State Department announces comment period for FY2017 Refugee admissions

This is the official launch of the preparations underway for the Obama Administration’s last Refugee Admissions plan to be sent to Congress in September of this year.  Obama has already signaled that he wants 100,000 refugees seeded into your towns in FY2017.
Each year at this time, the US State Department takes testimony from the public on how many refugees (and from where) that you, the taxpaying public, thinks we should admit.  From past experience, we know, of course, that your testimony goes down a black hole!

U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Population, Refugees, and Migration Affairs Anne Richard arrives for a press conference at a hotel in Putrajaya, Malaysia Monday, June 1, 2015. Richard said resettlement in a third country is not the answer to the swelling tide of boat people in Southeast Asia and called for Myanmar citizenship to be given to Rohingya Muslims fleeing persecution there. (AP Photo/Joshua Paul)
Address your testimony to: U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Population, Refugees, and Migration Anne C. Richard

For probably decades this testimony was taken in public and was dominated by federal contractors. However, we attended in three consecutive years, but starting last year, there was no longer an opportunity to go face-to-face to the State Department to tell them what we think.  Why is that? Because in that last year where a PUBLIC hearing was held, the opposition to the program dominated the pro-open borders resettlement contractors and they didn’t like it one bit!
If you would like to see what some of your fellow critics of the program said in the past, go here, here and here (when you click each of these, scroll down for all the posts in the category). These are our archives for any discussion of hearing years 2012 (for FY13), 2013 (for FY14), and 2014 (for FY15).  The only reason we obtained any of that testimony is that some of you sent it to us and we attended the hearings in person and were given the testimony.

That testimony is not made public because secrecy has always been the watchword of the program!

I doubt that any Member of Congress or Senator has ever attempted to make that testimony public and I’d bet a million bucks (if I had it!) that no Members/Senators have ever asked for that testimony! Shameful!
Anyway…..

Here (and below) is the Federal Register Notice for FY2017.  You have until 5 p.m. on May 19th to submit written testimony!  

I’m asking all of you to prepare and send in testimony by the May 19th deadline. You don’t have to do some deep analysis of the program, just tell them what you think, and what is happening where you live. (Please be professional and polite!)
I know I said it goes into a black hole, but you can use your testimony in other ways. Use it to do press releases and letters to the editor.  Use it to ask your concerned local elected officials to send in testimony too.
Be sure to send your testimony to all of your elected officials at all levels of government (cc them on the testimony). When sending your testimony to your elected Washington representatives, ask them to do something in your cover letter so that they are at least put on notice that you want a response from them.
Federal Register Notice:

The United States actively supports efforts to provide protection, assistance, and durable solutions for refugees. The U.S. Refugee Admissions Program (USRAP) is a critical component of the United States’ overall refugee protection efforts around the globe. In Fiscal Year 2016, the President established the ceiling for refugee admissions into the United States at 85,000 refugees.

As we begin to prepare the FY 2017 U.S. Refugee Admission Program, we welcome the public’s input. Information about the Program can be found at http://www.state.gov/g/prm/. Persons wishing to submit written comments on the appropriate size and scope of the FY 2016 U.S. Refugee Admissions Program should submit them by 5 p.m. on Thursday, May 19, 2015 via email to PRM-Comments@state.gov or fax (202) 453-9393.Show citation box

If you have questions about submitting written comments, please contact Delicia Spruell, PRM/Admissions Program Officer at spruellda@state.gov.

 

Simon Henshaw,

Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary, Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration, Department of State.

[FR Doc. 2016-09267 Filed 4-20-16; 8:45 am]

Small town Montana newspaper editor walks into buzz saw on Syrian refugee issue

I have a million more things to write about (and am waaayyy behind), but when this popped up in my alerts just now, I thought it was something you all needed to know—Montanans are trying to save themselves from becoming the newest destination for Syrian and other Middle Eastern and African refugees*** and they are being vilified by Leftists now in charge of small newspapers attempting to control the narrative.

Trip Burns
Editor Burns at LinkedIn. An ‘edgy’ photo is worth a thousand words! https://www.linkedin.com/in/trip-burns-99085a9b

Truthfully, I am not wading into all of the he said/they said.  You can read it all yourself. But, it seems a new newspaper editor penned a piece last week entitled ‘Syrian refugees are not welcome in Sanders County‘ that has angered the rural Montana community and they are letting him know.
First read what editor/reporter Trip Burns said, here.
Then see his response to the criticism, here, including this from a reader, Les Wood of Plains:

I know that you are a new guy in town, but you better know that we watch over and protect our own. We are not so quick to accept a new guy who thinks that he has all of the liberal answers for the world and that we are a bunch of old retired hicks who don’t know which way is up.

Continue reading here.  (I guess we should give him credit for posting all of the criticism!)

You don’t need these small town rags!

I feel like I am beating a dead horse when I say this, but please, all of you in ‘pockets of resistance’ must develop your own alternative media to bypass the Leftwing-controlled corporate media industry. This paper (Clark Fork Valley Press) has a circulation of a whopping 1,466 and is owned by some big corporation called Hagadone Corp. (whoever the heck they are!), see here.
Use your free speech! Get your own facts out on what is happening to Montana by writing blogs, websites, and through other forms of social media!  Go door to door with flyers if you must!
***See our extensive archive on the battle for Montana.

Christian Syrians say Pope left them behind in Lesbos

You knew the minute you heard it—that the Pope choosing 12 Muslims to take to Rome with him on his plane—was one of the more troublesome actions (of a long list) of this Socialist Pope.  See our post on the Pope’s Syrian Muslim refugees by clicking here.

Christian Syrian
Christian Syrian refugee woman the Pope left behind on Lesbos. Photo: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3550138/Betrayed-Pope-Lesbos-Christian-brother-sister-desperately-disappointed-told-rescued-Holy-Father-left-red-tape.html

Now from the Daily Mail yesterday.  It answers our primary question—weren’t there any Christians and other religious minorities to choose from?
And, this bureaucratic (red tape!) excuse for passing up this brother and sister is ridiculous.

A Christian brother and sister from Syria say they have been ‘let down’ by the Pope after he left them behind in a Lesbos refugee camp despite promises they would be given a new life in Italy.

Roula and Malek Abo say they were two of the lucky ‘chosen 12’ refugees selected by the Vatican to be taken from the desperate camp and housed in Rome.

But what seemed like the chance of a lifetime was cruelly snatched away when they were told the following day they couldn’t go. Instead three Muslim families were taken.

Neither Community Sant’Egidio, the charity which organised the trip, or the Vatican would explain the selection process over which migrants were picked.

Spokesman Massimiliano Signifredi called the incident ‘regrettable’ – adding: ‘The problem here is the three Syrians arrived after the March 20 deadline. They arrived just after the agreement between the European Union and Turkey.

Mr Signifredi said: ‘Our staff went to Lesbos and spoke with the people who were selected. But everything was decided by the Vatican.

‘The question why the Pope took only Muslims is difficult to understand and he was suffering, I think, because he wanted to do something also for Christians as the chief of the Catholic Church. But he couldn’t because there is this international agreement [with the EU].’

There is much more here.
See our ‘Invasion of Europe’ archive here.