And, frankly, this is how it should be! Private groups should put their money where their mouths are!
The Reverend Loraine MacKenzie Shepherd is “disappointed” that private sponsors will have to foot the bill for the Syrian refugees.
In the US virtually 100% of the refugees are resettled with taxpayer money that is laundered through private groups masquerading as mostly “religious charities.” Our Refugee Resettlement Program was supposed to be a public/private partnership but gradually the public has come to be almost the sole source of funding as some “charities” are 90% and upwards funded from the US Treasury.
Groups that sponsor refugees welcome — and question — Canada’s latest commitment to resettle another 10,000 people forced to flee Syria and 3,000 from Iraq.
“The announcement was short on details,” said Brian Dyck, chairman of the Canadian Refugee Sponsorship Agreement Holders Association.
“We want to get more clarity.”
He said they hope to get some answers during a teleconference Wednesday with officials from Citizenship and Immigration Canada.
The federal government has agreed to assist 40 per cent of the refugees it has committed to take from Syria and Iraq. It will be up to private sponsors — individuals, faith groups and charitable organizations — to take responsibility for the other 60 per cent.
That means the federal government will pick up the tab for 4,000 of the 10,000 Syrians it’s pledged to resettle in the next three years.
“When you strip away the smoke and mirrors represented by talking big with that 10,000 number… you see that it’s really only 4,000 and the rest is ‘maybe,’ ” said Tom Denton, executive director of Hospitality House Refugee Ministry in Winnipeg.
Rev. Loraine MacKenzie Shepherd of Westworth United Church said she was happy to read about Canada stepping up to welcome another 10,000 Syrians but “disappointed” to learn private sponsors are expected to help most of them.
Maybe the good Reverend has a spare room or two at her house!
On Sunday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other Israeli leaders invited French Jews to move to Israel. That’s a nice gesture, but it’s not enough. The United States should join Israel and offer to also open up its shores as a refuge to the endangered Jews of France.
He tells about his visits to France and the danger Jews are in if they wish to live openly as Jews.
When I speak with Jews in France today, I feel the return of a grave danger to Jews that has arisen too often in Europe. My father ran from the Nazis and, as a toddler, hid in the ditches of the French countryside to escape deportation and almost certain death. More recently, we remember the brutal killing of Ilan Halimi, the son of Jewish Moroccan immigrants, in January 2006…. during my recent visit to France, people mentioned Ilan Halimi’s name as a turning point for the Jews of France and as a harbinger of the tension that followed.
We must work toward saving France’s Jews before it is too late. Many French Jews are moving to Israel; more than 7,000 Jews from France have moved there this past year. Yet Israel’s existence as a refuge does not absolve the rest of the world from doing whatever is possible to save the Jews of France.
So how about it? Can French Jews seek asylum here? Or do refugees to the U.S. have to be destitute, low-skill, and a burden to the taxpayer? Let’s invite refugees who are educated, skilled, self-supporting, and an all-around benefit to our country — the Jews of France and any other European country where they are in danger.
Protestors ignored Merkel’s appeal to stay away. However, apparently she will choose sides today and march with Muslims! http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/01/13/merkel-germany-muslims_n_6463236.html
They marched again in Dresden yesterday and exceeded last week’s anti-Islam numbers by about 7,000 according to the BBC:
A record 25,000 people have joined an anti-Islamisation rally in Dresden, Germany, called in the wake of the Paris terror attacks.
The protesters defied calls from German politicians to stay away from the Pegida organisation’s rally.
Elsewhere across Germany, tens of thousands of people joined anti-Pegida rallies.
Merkel says she will march for Muslims today:
Chancellor Angela Merkel has said she will attend a protest organised by Muslim groups in Berlin on Tuesday.
[….]
They marched in silence – at first at least. Normally Pegida’s demonstrations in Dresden are rowdy affairs but this, organisers emphasised, was a “Trauermarsch” (a mourning march) dedicated to the victims of the Paris shootings.
Pegida’s been accused of trying to capitalise on the terror attacks, and Angela Merkel warned Germans not to support them.
But tonight thousands of people ignored her, some wearing black ribbons as they marched.
To further that goal they recently purchased a closed Catholic School (bye-bye Catholics) and are converting one room into a Muslim prayer room!
Readers, the International Institute of St. Louis is a subcontractor of one of the big nine*** federal refugee contractors—US Committee for Refugees and Immigrants (USCRI). USCRI is 99% funded with taxpayer dollars. More on the International Institute’s finances after this news.
Anna Crosslin, president and CEO of the Institute: Formerly we had no place for all of our clients to pray! Where is the ACLU? http://www.iismo.org/aboutus.html
More cultural clashes coming to Missouri? Have we so quickly forgotten the recent Bosnian murder? African Americans don’t take kindly to refugees, who are getting a lot of government help, moving in to their communities!
In the shuttered St. Elizabeth Academy just east of Tower Grove Park, the tiny room with the small window used to be a bathroom, but it will now serve as a prayer room for Muslims.
The room has been emptied, the only addition a bar along one wall to hang prayer rugs.
It’s one small, but important addition to what is being prepped as the new home for the International Institute of St. Louis, which has helped more than 20,000 refugees legally resettle into the area by offering English classes and assistance in finding housing and jobs.
At its current location on South Grand Boulevard, the Institute has no designated place for Muslims to pray.
“I’d walk out and see men near the elevator or stairwell, in a corner with a piece of cardboard down, praying,” said Anna Crosslin, president and CEO of the Institute, which has been in operation since 1919.
Adding the prayer room points to the ongoing challenges to serve refugees from more than 75 countries, coming to St. Louis with various customs, languages and beliefs. Since moving into its current facility in 1999, the Institute has more than doubled the number of people it serves, to about 7,500 a year.
“We feel we need to be above 12,000, and there is no way we can do that now,” Crosslin said.
The Institute also plans to enhance career development and job training opportunities. The efforts are part of the region’s goal to be the fastest-growing metropolitan area for immigrants by 2020.
[….]
When I arrived in September 1978, we served about 1,200 annually, primarily through our (English as a second language) classes,” Crosslin said. “There was no formal refugee resettlement program in Missouri — that happened in winter 1978-79.”
[….]
With immigration reform efforts nationwide and the St. Louis Mosaic Project initiative locally, Crosslin expects the number of clients served each year to reach 12,500 by November 2019, the Institute’s 100th anniversary.
If she is right, this will be an enormous jump in numbers for St. Louis. The whole state of Missouri “welcomed” just about 12,000 refugees since 2004. 2,564 of those were Somalis, btw. Most went to St. Louis and Kansas City, some were spread around the whole state.
So, if you are wondering where all their “refugee” clients will come from, these won’t all be refugees “served” by the Institute helping them find housing and get jobs—all of these contractors are getting geared-up to get federal bucks to “serve” the new Obama amnesty recipients.
There is much more, here at the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.
When you read the Institute’s about page, note that they brag about doing free job counseling and training. It isn’t free! Taxpayers pay for this special help for immigrants and refugees.
On page nine, we learn that the Institute that year (2012) took in about $5 million (rounded number) and $3.9 million came from government grants (78%). Interesting to see that they took in nearly a half a million for translation services. Remember I have been telling you all about the growing cost to “welcoming” communities for translation services for immigrants who run into any problems in schools, healthcare facilities, housing agencies and the criminal justice system. Costs of hiring translators falls on the local taxpayer and guess who is supplying the translators—looks like the same agency being paid to bring ’em in!
Crosslin herself isn’t a big dipper—she gets under $150,000 in compensation (nothing like the salaries of some of the biggies), but there is one line that interested me (I wish I had an accountant handy to explain!). They paid out $2.1 million in compensation to “disqualified persons.” (page 10, line 6). What is that?
Here is our complete archive on St. Louis, note the number of crimes either perpetrated by immigrants, or those (more often) perpetrated against refugees and immigrants.
*** For new readers, these are the big nine federal contractors. There are 350 subcontractors under them working in 180 cities in the US.
