Month: November 2014

Lutheran refugee contractor cheers for Obama amnesty (no surprise!)

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

We have reported for years on how the Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service (LIRS) headquartered in Baltimore, Maryland is one of the leading advocacy groups in the nation involved in the open borders political movement, so this is no surprise.

Before you read on, have a look at a recent Form 990 (page 9) for LIRS.  Their income from gifts, grants and contributions was $41,757,518 and $40,417,752 came from “government grants.”  That means that you, the American taxpayer, “contributed” 97% of their income. Check out their Baltimore digs and note that their income jumped $10 million from 2011 to 2012.

Obama gets a big smooch from LIRS! Linda Hartke, CEO of LIRS makes over $200,000 a year in salary and benefits (you, the American taxpayer, pay her salary) http://lirs.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/Linda_Hartke_Bio.pdf

LIRS could not exist and be lobbying for amnesty if it wasn’t for the fact that you pay their salaries and overhead! Galling isn’t it?

One aspect of their enthusiasm for illegal aliens being granted permission to live and work here that I don’t get is this—they are charged with finding jobs for the refugees they resettle and there is no doubt that the Obama reprieve for millions of illegal aliens will put those “new Americans” in direct competition with job-hungry refugees for low-skilled jobs.  Doesn’t LIRS see that?

Here is LIRS cheering the President last Thursday….

From PR Newswire:

BALTIMORE, Nov. 20, 2014 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ — Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service (LIRS), and supporters all across America, welcome the significant steps taken today by the Obama Administration that invite our neighbors out of the shadows, bring greater hope and security in the place of fear and stabilize the lives of millions of immigrants living in the United States. The President’s historic announcement of new immigration policies brings hope to immigrant families, aids our communities in being places of welcome, and strengthens our nation by living out American values, and lifting up our economy.  These actions are grounded in our history as a nation that has been renewed and strengthened by each generation of newcomers.

The policies announced today reflect American values of justice and are an important step towards a more humane immigration system. It is our hope that the President’s demonstrated leadership will lead to Congressional action to rebuild an immigration system which further strengthens us as a nation and respects the rights and dignity of people who have come to the United States seeking refuge, family or the dignity of work and wages.

“Today, millions of lives have been changed for the better.  We must continue to lift up the American tradition of being a welcoming society that honors freedom, equality, and opportunity and values each and every person,” said Linda Hartke, LIRS President and CEO. “The President’s actions are a significant step in the right direction – promoting family unity and offering vital solutions for our economy and country.”

As a faith-based organization, LIRS has long advocated for an immigration system that encourages and supports keeping families together, and better protects children, migrants, refugees and other vulnerable persons. The President’s actions today are consistent with LIRS’s core principles of respect for human dignity and the biblical call to welcome the newcomer.

They go on to say they won’t be satisfied until they get the whole ball of wax—comprehensive immigration reform which they lobbied for in 2013.  Of course, we know that the Senate-passed S.744 had many goodies that will flow directly to LIRS and other refugee contractors.

There is contact information (see their press release). If you are a Lutheran who disagrees with what LIRS is doing in your name, you should contact them and let them know how you feel.

For those who want to learn more about LIRS, we have an extensive archive here.  For those following the Wyoming controversy, LIRS in Baltimore is the parent organization of Lutheran Family Services Rocky Mountains, here (one of our top three posts over the last week).

LIRS is one of the top nine federal resettlement contractors.  Don’t be fooled by the fact that they call themselves Voluntary Agencies.  They are all almost completely funded by you, the American taxpayer.

Liberal, KS meatpacking murder story exploding, why?

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

As I mentioned yesterday, this story from Liberal, KS about the murder of a Somali refugee by an African American at the National Beef plant there is a month old.  Yet over the last two days it has taken off with readers apparently mostly on facebook.

Does anyone see any additional news on the story that might have set this post on fire?

‘Pungentpeppers’ reports that there was a settlement there on Friday in which National Beef agreed to pay compensation in a class action lawsuit, but it has no apparent connection to the murder or to the large number of Somali and other refugees employed in Liberal.

For new readers, we write about these meatpacking plants frequently because their need for cheap immigrant labor is one of the drivers of the refugee program.  Our so-called ‘religious’ resettlement contractors work closely with them in key states besides Kansas—Kentucky, Iowa, Nebraska, North Carolina, and Colorado all come to mind.   Type ‘meatpackers’ into our search function and learn more about how these plants are changing the face of rural America (here is just one post you must read).

And, by the way, Senator Jeff Sessions called out BIG MEAT as one of the chief pushers of the Gang of Eight Amnesty bill, here.

You might also search RRW for ‘Kansas’ as we have written extensively on how refugees are destabilizing communities there.

How tight is the UNHCR with the Organization of Islamic Cooperation?

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

I really don’t know, but plan to be keeping an eye out for more news that might shed some light on my hunch that the OIC puts pressure on the UN High Commissioner for Refugees to keep Muslim migrants (“refugees”) headed to Western countries.

We know that the UNHCR is choosing our refugees (the UN tells the State Department which ones to take), and Canada’s as well, and is continually pressuring Australia, New Zealand, Japan and European countries to open their gates to the flood of Muslims coming out of Africa, Asia and the Middle East.

I suspect that the OIC tells the UN to jump, and the UN asks ‘how high?’ but we have no solid information about the role the OIC plays with refugee selection.

Here is a short story I’m posting just so we have it for future reference.  I don’t at this point see any great significance in it, but just don’t want to lose it.

Hot off the presses today from WAM (Emirates News Service):

JEDDAH, 22nd November, 2014 (WAM) — A joint Committee headed by Ambassador Fuad Al-Maznaee, Advisor to the Secretary General of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation, OIC, on Humanitarian Affairs, and Amin Awad, Director, Middle East and North Africa Bureau of the United Nations Refugee Agency, held its first meeting at the UNHCR headquarters in Geneva to discuss ways and means on enhancing areas of cooperation, particularly the implementation of the Ashgabat Declaration, adopted by the OIC Ministerial Conference on Refugees in the Muslim World held in 2012.

During the opening remarks, the two heads of delegations emphasized the importance of strengthening their partnership in areas of common interest, noting that refugees in OIC constitute 57% of the total refugees worldwide.

Both sides reiterated the strong commitment of the two organizations to address the protracted refugee issue in the Muslim World.

The main objective of the joint Committee’s discussion is to identify main areas of cooperation,and to work out a Plan of Action to implement the Ashgabat Declaration under the framework of the OIC-UNHCR Cooperation Agreement signed between the two organisations in 1988, according to an OIC statement.

This two days’ meeting comes as follow-up of the High-level meeting held between the OIC Secretary General Iyad Ameen Madani and the High Commissioner for refugees, Antonio Guterres, on 9 September 2014 at the OIC headquarters in Jeddah.

I began thinking about this question (how tight is the UNHCR with the OIC?) when I wrote my previous post about the ‘unaccompanied Muslim alien children’ spreading out around the world.

‘Unaccompanied alien children’ appearing all over the world; is the UN driving the scheme?

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Well, you can bet that Obama*** sure had a role in starting (if not planning!) the worldwide stampede by his complete inability to control the situation on the US border.   Today we have stories from France and from Indonesia about the “children” (mostly teenaged boys) on the move.  At an earlier time in history, teenaged boys would simply be considered invaders.

And, remember it was the ‘unaccompanied minors’ which generated the tension in that Roman neighborhood just a few days ago.

Antonio Guterres, the Socialist UN High Commissioner for Refugees: We must protect the “vulnerable” children. (That is one of their favorite words, btw) (REUTERS/Denis Balibouse)

In France:

From Aljazeera (the children are blaming the mean old UK).  There are a couple of good comments worth reading.

I have been to lots of refugee camps in the past: Gaza [which is entirely one]; the Iraq-Jordan border during the 2003 war; Russian republics neighbouring Chechnya. But I have never before found people in desperate need of someone’s help living in a ditch between two farmers’ fields, close to a very pleasant market town in northern France.

We, like much of the world’s media, have been countless times to Calais, to the tented camps strung out near the port, where people fleeing conflicts from Eritrea, Ethiopia, Sudan, Syria and other places are all waiting interminably. Their dream, many of them say, is to go to the UK, because they have a perception that it is welcoming to asylum seekers.

The other day an excellent organisation called Doctors of the World contacted us to say there was a new development: that because Calais was full up, people were being forced backwards, many kilometres south, away from the port and into open countryside.

So we went to have a look, and sure enough, near the village of Tatinghem, there was indeed a long ditch.

Inside it was a group of young Syrian boys – the youngest said he was 12 – who were all by themselves. Parents dead, the boys – trafficked through Turkey and Italy – had wound up in Calais but were forced to back up kilometres down the road. [So where did the boys get the thousands of dollars needed to hire human traffickers?  George Soros and his ilk? The OIC?  Don’t the dumb reporters ever ask that question?—ed]

They did not have their papers or virtually any food. They certainly were not going home, but they could not go forward towards the UK either, since they had no money.

There is a discussion you should read about how those anti-immigrant Brits can’t distinguish between illegal aliens and asylum seekers which is an important concept for do-gooders to consider.

Warning to American do-gooders: as you push for more and more immigrants of all sorts, the general public is naturally going to be so sick of it that they really won’t care anymore who is legitimate and who isn’t.  I predict a serious backlash against immigrants and their enablers in the coming years as a result.

Be sure to see the comments, especially those where readers are wondering—so why isn’t the UN pressuring Saudi Arabia to take in Muslim refugees?  Good question!

In Indonesia:

There are 950 “minors” in detention there according to the annoyed UNHCR.  From Antara News:

Jakarta (ANTARA News) – Currently, 950 children are housed in immigration detention centers across Indonesia, including more than 440 unaccompanied by their families, stated Antonio Guterres from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).

However, the total capacity of the facilities is limited, Guterres noted in a written statement received here on Friday.

“The children who arrive in another country in search of international protection are extremely vulnerable and have specific needs. We should treat them first and foremost as children, not as illegal immigrants”, Guterres remarked.

Will Church World Service bring some of Indonesia’s “vulnerable children” to the US?

Don’t we have enough of our own?

Indonesia is a Muslim country, can’t they take care of the Muslim children?  Instead look who is here on your dime—Church World Service—one of our nine major resettlement contractors.   The next thing you know we will be bringing the unaccompanied alien children from Indonesia to your home town.

With the support of the UN Refugee Agency and the Church World Service (CWS), the Indonesian government has set up two shelters as alternative accommodations for the children who arrive as unaccompanied refugees rather than placing them in a detention house.

Our ‘invasion of Europe’ series can be found by clicking here.

*** All of our coverage of the ‘unaccompanied minors’ disaster for America is here.

RRW round-up for the week ending November 22nd

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

I feel badly that I didn’t post yesterday—probably the first time in months that I’ve missed a day.  But, I will try to catch up today (I have a huge queue of potential posts).  I’m working on a bigger project so there will be some lighter days going forward.

However, I noticed that my absence wasn’t missed as a large number of readers were back anyway reading some of our 6,000+ previous posts.  We are on target to make November 2014 our best month ever!

Top posts this week were the following (daily top posts are in the right hand sidebar).

I was surprised to see that our fact sheet did not make it into the top three this time.  And, I was equally surprised to see that the ‘Somalis go to Wyoming for subsidized housing vouchers‘ story was, for the third week in a row, our top post!  (I sure hope it isn’t because refugees and their handlers across the country are sending it around and are headed to Wyoming for their vouchers!)

1. So why are those Somalis moving to Cheyenne, WY? Prepare to be shocked

2. Lutheran Family Services Rocky Mountains largely funded by government contracts

3. In Liberal, Kansas meat packing plant a black guy named Smith murders a Somali refugee

That last one, about Liberal, Kansas was a month-old yesterday, so I don’t know why it hit big this week.  One of my Kansas correspondents found nothing new happening on the case, but did find a juicy story I hope to get posted today.

Our top ten countries for the week were as follows (in descending order and excluding the US).  Usually Canada, Australia and the UK are somewhere in the top 3, but last week Malta came in at number one, and now Germany has pushed the UK to number four.

Canada

Germany

Australia

UK

Thailand

Sweden

France

Netherlands

Norway

New Zealand

A trip down memory lane! 

I’ve been doing some digging about our first year (2007) at RRW and came across this very thorough piece (‘In Maryland, resistance closes refugee office’) published at the Emporia Gazette (Kansas) written by Bobbi Mylnar that chronicles how Washington County Maryland residents (including this writer) questioned the US State Department and its contractor Virginia Council of Churches about resettlement of third-worlders in Hagerstown, the county seat.

The detailed report, which I had completely forgotten about, chronicles that episode and the consequent birth of this blog—Refugee Resettlement Watch.  It also (significantly) reports the demise of the resettlement effort in Washington County, MD.

Why was Emporia, Kansas interested in faraway western Maryland?  They were in the midst of a huge public controversy about the arrival of large numbers of Somali refugees to work for Tyson Foods (what else!).  Ultimately the controversy became so heated, Tyson closed the plant and move the Somalis to other towns.  We have a whole category here at RRW on that battle.

For new readers!

Since we get new readers every day, here is my usual spiel.

This is where you can find information if you are arriving here at RRW for the first time (in addition to the fact sheet linked above). We have over 6,000 posts.

*  See our categories (left hand sidebar)

*  See the tag clouds (right hand sidebar)

*  Also, we have a great search function and since neither the categories nor the tags go all the way back to our first posts seven years ago, use the search window with a few key words.  You might want to first try your city, state, or country to see what we have reported from there over the years.

By the way, our category entitled ‘where to find information’ is filled with reports and documents, but with 307 posts archived there, it is pretty unwieldy now.

Past weekly roundups can be found in our category entitled ‘blogging.’

If you wish to be notified when we post, consider subscribing or follow us on twitter (@refugeewatcher) or facebook (RefugeeInfoResource).  ‘Like us’ on facebook!

And apologies to all who e-mail and comment, sorry if I don’t respond much, there are just not enough hours in my day!

It occurs to me that I do see everyone’s comments to posts because we do screen them (no foul language, no threats), so if you have something you want me to see, I don’t at all mind if you send the link as a comment to a post, even if it’s off-topic.

To regular readers, thank you for your continued concern for this very important issue.