Comment worth noting: Let’s have a Repatriation Fund to send unhappy refugees home

In response to our post earlier about the unhappy Bhutanese refugees in America, commenter CW suggested we establish a fund to repatriate them.

It is a brilliant idea!  The Bhutanese are not the first who came to America with ideas about how wonderful life would be here only to become disillusioned.  It must be an awful shock for these quiet (mostly Hindu) people who have been born and raised in camps to be dropped off in rough American cities, expected to work at the most menial jobs, maneuver through the welfare system, and learn how to avoid the thugs they are often settled alongside.

This idea was one I thought about when a lot of Iraqis who came here a few years ago were so unhappy.  I advised some to contact the Iraqi embassy in Washington to see if the embassy could finance their way home.

Here is CW’s tongue-in-cheek comment that is actually a really good idea for reforming the Refugee Resettlement Program:

Gives me an idea! How about we apply to the State Dep’t for grant to establish Repatriation Services? Sort of like a revolving door: Catholic Charities brings them in, and Repatriation Services escorts them out! RS also could take all those poor illegals who “were brought here through no fault of their own” and repatriate them, too!

How about it, Comrade?!?!

For those of you who say this would be expensive, I say, no it wouldn’t!  It would be cheaper to provide a plane ticket and maybe a little start-up money then to provide years of social services (including the mental health services the unhappy Bhutanese are requiring).

By the way, the Bhutanese are really Nepali people, so we might work a little deal with Nepal (a little foreign aid perhaps) to take them there.   (I wonder what we are paying the countries who are taking the Guantanamo prisoners—a bundle I bet!).

Do you know that right now, the refugees who are flown here are loaned the airfare money and must begin paying it back almost immediately.  The contractors do the dunning letters and the collecting and get to keep a cut for themselves.  Thus it is almost impossible for an unhappy refugee to ever gather the necessary money to buy their own ticket home.

Come on Congress, how about a Repatriation Fund and a little start-up money!

For more Comments Worth Noting, go here.

Obama lectures Europe: Integrate Muslims better (like we do!)

Update January 18th:  Here is Carol Brown writing about this dumb (and arrogant) comment by our Prez at American Thinker.  If you are wondering what the word “major” in the middle of the quote is all about, after listening to the comment, I realized that he is addressing CBS News White House correspondent Major Garrett.  So, it needs a capital ‘M.’

I have things to do, but can’t resist posting this from Drudge today before I get to other work!

And, Kerry brings James Taylor to Paris to sing, “You’ve got a friend!” Is this for real, or a promo for Saturday Night Live!

From AFP:  “Europe needs to better integrate Muslim communities: Obama.”

We know Presidents are isolated in that big ol’ White House in Washington, but this is too much!  And, the nerve!

WASHINGTON (AFP) – Europe must do more to better integrate its Muslim communities, and not “simply respond with a hammer”, US President Barack Obama said Friday in the wake of last week’s terror attacks in France.

Our biggest advantage, major, is that our Muslim populations – they feel themselves to be Americans,” Obama told a joint press conference with British Prime Minister David Cameron.

“There are parts of Europe in which that’s not the case. And that’s probably the greatest danger that Europe faces… it’s important for Europe not to simply respond with a hammer and law enforcement and military approaches to these problems.”

Our Muslim population just isn’t big enough to get too aggressive yet!  And, besides, if we are doing it right why did Obama just launch a refugee and immigrant integration task force?

Photo:  Yes, it is for real! 

Intriguing one line: Bhutanese refugees “forced” to go to America?

This isn’t the first time we have seen ‘hints’ that some Bhutanese refugees weren’t happy about the fact that 80,000 plus of them were sent to the US over the last seven years or so.

Map is a little out of date, but still gives you an idea of where they were all distributed.

I guess “hints” isn’t the right word. Here in October of last year we reported on the updated news about the high suicide rate among Bhutanese resettled across America and that some are sorry they came here (probably not thrilled about the meat packing work!).

You can learn all about the Bhutanese migration to America that started under George W. Bush by clicking here for our complete archive.

Now, here is just a little news item that I found interesting at the Nepalese Voice:

Jhapa: The Bhutanese refugees residing in Nepal have demanded not to close their repatriation mission on Saturday.

Expressing their will to return their homeland, some 10,000 refugees have demanded to keep their repatriation mission open.

A 21-member delegation of the Elderly Citizen Repatriation Committee has submitted a memorandum to the government officials urging them to support their repatriation mission.

They also blamed some donor agencies for forcing the Bhutanese refugees for third country resettlement.

Wouldn’t you love to know who did the forcing!

How much of your tax dollars are the federal refugee resettlement contractors receiving?

I’ve been busy doing research for a couple of upcoming projects/events.  And, so here is some data I want to share with readers.  Be sure to check our ‘where to find information’ category from time to time for the latest facts and figures involving refugees and immigration generally.

Lavinia Limon (right) with Angelina Jolie. Limon was Bill Clinton’s director of the Office of Refugee Resettlement and now has the distinction of being the refugee contractor CEO (USCRI) with the largest percentage of federal cash flowing to her “non-profit”—99%!

These are the nine major contractors the US State Department and the Office of Refugee Resettlement (HHS) fund.  They call them Voluntary Agencies (VOLAGs) which is such a joke considering the large amount of federal funding that flows to each one!  There are approximately 350 subcontractors in 180 cities working under the nine biggies.

(An attempt was made to choose a recent year for which all of the nine had submitted financial documents. Although some VOLAGs have slightly different reporting periods and reporting methods, for our purposes the 2012 ‘year’ is adequate. Also, keep in mind that some of the agencies reported their IOM travel loan income, some did not. The IOM is the International Organization for Migration, another huge federal contractor that makes the arrangements for the refugees to prepare to leave for America and it purchases their airline tickets. Refugees must reimburse that taxpayer-funded travel loan, but the VOLAG that collects the loan, pockets a percentage of it—justified as a collection fee.)

We did not include the two new contractors primarily responsible for the ‘unaccompanied minors.’

Church World Service
(From 2012 Form 990)

Total revenue: $76,185,774
Govt. grants and contracts: $45,431,781
Percent taxpayer funded: 60%
Top salary: $286,000 (Top salaries throughout include benefits and income from related activities)

Ethiopian Community Development Council (secular)
(From 2012 Form 990)

Total revenue: $15,244,802
Govt. grants: $14,609,687
Percent taxpayer funded: 96%
Top salary: $233,228

Episcopal Migration Ministries

This gets tricky. Apparently EMM (or now known as Domestic and Foreign Missionary Society of the Protestant Episcopal Church of America), does not produce a Form 990 (no response from them to a recent inquiry was received) nor do they publish their federal income in their annual report.

The only accounting we could find is an independent auditor’s report that reveals they received $17,365,325 from the federal government for their refugee program in 2012.

Further examination by a qualified accountant would be needed to find out how they spent the $17 million.

Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society
(From 2012 Form 990 for HIAS, Inc. Can’t be found at Guidestar under its full name only as HIAS,Inc, just one of those things that makes tracking these VOLAGs very difficult.  LOL! we have learned that they have dropped the “Hebrew” from their name.)

Total revenue: $25,418,714
Govt. grants and contracts (including travel loan income): $15,426,116
Percent taxpayer funded: 61%
Top salary: $323,162

International Rescue Committee (secular)
(From 2012 Form 990)

Total revenue: $456,122,865
Govt. grants and contracts (including travel loan income): $332,271,151
Percent taxpayer funded: 73%
Top salary: $485,321

US Committee for Refugees and Immigrants (secular)
(From 2012 Form 990)

Total revenue: $39,205,548
Govt. grants and contracts: $38,817,939
Percent taxpayer funded: 99%
Top salary: $289,192

Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service
(From 2012 Form 990)

Total revenue: $43,563,804
Govt. grants and contracts: $42,047,935
Percent taxpayer funded: 97%
Top salary: $214,237

World Relief (National Association of Evangelicals)
(From 2012 Form 990)

Total revenue: $56,842,649
Govt. grants and contracts: $38,837,294
Percent taxpayer funded: 68%
Top salary: $211,651 (again the ‘salaries’ include other related compensation)

US Conference of Catholic Bishops

Last, but by far not least, is the US Catholic Bishops whose finances now require further explanation. The USCCB, by the way, resettles the largest number of refugees in the US with the help of Catholic Charities located throughout America. They make no effort to single out Christians for resettlement and in fact, in 2013 they were requesting that the US State Department bring more Rohingya Muslims from Burma (Myanmar) to America.

Up until recently we could access their annual reports to determine their direct income from the federal taxpayer (for their migration program), however, it appears that since RRW and others began publishing the information, we are no longer able to access those reports.

To our knowledge, no Form 990 is filed. Churches are not required to file 990s, so perhaps the Bishops consider themselves a church.
Also, since federal funds go directly to myriad Catholic Charities around the country especially to states such as Tennessee where Catholic Charities and the federal government have complete control of who comes and where they are placed with virtually no state input (called the Wilson-Fish program), it would require very knowledgeable forensic accountants to follow the money.

Here is the information we previously obtained from the USCCB’s 2012 Annual Report (it is a good thing we captured it at the time!).

Total revenue: $70,975,237
Govt. grants and contracts (includes over $3 million in travel loan income): $69,534,230
Percent taxpayer funded: 98%
We have no idea what salaries are paid in the USCCB Washington office.

A billion dollars a year!

That is how much we are spending (that we know of!) for refugee resettlement, here.  That figure does not include subsidized housing, most healthcare, food stamps, other cash assistance, educating the kids or the costs to the criminal justice system!