Is Obama testing the waters with latest—10,000 Syrians to US in FY2016

09/10/2015 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

The human rights industrial complex must be going nuts right now with the number being tossed out this afternoon from the White House of Syrian refugees that could be admitted to the US starting in 3 weeks (FY2016 starts October 1).
Is your head starting to spin with all the numbers being thrown around? Join the club!

Merkel angry — Surely “mama Merkel” and papa Francis will not be happy. https://refugeeresettlementwatch.org/2015/09/02/trying-to-reach-the-welcoming-arms-of-mama-merkel-migrants-are-buying-fake-syrian-passports/

Assuming they will be mostly Muslim Syrians like those already admitted, 10,000 is many more than most Americans want to take care of, but it is still a minuscule number compared with the 65,000-100,000 that the refugee contractors in America are asking for.
And, I bet that German Chancellor Angela Merkel (we will take 500,000 a year!) and the Pope are seeing red!
Someone suggested to me that this latest from the White House is simply to test the waters by dropping the number 10,000 and that makes sense. He still has a couple of weeks before a number for 2016 is due in Congress.
The number is also far short of the number the UN has already placed in a pipeline to America—17,000.
By the way, when you check out this ABC News piece from a few hours ago on the number 10,000, note that Obama is putting it all off on the US State Department, but this decision is all his in the end! Emphasis is mine:
ABC News:

President Obama has directed his administration to accept at least 10,000 more Syrian refugees in the next fiscal year, White House press secretary Josh Earnest said today.

“The president has directed his team to consider how we can further scale up our response and one thing that the United States can do is to begin to admit more Syrian refugees into the United States,” Earnest told reporters. “The president has directed his team to scale up that number next year and he’s informed his team that he would like them to accept, at least make preparations to accept at least 10,000 Syrian refugees in the next fiscal year.”

[….]

Obama, acknowledging the crisis today during a conference call with U.S. rabbis ahead of the Jewish New Year, said, “We’ve got to do more.” The president said some of the challenges the United States is confronting are bureaucratic, legal and statutory issues.

Earnest’s announcement came a day after Secretary of State John Kerry proposed that the United States admit an additional 5,000 refugees from across the globe next year, which would increase the total number of refugees allowed in the country to 75,000 in 2016.

[….]

Earnest said the State Department has long considered raising the overall cap on refugees from throughout the globe, but it’s unclear how high that cap may be raised next year.

The current cap on refugees the United States accepts annually from all countries is 70,000, and it’s also unclear whether the 10,000 Syrians next year would be within that cap or in addition to it.

Either way, the nonprofit Human Rights First slammed the numbers as insufficient. “This is not leadership, it is barely a token contribution given the size and scale of the global emergency,” the New York-based advocacy group said in a statement. “The administration’s announcement that it will commit to take in at least 10,000 Syrian refugees is far too little. Resettling 10,000 Syrian refugees is only a drop in the bucket toward providing protection to the more than 4 million Syrians who have fled their country due to horrific violence and persecution.”

The organization urged Obama to commit to resettling at least 100,000 Syrian refugees during the next fiscal year.

I’ll have more tomorrow as we have a look at the reaction and what else is happening on the Syrian refugee invasion of Europe.

Governor says, no thanks to Syrians, Georgia has enough refugees!

09/10/2015 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Back in 2013, when I attended an Office of Refugee Resettlement meeting in Lancaster, PA, government officials identified Georgia as having a ‘pocket of resistance’ because the Republican Governor, Nathan Deal, had asked the feds to stop sending so many, that Georgia was overloaded. So it is no surprise that Gov. Deal is saying the same thing today. (And, it looks like his appeal to the US State Department fell on deaf ears!)
From the Atlanta Journal Constitution:

Nikki Haley and Deal — I can only assume Gov. Deal did not warn SC Gov. Nikki Haley before she went on record supporting more refugees for South Carolina. Either that or she didn’t listen. LOL! Maybe he didn’t warn her because he wishes SC would take some of the load off of Georgia!

Gov. Nathan Deal’s administration doesn’t want to see the number of refugees resettling in Georgia increase, despite pleas from humanitarian officials urging the U.S. to take in substantially more Syrians fleeing their war-torn country.

In an interview with the Atlanta Journal-Constitution on Tuesday, Deal urged a cautious approach to the desperate refugee crisis unfolding across the Mediterranean Sea and Europe. The governor repeated his assertion – disputed by some advocates – that Georgia takes in more than its fair share of refugees.

[….]

Deal’s administration confirmed Tuesday it has asked the State Department to keep the number of refugees resettling in the Peach State “static” going into the next fiscal year.

“We will be welcoming,” Deal told the AJC. “But we want to make sure we’re not taking a disproportionately large share of them compared to other parts of the country.”

This is very interesting considering Reed has been promoting Atlanta as a welcoming city.

Deal’s wary approach to the escalating crisis was echoed by Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed, typically one of the region’s most forceful advocates of a welcoming policy to immigrants and refugees. He said he needed more time to evaluate the city’s position and that he would likely follow the lead of the Obama administration, which is weighing its options.

“I’m not going to get ahead of the federal government with regards to the Syrian refugee crisis,” he said.

[….]

The Deal administration has previously called on the U.S. State Department to sharply reduce the numbers of refugees being resettled in Georgia, citing state and local taxpayer costs associated with taking in the refugees, school budget shortfalls and other concerns.

Local resettlement agencies have long pushed back, beyond arguing that Georgia has a moral obligation to embrace refugees. They say refugees attract millions of dollars in federal aid money, form a ready pool of eager employees and ultimately create businesses and pay taxes.

LOL! A reduction of 16 refugees sure doesn’t sound like a reduction to me!

Last year, the U.S. State Department confirmed it had limited the number of all refugees coming to Georgia, based partly on the Deal administration’s concerns. The number of refugees who have been resettling in Georgia dropped by less than 1 percent over the past two fiscal years, from 2,710 to 2,694.

Deal is right here. The resettlement contractors put “natural enemies” together in some cities expecting (naively?) that the mythical magic melting pot will do its work and the lion will lay down with the lamb or some such foolishness!

“When they decide where they bring in individuals,” Deal said, “they need to do a better job of making sure they haven’t put an over-concentration of people from different countries, some of whom have been natural enemies of each other. Trying to put them side-by-side in a small community like Clarkston is not doing a service to those individuals.”

Endnote: I don’t know whatever happened with Athens, GA where the mayor (a Democrat) wanted answers from the feds before she put a stamp of approval on a refugee program for Athens. Does anyone know whatever happened? Did the contractor, the International Refugee Committee, set up shop there?

Trump reverses himself on Syrian refugee question, says we have too many problems of our own!

09/10/2015 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

The other day, Presidential candidate Donald Trump sounded a bit squishy on the issue of bringing in large numbers of Syrian refugees, but on Hannity last night he says what sure sounds like a NO!
Watch the clip, he does mention that the wealthy Gulf Arab States and Russia aren’t taking any (terrorism fears?). He could mention that China is never asked to take any as well! The UN does pound Japan to take refugees, but they only take a tiny number as they are wisely trying to save their unique culture.
Here he is in a far-ranging interview that begins with his views on the Iran nuclear deal. For the refugee discussion begin watching at 7:50 minutes. Thanks to Richard at Blue Ridge Forum for alerting us to this news.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q2j8sBTnVXw

Please see our earlier post this morning where we reported that fellow GOP Presidential hopeful, Gov. Scott Walker, is saying no as well.
If you see more on what position other candidates are taking, please send a link in a comment to this post.
Obama will likely be telling the world sometime this month how many he will “welcome” to live in your towns and cities.

Germany: Surprise! (not!) ISIS fighter caught posing as asylum seeker

09/10/2015 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Invasion of Europe news…..

Well, here you go, you knew it had to happen. At least they caught this one! I wonder how many more there are?

Germany refugees — German politicians (and industrialists?) optimistic that they can handle hundreds of thousands of young men seeking asylum. http://www.dw.com/en/germanys-challenge-integration-of-refugees/a-18702361

From The New Observer (hat tip: Joanne):

An ISIS terrorist posing as an “asylum seeker” has been arrested by German police in a “refugee” center in Stuttgart, and German customs officers have seized boxes containing Syrian passports being smuggled into Europe.

According to a report carried by RTL’s German language service, the terrorist is a 21-year-old Moroccan using a “false identity” who had registered as an asylum seeker in the district of Ludwigsburg. He was identified after police linked him to a European arrest warrant issued by the Spanish authorities. He is accused of recruiting fighters for ISIS, where he acted as a contact person for fighters who wanted to travel to Syria or Iraq.

Fake Syrian passports seized!

This first confirmed arrest of a bogus “asylum seeker” came simultaneously with the admission by a German finance ministry spokesman that “boxes” of fake Syrian passports, destined for sale and distribution to the hordes of nonwhite invaders seeking to settle in Europe as bogus “war refugees,” had been seized.

That news, carried in a report by the German Tagespiegel newspaper, also revealed that 10,000 fake Syrian passports were seized by police in Bulgaria, on their way to Germany.

The finance ministry official said both genuine and forged passports were in the packets intercepted in the post. Possession of these passports is a vital part of claiming “asylum” as “war refugees.”

Do you know that in the process of “screening” Syrians and others from the Middle East destined for America, prospective refugees are asked if they have ever been involved in terrorist activities. So what do you think they are going to answer—a big fat NO!

Take action!

Every one reading these pages must contact your Member of Congress and US Senators and tell them ‘no’ to admitting Syrian Muslim refugees! Time is of the essence because Obama could announce any day now that he will be opening the floodgates to Syrians.

You don’t think he is going to let Merkel, Cameron and the Pope be the humanitarian big shots do you?
While you are talking to your elected officials tell them that we have had enough Iraqi, Somali, Uzbek, Burmese, and Afghan Muslim refugees as well.
Our ‘Invasion of Europe’ archive is here. Our archive on Germany (aka ‘New Syria!’) is here.

CIS: Welfare Use High for Both Legal and Illegal Immigrants

09/10/2015 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

49% for Legal Households, 62% for Illegals
Here is the complete Center for Immigration Studies press release:

WASHINGTON, DC (September 10, 2015) — Low levels of education — not legal status — are the main reason immigrant welfare use is high, according to a new report by the Center for Immigration Studies. The report estimates welfare use separately for legal and illegal immigrant households based on Census Bureau data, and is a companion to the Center’s study released last week examining all immigrant households. The new analysis shows that legal immigrant households make extensive use of most welfare programs, while illegal immigrant households primarily benefit from food programs and Medicaid through U.S.-born children.

“Welfare use by illegal immigrant households is certainly a concern, but the bigger issue is welfare use by legal immigrants,” said Steven Camarota, the Center’s Director of Research and author of the report. “Three-fourths of immigrant households using welfare are headed by legal immigrants. Legal immigration is supposed to benefit the country, yet so many legal immigrants are not able to support themselves or their children. This raises important questions about the selection criteria used for legal immigration.”

View the entire report at: http://cis.org/Welfare-Use-Legal-Illegal-Immigrant-Households

Among the findings:

~An estimated 49 percent of households headed by legal immigrants used one or more welfare programs in 2012, compared to 30 percent of households headed by natives.

~Households headed by legal immigrants have higher use rates than native households overall and for cash programs (14 percent vs. 10 percent), food programs (36 percent vs. 22 percent), and Medicaid (39 percent vs. 23 percent). Use of housing programs is similar.

~Legal immigrant households account for three-quarters of all immigrant households accessing one or more welfare programs.

~Of legal immigrant households with children, 72 percent access one or more welfare programs, compared to 52 percent of native households.

~Of households headed by immigrants in the country illegally, we estimate that 62 percent used one or more welfare programs in 2012, compared to 30 percent of native households.

~Households headed by immigrants illegally in the country have higher use rates than native households overall and for food programs (57 percent vs. 22 percent) and Medicaid (51 percent vs. 23 percent). Use of cash programs by illegal immigrants is lower than use by natives (5 percent vs. 10 percent), as is use of housing programs (4 percent vs. 6 percent).

~Of illegal immigrant households with children, 87 percent access one or more welfare programs, compared to 52 percent of native households.

~There is a worker present in 85 percent of legal immigrant-headed households and 95 percent of illegal immigrant-headed households. But while most immigrant households have a worker, many are less-educated, earn low wages, and are thus eligible for welfare.

~Education level plays a larger role in explaining welfare use than legal status. The most extensive use of welfare is by less-educated immigrants who are in the country legally. Of households headed by legal immigrants without a high school diploma, 75 percent use one or more welfare programs, as do 64 percent of households headed by legal immigrants with only a high school education.

~The overwhelming majority of illegal immigrants have modest levels of education; therefore, the high use of welfare associated with less-educated legal immigrants indicates that legalization would likely increase welfare costs, particularly for cash and housing programs.

~Restrictions on new legal immigrants’ access to welfare have not prevented them from accessing programs at high rates because restrictions often apply to only a modest share of immigrants at any one time. Some programs are not restricted, there are numerous exceptions and exemptions, and some provisions are entirely unenforced. Equally important, immigrants, including those illegally in the country, can receive welfare on behalf of their U.S.-born children.

# # #

Be sure to see CIS’s previous announcement about how immigrants of all kinds use welfare at a higher rate than native born Americans.

Refugees!

For readers who are researching the Refugee Resettlement Program, go here for annual reports to Congress which contain information about welfare use by refugees.
In the most recent year (2013) available, note that on page 101, refugees are using public assistance at a much higher rate than other LEGAL immigrants shown in the table above. Remember it is the contractor’s job to get their ‘clients’ (refugees) signed up for “services.” Refugees thus benefit to a greater degree than other legal immigrants partly because you pay a supposed non-profit to guide them through the process of signing them up for their welfare benefits.

21% of refugees are using SSI

56% are using Medicaid

74% are getting food stamps (SNAP)

23% are in public housing or subsidized housing

This post is filed in our categories ‘where to find information‘ and ‘refugee statistics.’
Oops! Forgot to mention that the whole premise of the Refugee Act of 1980 (Ted Kennedy and Joe Biden) was that refugees were to be self-sufficient very quickly, they were not meant to be a burden on the taxpayer—so much for that promise!