaign website.

WND: Religious charities profit from open borders

Every time I think I’m done with this topic for a few minutes, in comes a new article that you must see on the border invasion.

Right now there are so many other issues involving refugees and migrants in the US and around the world that we are missing with our non-stop coverage of the invasion of America that I’m fearful that our international readers will drop off (we have readers in over 150 countries!).

Bishop Elizondo leading a pack of priests on the border: they are all refugees now! https://refugeeresettlementwatch.org/2014/06/26/us-catholic-bishops-chairman-kids-coming-across-border-should-be-viewed-as-refugees/

However, since this is one of our major concerns—the complete lack of understanding by the average citizen (and Glen Beck!) that charitable “religious” groups (pretending to be driven to help the migrants purely out of Christian or Jewish charity) could never exist without almost their entire budget being funded by US taxpayers—we are relieved to finally see a far-reaching national level report on the issue.

Leo Hohmann writing at WND (emphasis is mine):

Thousands of Central American children crossing the border illegally could soon turn into asylum seekers armed with immigration lawyers provided by church groups and paid for by federal tax dollars.

Catholic Charities is running a fundraising campaign to help finance the resettlement of the illegal aliens, WND reported. But the religious charities get the bulk of their funding not from private donors or church members putting checks into a basket. They get it from the federal government.

Alexandria, Va.-based Catholic Charities USA reported receiving $1.7 million in government grants in 2012, according to its IRS Form 990.

But one of the largest recipients of government funds to resettle immigrant children is the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. The USCCB helps resettle not only unaccompanied alien children, or UACs, who enter the country illegally but also refugees fleeing persecution overseas who enter through legal channels.

The USCCB is one of nine primary agencies that receive hundreds of millions in U.S. tax dollars to perform their charity work. Under contract with the federal government, the nonprofit groups work to resettle child refugees and asylum seekers. Six of the nine contractors are religious groups, WND has learned, including the Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service, Episcopal Migration Ministries, the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society, the Church World Service and World Relief Corp., which includes a plethora of evangelical groups.

The Catholic Bishops alone received $65.9 million in federal grants to care for unaccompanied alien children and refugees, according to its 2012 annual report.

By contrast, the group raised $1.4 million from its own church members while federal loans and private-sector grants made up the remainder of the $71 million spent on the resettlements that year. That means 93 percent of the USCCB’s spending on charity work with UACs and refugees was covered by the American taxpayer.

Kevin Appleby, director of USCC’s Migration and Refugee Services Office, did not return calls from WND seeking comment.

Similar funding ratios have been found to be the norm with the Lutheran effort.

The Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service reported total income of $41.7 million in 2012, and government grants accounted for $40.4 million, or 96.8 percent of that amount, according to the nonprofit’s most recently reported Form 990, a disclosure that nonprofits must file with the Internal Revenue Service. The group raised only $1.3 million from private donors.

Miji Bell, press spokeswoman for Lutheran Immigration, also did not return calls Tuesday.

If they would tell the public the truth about their funding (and their fat salaries) I might have some respect for the whole bunch!

Dan Cadman at CIS:  They all have their hands in the pie!  And, they are working to get the illegals qualified as refugees.  WND continues….

Dan Cadman, with the Center for Immigration Studies, says it’s a conflict of interest for a group that benefits financially from immigration – both legal and illegal – to try to influence immigration policy.

“It bothers me that any private organization is using a government funding stream for that purpose, not only Catholic Charities but Lutheran World Service, the Episcopal Church, they’ve all got their hands in the pie,” Cadman said. “The thing is that everyone understands that, with a wink and a nod, this so-called emergency money (from Obama) is not going to result in any substantial number of individuals being deported. It’s just not. How ironic to see an emergency budget supplemental request and then when you look at the details you see it’s all going to be chewed up for things like brick and mortar buildings for resettlement and not used in any useful way to stop this tidal wave of human beings.”

Cadman said there is “no doubt in my mind” that the religious NGOs or “non-governmental organizations” are working with the United Nations to get the children qualified as refugees or asylum seekers.  (See our post on Bishops call alien children “refugees.”—ed)

By the way, the Bishops have their own immigration legal branch (most likely funded with federal grants too) known as CLINIC (a story for another day!).  One could call Obama’s plea for more money for the border crisis, The Immigration Lawyers Employment Act of 2014!

Read the whole World Net Daily article it is full of information on the groups comprising the Religious Left, I’ve only snipped a small amount of it!

For new readers, we have dozens and dozens of posts in our ‘unaccompanied minors’ archive (extending back several years), click here to learn more.

MD Governor O’Malley pleaded with White House: Don’t send them to WESTERN Maryland

They used to be good pals! Hmmmm! http://www.wjla.com/articles/2014/07/o-malley-obama-administration-spar-over-immigration-policies-105157.html

I’m posting this for a couple of reasons, first, because you are going to hear the name Martin O’Malley a lot in the coming months and years—he wants to be the next Progressive occupant of 1600 Pennsylvania Ave, and second because we need a good laugh sometimes.

Last week we reported that a site in western MD —Westminster in Carroll County—had been identified as a potential new home for a couple of hundred illegal alien “minors.”  Locals caught wind of the plan and knowing conservative activists here there would have been a demonstration on par with anything Murietta, CA could produce.

In fact, a clip of Carroll County Commissioner Richard Rothschild (highly critical of the plan) was featured on the O’Reilly Factor last evening.  Rothschild said about his call to HHS:

“I want to point out that HHS, I asked HHS what are you going to do if these children can’t find their parents? Are you going to keep them imprisoned in this compound? No answers.”

Surely O’Malley, with his Presidential aspirations, didn’t relish the optics of a Murietta-style uprising on his home turf.  He did tell the White House that other locations in the state would be o.k. 

Maryland has a well-established refugee resettlement program and one of the big nine*** federal contractors—Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service—is located in the upscale area known as the Inner Harbor.   Not to mention the fact that the notorious Casa de Maryland (The illegals ACORN) is undoubtedly itching to get its paws into some federal “refugee” loot—-for the “children.”   See one of our many posts on Casa de Maryland (Sandinistas, El Salvador and the Sanctuary Movement).

The ‘unaccompanied alien minors’ are surely already being brought to “welcoming” Maryland.

From CNN (Hat tip: Jeff).  Emphasis is mine:

(CNN) – After his strong criticism of the Obama administration’s plans to return thousands of young undocumented migrants back to Central America, Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley asked a top White House official that the children not be sent to a site that was under consideration in his home state, sources familiar with the conversation said.

“He privately said ‘please don’t send these kids to Western Maryland,'” a Democratic source told CNN. The heated discussion between O’Malley and White House domestic policy adviser Cecilia Munoz occurred during a phone call late Friday evening, sources familiar with the conversation added.

Earlier O’Malley criticized the White House for using the ‘deportation’ word!

A potential Democratic presidential candidate in 2016, O’Malley surprised some in his party when he sharply criticized a White House proposal to give new legal authorities to the Department of Homeland Security to expedite the deportation of the unaccompanied minors and their families.

“We are not a country that should turn children away and send them back to certain death,” O’Malley said last week at a National Governors Association meeting in Nashville.

Instead, the governor urged the administration to show compassion toward the children, describing some of the facilities where the young detainees are being kept as “kennels.”

LOL! Then the Obama Administration picked a potential location in RED Western Maryland to house a number of the illegal aliens and O’Malley had to beg for relief.

Hours after making those remarks, O’Malley expressed concerns to Munoz about a proposal under consideration by the Department of Health and Human Services to convert a former Army Reserve Center in Westminster, Maryland to house the children.

A senior O’Malley administration official confirmed the conversation took place. But the official stressed O’Malley did not reject the idea of temporarily housing some of the children in other parts of the state.

Now, I bet you are wondering how this embarrassing  story about a private phone call between O’Malley and Munoz leaked to CNN.  I’m placing my bets on Valerie Jarrett slapping O’Malley down a peg or two.  Why?  Is she already working on some other Presidential candidate’s campaign?

Just as I finished this, I see there is another good story about the rift and the leak, here at WJLA.

All of our coverage of the ‘unaccompanied minors’ storming the US border may be found by clicking here.

***The contractors (we may have to start adding Baptist Children and Family Services to our list):