Update September 2:Vermont Diggertells us the original story was taken down and that there is no truth to any of it. Rutland is still a target site.
There is breaking news in Vermont that the controversial resettlementof 100 Syrian Muslims to Rutland has stalled in Washington.
But, local reports say that US State Department grants (contracts?) for resettlement have stopped nationwide. We are trying to track down that assertion. The only thing that makes any sense to me is that they have run out of funds for the final weeks of this fiscal year. If that is the case, it makes my point that money matters. No money=no refugees. Is the Vermont refugee resettlement contractor out of (your) money?
In the meantime this is from MyChamplainValley in Bernie-land (hat tip: Don):
A plan for 100 Syrian refugees to settle in Rutland, Vt. starting this October has hit a snag.
The U.S. State Department has halted its grant approval process for all resettlement programs nationwide.
The Vermont Refugee Resettlement Program applied for the grant.
Without this money, Rutland Board of Alderman President WIlliam Notte says refugees cannot be received. [Of course not, because there is no real charity here, it is all about taxpayer dollars!—ed]
Notte estimates the grant amount to be about $9,000 per refugee. However, he says lack of transparency has been an issue and he is not sure exactly how much it will cost.
Notte expects to hear back from the State Department about the status in September.
Wherever you are, don’t relax now. You have not won. They will be back!
Remember that Obama signaled last fall that he was shooting for 100,000 refugees for FY17 (it will be his last year to make a Presidential ‘determination’ under the Refugee Act of 1980).
These non-governmental organizations, part of yet another umbrella, this one called InterAction (a united global voice for change), include some of the nine major federal resettlement contractors we always talk about. They need money—your money—to build their offices, their staff and their political power base! Resettling refugees takes a lot of money!
Sorry to keep repeating this but I want you all, and especially new readers who arrive here every day, to understand what the game plan is—to change America by changing its people—and Obama has one more shot at it. He will do his PR stuntat the UN on September 20th and then go to Congress with his final plan for 2017 before October 1 (the 2017 fiscal year begins October 1, a little over 4 weeks from now).
However, Congress will have the final say as Congress holds the purse strings. Congress can limit (or cut out completely!) funding for refugee resettlement into your towns.
It won’t be Obama making the final determination for 2017, it will be these two—Republican leaders in the House and Senate!
So please, please, focus your energy on Congress right now and through the fall (in addition to making sure Hillary loses). It will be Speaker Paul Ryan and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell deciding your town’s future not Obama (or these progressive NGOs)!
In a letter dated last Thursday here is what the 41 non-profits affiliated with InterAction are telling Obama to do. BTW that fizzled rally on the mall on Sunday is all part of this same propaganda push where they are trying to create the illusionthat everyone in America is behind this.
Expanding and facilitating resettlement in the U.S.:
Over 80% of refugees are hosted in developing countries. Resettlement gives wealthier nations an important opportunity to demonstrate their commitment to global responsibility sharing. We urge the administration to commit to 200,000 refugee and humanitarian admissions in FY2017, including at least 140,000 through traditional refugee resettlement and 60,000 through other creative solutions such as expansions of family-based, employment, and student visas.
This 100% increase in resettlement and alternative admissions pathways would demonstrate that the United States, the world’s largest recipient for refugee resettlement, is willing to be as ambitious as it is asking others to be. [Maybe it’s time for all those other countries to step up first and offer PERMANENT resettlement for a change!—ed]
Read the whole letter here.
And, here are the signators (federal resettlement contractors in red, 4 of nine are here). What about America’s own poor people?
ADRA International
Alliance for Peacebuilding
American Refugee Committee
AmeriCares
Better World Campaign
CARE
Center for Women Policy Studies
ChildFund International Church World Service
Concern Worldwide US
Disability Rights Education & Defense Fund Episcopal Relief & Development
Global Campaign For Education-US
Global Communities
Global Links
Handicap International
Heart to Heart International
Helen Keller International HIAS, Global Jewish Organization for Refugees
Inside NGO
International Catholic Migration Commission
International Medical Corps International Rescue Committee
Jesuit Refugee Service USA
Keystone Human Services International
Lutheran World Relief
Mennonite Central Committee U.S.
Mercy Corps
Mercy-USA for Aid and Development
Pathfinder International
Save the Children
Seva Foundation
Stop Hunger Now
Syria Relief and Development U.S. Committee for Refugees and Immigrants
United Nations Association of the USA
Women Thrive Worldwide
Women’s Refugee Commission
World Concern
World Hope International
Zakat Foundation of America
Addendum: I learned about this letter here at the International Catholic Migration Commission (a signator of the letter).
Invasion of Europe news…..
As Donald Trump continues to flesh out his immigration policies (I assume today he will focus on illegal immigration), I think a little sweetener to nudge people to return home could save America a heck of a lot of money since most migrants, legal and illegal! are figuring out how to tap into our welfare system. In 2015 this Middle Eastern asylum seeker refused to get off a bus at his new home in Sweden’s frozen north. He said he feared bears and wolves in the forest. (He might have been more afraid of trees than he admits.) https://refugeeresettlementwatch.org/2015/01/02/refugee-soap-opera-on-a-bus-in-sweden/ Sweden is offering a cash payment to asylum seekers if they withdraw their application for asylum and go home. Along with longer wait times and living conditions in shelters in the cold north, the plan appears to be working.
Of course, going home for a price is a sure indicator that the migrants were never really ‘refugees’ in the first place, but economic migrants looking for work and/or welfare.
Here is the news from theIndependentfrom late last week:
A record 4,542 asylum seekers withdrew their applications and left Sweden in the first eight months of 2016 as a result of long processing times, strict new rules on family reunion, and payouts to migrants who voluntarily returned to their country of origin.
There were also less than half as many new claims made between January and August 2016, as in the same period of 2015.
Sweden used to be one of Europe’s most popular destinations for migrants, with the number of asylum applications doubling between 2014 and 2015 to more than 160,000.
[….]
But for many asylum seekers who arrived during the influx last year, Sweden has proved less of a utopia than they hoped. Many faced a long, cold winter in political limbo, camped out in makeshift accomodation while the state struggled to cope with the large number of new claims. Less than 500 of the 160,000 arrivals have managed to secure jobs.
Concerned about the strain placed on the economy of the country, which was expected to spend about one per cent of its GDP on asylum seekers in 2016, the Swedish Migration Agency, a government department responsible for processing claims, introduced tougher rules at the start of 2016, designed to deter and keep out asylum seekers.
No surprise!
The Swedish public also appear to be have become more hostile to migrants.
A survey released in February showed immigration was the main concern for 40 per cent of Swedes, above worries about failing schools, joblessness and welfare. The change was the biggest opinion swing in the poll’s history.
Continue reading hereand learn about the payment strategy.
We have previously proposed a repatriation fundfor unhappy migrants (not just refugees but others) to get them a plane ticket home, we could always add a little sweetener to the pot. Surely the Dems in Congress would not oppose such a fund to help unhappy people get back home.
I’m guessing, we have fifty or more posts on Sweden at RRW. I have long predicted it would be the first European country to fall as the demographic change (and high welfare rate) would push it over the edge. However, maybe there is a glimmer of hope for them after all. Go here for our Sweden archive. See our ‘Invasion of Europe’ archive here.
