I don’t have the time to do this post justice this morning, but since the news about a restaurant in Vermont taking down a sign with the word “bacon” on it after a Muslim customer deemed it offensive is all over the web, and because some have linked a post we wrotehere in 2009, I need to at least say a few words.
So what did they expect? When Winooski “welcomed” the US State Department and its contractors in several years ago to resettle Muslim refugees in their town, this day would come.
Senator Patrick Leahy as he appeared when he first arrived in Washington in 1975 has been pushing for more immigration for America for nearly four decades. So, with a leader like this, Vermont deserves to “welcome” many more than it has already.
Here is a story at USA Today and one at American Thinker where you can learn more about the controversy.
Send all refugees to Vermont! Find the “tipping point!”
That is what we have been promoting here at RRW—send all of the refugees to “welcoming” Vermont. First, their leadership wants them (and the ‘unaccompanied alien children’ too).
Senator Patrick Leahy was a primary pusher for “amnesty” (Gang of Eight Senate bill) and he has been the Senate champion for the federal contractors looking for more refugees to be admitted to the US. Additionally, Vermonters say they love diversity, so it is a perfect testing ground.
And, then most importantly (besides saving your state!), by sending all of the refugees to Vermont for a few years we would find out very quickly what the “tipping point” will be for America especially as it relates to the importation of Muslim refugees.
See all of our posts on Vermont, here. But, please be sure to see these two recent posts, here and here.
I know that we aren’t crying ourselves to sleep over what happens in Turkey, but just so you know. Turkish citizens are fed up with refugees. Authorities plan to move Syrians off the streets and into tent cities to avoid more such clashes.
A homeless Syrian woman on the streets of Istanbul. Search as I might, I could not find a photo of actual clashes with police.
Hundreds of people have clashed with Turkish police in Istanbul during a protest against the rising number of refugees from Syria.
Businesses were attacked, windows broken and a car overturned in the western suburb of Ikitelli, on the European side of the city.
Youths shouted anti-Syrian slogans and Turkish media said five people were taken to hospital.
As many as 1.2 million Syrians have gone to Turkey to escape the civil war.
Riot police moved in to halt the unrest on Sunday evening.
An estimated 300 people were said to have taken in the violence, some of them armed with sticks and knives.
The large number of Syrian refugees in Turkey has heightened tensions in some cities, particularly in the east.
How many Syrians will the US be taking?
We should know soon. The US State Department’s 2015 fiscal year begins October 1 and so in the next month the State Department (the Administration) will be sending its “Presidential Determination” to Capitol Hill where Obama’s wishes for refugees for your towns and cities for the next year will be summarily rubber-stamped by the do-nothings in our Congressional leadership. I don’t know that anyone has ever objected to a Presidential Determination.
Last year there was some talk of taking 2,000 Syrians in 2014 and that seems not to have materialized (security concerns?). The resettlement contractors have been strangely silent for months after they publicly demanded 12,000-15,000 Syrians be admitted each year for the next 5 years—did they find out that their public pleas were only stirring up even more opposition?
This is a follow-up to our post of last Thursday in which we reported that Athens, GA mayor Nancy Denson had concerns about whether her city could afford the importation of poverty that comes with ‘welcoming’ third-worlders to town.
J.D. McCrary says the feds will decide!
The arrogance of the International Rescue Committee (headed by former British Foreign Secretary David Miliband) is beyond belief as it basically says to the citizens of Athens, Georgia that the US State Department will make the final decision about whether yours will be one more “preferred” community for refugee resettlement!
The director of a plan to resettle refugees in Athens remains optimistic despite opposition from local leaders.
“I would still very much like to work together as partners here,” said International Rescue Committee Atlanta Director J.D. McCrary of his hope to bring refugees from war-torn countries to the area.
Athens-Clarke County Mayor Nancy Denson sent a letter last week to the state officials who control refugee resettlement in Georgia requesting that a plan by the Atlanta office of the International Rescue Committee to bring refugees to Athens be put on hold.
Denson worried that the presence of refugees might strain Athens’ already burdened social services and school system. Athens can offer very little outside of low-wage employment to the refugees, Denson said.
The mayor and other local leaders also expressed concern in recent interviews about adding to the area’s poverty level.
And, the IRC repeats the lie that refugees are self-sufficient in six months and it costs the local community nothing! It simply defies logic!
What about the local school system? What about the local health department? What about the local fire and rescue services? What about the local criminal justice system? What about the interpreters needed for the health department and for the criminal justice system? What about the fact that refugees use subsidized housing that would normally be available to Georgia’s own poor and handicapped people? Etc. etc.
The IRC even admits that the refugees “hover around the poverty level!”
The US State Department’s 2015 fiscal year begins October 1, so they are shooting for dropping off the refugees as early as November.
The biggest concern Denson and others had with the IRC plan was its time line. Resettlement was expected to begin in earnest in 2015, with the potential for some refugees arriving as soon as November.
The IRC contends they did communicate with local officials before submitting their plan to the US State Department and besides, says the IRC representative, the mayor should have been sending her letter to the US State Department which really calls the shots for Georgia and not the state’s own refugee coordinator.
Here is the unbelievable arrogance of the IRC representative on full display:
McCrary said he expects to hear the State Department’s decision on the Athens resettlement plan in four to six weeks. He is not deterred by the reaction of Athens officials.
“The State Department has seen this type of community reaction before,” McCrary said. “This is nothing new for them. They understand the difference between elected officials and community hospitality. They’ll see that Athens is supportive of refugees.”
Message to American citizens! We don’t care what local elected officials say—it is what the US State Department wants that matters!
Endnote: They knew a year ago that Georgia had developed “pockets of resistance” but are still planning to shove more immigrants down Georgians throats because this is more about turning red states blue than humanitarian concern. And, how do we know that? Vermont is eager for more migrants (Senator Patrick Leahy is a champion of the refugee program) so why not just send the ones planned for Georgia to that “welcoming” state? Why don’t they?—because Vermont is already blue!
Although his focus seems to be directed at the moment on the ‘Halliburtons’ of federal migrant resettlement contractors, Baptist Child and Family Services and Southwest Key Programs, he must be sure that the Department of Health and Human Services (Office of Refugee Resettlement) gives him information on ALL of the contractors*** receiving grants and contracts for ‘unaccompanied alien children’ (some of those “children” now appear to be fictitious!).
If Senator Grassley gets any answers out of the Obama Administration I will be blown away!
Investigative reporter Sharyl Attkisson (there are a few real investigative reporters left!) reports on Senator Charles Grassley’s quest, here. Hat tip: Joanne.
The federal government continues to maintain a great deal of secrecy around the influx of what it calls “unaccompanied alien children” or UAC. At the same time, U.S. taxpayers are being asked to fund programs to process and care for them.
Sen. Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) recently wrote a letter to the Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Sylvia Mathews Burwell stating,
“If Congress is going to appropriate funding for the department to provide care and custody for this vulnerable population, it deserves to know how taxpayer dollars are going to be spent.”
Grassley also raised questions about a charity called Southwest Key Programs that “received $368 million in federal government grants over the past six years and more than $122 million alone from the Health and Human Services’ Office of Refugee Resettlement in 2014. According to the non-profit’s 2012 Form 990, it receives 98.76 percent of its support from taxpayer dollars.”
To date, Grassley says his questions to HHS have gone unanswered. Among other queries, he asked for information about who the unaccompanied minors are being released to, the health issues facing the unaccompanied minors, and the decision to move millions of dollars away from service for legal refugees. [Reports are coming out now that the funding to contractors for legal refugees has not been cut, despite the national scare-tactic campaign ginned-up by the contractors*** which we have been reporting on.—ed]
Attkisson then gives us the questions Senator Grassley wants answered by September 5th. I think the good Senator is going to find out just how steeped in secrecy our entire refugee program is!
1. The names of the (HHS) contractors and all identifying information about them, including –their location.
2. What kinds of checks are done on relatives, parents and other guardians? Specifically, what databases are checked and what other agencies help HHS with the checks?
3. What statute, regulation or court order mentions that HHS must release minors into the custody of other non-relative guardians?
4. Why doesn’t HHS report to (Department of Homeland Security) DHS about whom and where the UAMs [UACs—ed] are released to?
5. Are there any examples of sponsor shopping and what you do with that information? My staff followed up on this matter, asking about a recent report about a woman who has taken more than 800 kids into custody for people here illegally.
6. Do you have a summary of the health issues facing the UAM population?
a. Are kids with contagious diseases treated by HHS?
b. Are they released even when contagious?
c. What types of diseases are you seeing?
d. Is the Office of Refugee Resettlement coordinating with the Centers for Disease Control?
7. A copy of the reprogramming request made to appropriators about moving $94 million from legal refugee services to the UAMs.
8. Explain in more detail why HHS is paying up to $1,000 per day for housing unaccompanied minors and families who have entered illegally.
9. How many contracts has BCFS been awarded from 2010 to the present? What is the total cost of these contracts?
10. How many grants has BCFS been awarded from 2010 to the present? What is the total cost of these grants?
11. Please provide all communications and contract documents related to BCFS’ proposed contract and the Palm Aire Hotel and Suites facility, even if the contract is no longer under consideration.
12. Please provide all audits [see my comment below—ed] of grantees receiving HHS funds from the Office of Refugee Resettlement.
13. For fiscal year 2014, what percentage of the funds obligated to grantees by the Office of Refugee Resettlement have been used for administrative expenses? Please provide a detailed breakdown of these expenses.
14. Please provide all OMB A-133 forms for grantees receiving funds from HHS’ Office of Refugee Resettlement.
15. Please provide documentation that grantees are complying with OMB A-122 standards.
16. Please provide all grantee reports to HHS on their progress towards meeting stated program goals.
17. Please provide all communications between HHS and Southwest Key related to UAMs in 2014.
18. Please provide all grant and contract documents between HHS and Southwest Key Programs.
Good questions!
*** The Senator must be sure to ask about the other major federal migrant resettlement contractors. (All of the original nine lobbied for the Gang of Eight amnesty bill that passed in the Senate (did they use taxpayer dollars for their lobbying campaigns???)).
We know that the US Conference of Catholic Bishops and Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service(both receiving over 90% of their funds from the US Treasury) have been contracted for years to care for the UACs. Some of the others listed here are just now getting into the act with hands in the federal cookie jar specifically for the UACs.
By the way, when I first began writing this blog seven years ago I asked if there was financial auditing done on these contractors and was told there are no audits done of where the money goes. I was told only “program audits” were done which were described to be audits of what they accomplished, like how many refugees they “serviced” found employment and so forth. Those original nine contractors, which have an inside track to federal money, have 300 plus subcontractors which makes following the money trail exceedingly difficult.
Our complete archive on ‘unaccompanied minors’goes back several years,click here for all of those posts.
Evolution of terms! When we first began reporting on these “children” they were referred to as ‘unaccompanied minors’and that is why we use the term here (so you can find posts from years gone by). Next, the ORR (Office of Refugee Resettlement) called them ‘Unaccompanied alien minors.’ And then as the PR strategy continued to evolve they became ‘unaccompanied alien children.’ Recently I saw another transformation of the the term—‘unaccompanied immigrant children.’ You see how it works! Next we expect to see ‘unaccompanied refugee children’as the Open Borders Left/Religious Left continues their public relations drive to change the definition of ‘refugee.’
Take action! Send a note and thank Senator Grassley for wading into this dung pile!
….turns out tens of thousands of the kids never existed!
Biden, Johnson, Obama (looks like they are on to us!)
That’s what blogger ‘sundance’ at The Conservative Tree House alleges and seems to have the numbers to prove it. There are still a lot of unaccompanied minors (mostly teenagers), but the number is about half of what the Obama Administration has been claiming.
In reality, says ‘sundance,’ the numbers of children with parents (mostly with Mom) is where the larger numbers are to be found. And, of course those migrants are just run-of-the-mill illegal aliens, not UACs who are given special treatment.
Why would they do this?
Maybe to push Congress to pass ‘comprehensive immigration reform’ pronto?
Three weeks ago we shared the fact that well over 40,000 reported UAC’s were missing from this years record keeping. The facts catching up with the ruse.
Well, the truth was/is they’re not technically missing because they never existed in the first place. DHS, which compiles the reports coming from the Border Patrol, and then gives the statistical summaries of the reports, had artifically inflated the apprehension numbers to support the White House narrative.
However, DHS, or more accurately Jeh Johnson, could not divert the end user of the apprehension reports, The Executive Office of Immigration Reform, the entity who controls the court dockets, from recording the missing reports.
Comparative FOIA’s into the recording agency, The Border Patrol, and the end user, The EOIR, showed the statistical ruse.
The reports were missing because they were never written; they were never written because the UAC’s were not actually real.
Read it all! See their excellent work! There is a lot of documentation to prove that one more time we can’t trust this White House. And, you know it would explain why we kept hearing of possible housing sites that would a couple of days later turn out not to be needed.
And, it would explain why, after one crisis story after another about the UAC’s gobbling up all the funding for the normal refugee flow, the money started reappearing in the refugee contractors’ budgets. Remember when that ‘carrot-tasting class’ money was so quickly restored.
