Jeff Sessions leads the charge to cut funds for refugee resettlement on Senate side

12/02/2015 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Go here for all the latest on the House side where blogger Richard Falknor is tracking it at Blue Ridge Forum.

Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., listens to testimony at a Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee hearing on the accident in the Gulf of Mexico involving the explosion on the offshore oil rig Deepwater Horizon, May 11, 2010. (CQ Roll Call via AP Images) — Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala. leading efforts in the Senate to cut funding for Obama’s agenda to change America by changing the people. (CQ Roll Call via AP Images)

Here is the news yesterday at World Net Daily from reporter Leo Hohmann with a catchy title:

‘New date that will live in infamy: December 11′

Despite all the tough talk by Speaker Paul Ryan and GOP leaders in Congress about Syrian refugees and the need for better screening, the true intent of those leaders will be laid bare on Dec. 11.

That’s the day that a catch-all “omnibus” budget bill is scheduled to be voted on in the House.

In that bill there is expected to be full funding of President Obama’s refugee resettlement program, which costs $1.2 billion annually to bring in 85,000 refugees from more than two dozen countries around the world. About half of them will come from countries with active jihadist movements including 10,000 from Syria, about 8,000 from Somalia, nearly 10,000 from Iraq, and several thousand more from Burma, Uzbekistan, Bosnia, Democratic Republic of Congo and Afghanistan.

The United Nations will choose which refugees from what countries get to come to America at the U.S. taxpayer’s expense. The nationalities of these refugees will be concealed in most cases until after they arrive in the more than 180 cities and towns across the U.S.

The House passed a bill, the America SAFE Act, by a lopsided vote two weeks ago that calls for a “pause” in the resettlements until the White House can provide certain assurances that the refugees have been properly vetted.

But that’s a smokescreen as the SAFE Act won’t stop a single refugee from arriving in any of those 180 cities, says Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., who is chairman of the Senate’s subcommittee on immigration and the national interest.

Continue reading here.
Go here for Sessions’ statement yesterday.
This is critically important! The other side is organized and working hard (here, here and here) as this is the closest they have ever come to having their agenda to change America threatened!

Action Alert: Call your members of the House and Senate at 202-224-3121 and ask them to vigorously oppose the Refugee Resettlement funding contained in the Omnibus Spending Bill that will be voted on by 12-11-15! Please call by this Friday, Dec. 4th.

'Church' refugee resettlement contractors bring in millions as debt collection agencies

12/02/2015 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Perhaps the most wonderful thing about all of the burgeoning interest in how the UN/US State Department Refugee Admissions Program works, is that we are discovering that there are some real investigative reporters out there like this one (Jeffrey McDonald) at Religion News Service.

Kentucky syrians — This airport photo is from our post on the first Syrians arriving in KY. Note that ‘Dad’ is carrying an IOM bag. The IOM arranges airfares after receiving money from the US taxpayer. https://refugeeresettlementwatch.org/2015/02/15/first-syrian-refugees-arriving-in-louisville-ky-helped-with-grant-from-islamic-charity/

For eight years we’ve commented about this little known aspect of how the resettlement contractors (six ‘religiously-oriented ones) are getting a little extra boodle by pressuring refugees to repay their airfare loans (the original funding came out of the US Treasury and was distributed to the International Organization on Migration to buy plane tickets). I have several posts on the practice, but here is one from 2010 I found interesting when having a quick look.
In fact, where I live, in 2007, a stressed-out refugee took a letter he didn’t understand to an ESL teacher to ask exactly what it meant—it was a letter from a resettlement agency telling him he needed to start paying back the airfare, or else. The “or else” would be a poor credit rating (you can imagine how some former camp-dwelling third-worlder was confused!).
So, if you are saying, well of course they should pay it back! This is the part that is so egregious—-the resettlement contractor pockets 25% of what the agency wrings out of the refugee. It does not all return to the US Treasury.
Here is the story I was so excited to see! From Religion News Service (hat tip: Joanne):

(RNS) Faith-based agencies that resettle refugees in America stand to gain more than a clear conscience if the United States — after what is expected to be a fierce debate in Congress — accepts a proposed 10,000 Syrian refugees next year.

More refugees also means more revenue for the agencies’ little-known debt collection operations, which bring in upwards of $5 million a year in commissions as resettled refugees repay loans for their travel costs. All nine resettlement agencies charge the same going rate as private-sector debt collectors: 25 percent of all they recoup for the government.

I think it’s actually more than $5 million because in one recent year I saw that the US Conference of Catholic Bishops had pulled in $3 million (in one year). Later in the story reporter McDonald says he found that the USCCB got $3.4 million from their debt collection work.

Human rights industrial complex is having an internal conflict over the boodle.

Now get this! Even in their own circles they have noticed a little hypocrisy from those who lecture us about our moral duty to “welcome the stranger.”

Moral duty has become a prominent feature of the refugee debate.

[….]

As resistance to refugees grows, so also do calls for moral action on their behalf. Some refugee advocates are now urging resettlement agencies to help the cause — and boost their own moral authority — by forgoing their 25 percent commissions if possible and letting newly arrived refugees keep that money. So far, none has heeded that call.

“It would be wise, if they can afford it, to let the refugees use whatever resources they have to help their self-sufficiency,” said Eva Millona***, executive director of the Massachusetts Immigrant and Refugee Advocacy Coalition. “It would add more credibility.”

What the heck, give it to the refugee? How about foregoing their commission and giving all of it back to the US taxpayer! (I’m betting none of this little cozy arrangement was spelled out in the original Refugee Act of 1980.)
McDonald goes on to explain how “churches” need this cold hard cash for their ‘good works.’
Read the whole thing!
These are the nine contractors resettling refugees and acting as debt collectors:

***More here on Eva as she and the NO Borders gang get ready for their big pow-wow later this month (where they will be talking about us!). The event was planned long before all hell broke loose with the refugee program.
One more thing….
It occurs to me that maybe we don’t give the contractors their cut but instead use that 25% of returned airfare money to fund our proposed Repatriation Fund! What do you think?

Action Alert: Call your members of the House and Senate at 202-224-3121 and ask them to vigorously oppose the Refugee Resettlement funding contained in the Omnibus Spending Bill that will be voted on by 12-11-15! Please call by this Friday, Dec. 4th.

Only 6% of Syrian refugees want to come to North America

12/02/2015 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Gosh, what do you know! Ben Carson was right when he said on his trip to Syrian refugee camps in the region—they really don’t want to come here. They want to go home.

Gives me an idea for some Congressional tweaking (see at the end of this post).

i_want_to_go_home_poste — Congress needs to create a repatriation fund for refugees and other immigrants unhappy in America!

From Gallup via the Washington Times:

America and Canada are not the destinations of choice for Syrian refugees looking to escape the violence within their nation. Only 6 percent, in fact, cited North America as the place they would prefer to live in, this according to a new Gallup poll of Syrians released Monday.

[….]

What are the refugees’ preferences, should they permanently relocate?

Gallup found that 39 percent of their 1,000-plus Syrian respondents cited Europe; 35 percent cited the Middle East and northern Africa. Another 10 percent said they would prefer to live somewhere in Asia.

Still, 30 percent said they would continue living in Syria.

So who does want them in America (my list)?

Barack Obama

Hillary Clinton

The UN High Commissioner for Refugees

The Democrat Party and Democrat governors

The resettlement contractors being paid by the head to resettle them

The entire Catholic Church structure in America and many other mainline Protestant churches, Jewish groups and assorted others.

The Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) and other Islamists trying to advance the Hijra

George Soros

Big-wigs like those we reported in our previous post this morning

Many in Congressional leadership on both sides of the aisle

Do-gooders

Mainstream media news outlets

More?
So why are they so eager when the Syrians aren’t?

Repatriation Fund!

Now that there is so much research going on by reporters looking for new angles on the refugee issue, someone needs to look into how many refugees actually want to leave America once they know what it is like here. In my early days of writing RRW, I would hear directly from disillusioned refugees, esp. Iraqis, who wanted to go home, but didn’t have the finances and the where-with-all to do it.
Surely the State Department tracks the number of refugees who do in fact leave. I know some Iraqis went home.
We could save ourselves a lot of money if Congress created a Repatriation Fund where refugees (and other migrants, even illegal ones) who got here and were unhappy could apply for funds to go home! A reader suggested it here in January of this year.
Wouldn’t it be funny to watch the Dems trying to figure out how to defeat this measure. If they claimed it would be expensive it would be an admission that America has a whole heck of a lot of unhappy migrants here!

Action Alert: Call your members of the House and Senate at 202-224-3121 and ask them to vigorously oppose the Refugee Resettlement funding contained in the Omnibus Spending Bill that will be voted on by 12-11-15! Please call by this Friday, Dec. 4th.

Know the other team: Big-wigs who WANT more Syrian Muslims admitted to the US, so Muslims will like us

12/02/2015 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

They have sent a letter to Congress expressing their wish for Syrian and Iraqi refugees to continue to be admitted to America to show ISIS we are good people and love Muslims. Well, they don’t say it that simplistically, but that is essentially what they mean.
As usual the letter is not linked in the story, so will try to find it later because I would like to see who else is on the other team.
Update: Here is the letter at Human Rights First (did they gin this up?).

Petraeus_71763375_08_29262c — Why on earth would General Petraeus allow himself to be listed among this crowd pushing more Muslim migration to America. I guess it’s the same flawed judgement that got him in trouble in the first place.

From the Detroit News:

Washington — Former top national security officials from Republican and Democratic administrations urged Congress on Tuesday to continue allowing the resettlement of Syrian and Iraqi refugees in the United States.

“Refugees are victims, not perpetrators, of terrorism,” the 20 retired military, security experts and others wrote in a letter sent to all lawmakers. “Categorically refusing to take them only feeds the narrative of ISIS that there is a war between Islam and the West, that Muslims are not welcome in the United States and Europe, and that the ISIS caliphate is their true home.” [That last is ridiculous, no one says an ISIS caliphate should be their home. If it weren’t for boobs like some of you, there wouldn’t be an ISIS today!—ed]

ISIS is one of the acronyms for the Islamic State group.

Among those signing the letter are former secretaries of state Henry Kissinger, George Shultz and Madeleine Albright. Retired Gen. David Petraeus also signed the letter, as did former Homeland Secretary Michael Chertoff and onetime Defense Secretaries Leon Panetta, Chuck Hagel and William Cohen.

Just look at those names and we shouldn’t be surprised America is in the mess it is in now! Because they screwed up over the years, we now have to welcome questionable and expensive migrants to live in American towns!
We featured Madeleine Albright in a post just recently, here.

Action Alert counter the big-wigs: Call your members of the House and Senate at 202-224-3121 and ask them to vigorously oppose the Refugee Resettlement funding contained in the Omnibus Spending Bill that will be voted on by 12-11-15! Please call by this Friday, Dec. 4th.