It has been awhile since I had a look at Form 990s for the nine federal resettlement contractors, so I thought over this weekend I would re-examine their financials especially because I want you all to focus on the fact that it is the Republicans in Congress who have the power to slow the flow of refugees by cutting the funding for certain groups masquerading as Christian and Jewish ‘religious’ NGOs.
For all the new readers arriving here, there are nine faux non-profit groups which monopolize refugee resettlement in America. They are US Conference of Catholic Bishops, Episcopal Migration Ministries, World Relief (Evangelicals), Church World Service, Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society, Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service, Ethiopian Community Development Council, International Rescue Committee and the US Committee for Refugees and Immigrants.
Under the nine majors are 350 or so subcontractors.
Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service
I’m taking them one by one and going to their most recent available Form 990. This Form 990 for Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service is for 2014 and was submitted to the IRS in August 2015. (BTW, there are some state Lutheran agencies that are larger than the national organization).
So from page 9 (reproduced below) we learn that:
Total revenue for that year was $59,862,898
Total federal grants were $55,341,275
And, they also received from your money $1,817,755 for a loan service fee.
This $1.8 million is from collecting air fare loans from refugees plane fare to America. The original plane tickets were bought (with your money) by another federal contractor (IOM) and the refugee is supposed to reimburse the American taxpayer. The contractor, here LIRS, is the dunning agency and they get to keep a cut for themselves of everything they wring out of the refugees.
If you go to page 8 of their Form 990 you can see the salaries of the head honchos. Linda Hartke, the CEO made $236,386 which includes income from related activities. There are a total of 6 employees pulling down 6-figure salaries. And, you should know that last I heard they had 2 lobbyists in Washington to assure their (your!) funds keep flowing their way.
Here is page 9:
Note the income from ‘higher training fees’ that could be taxpayer reimbursement as well, but I don’t know that for sure.
So I am giving them the benefit of the doubt when I conclude that they are 95% funded by you—-the taxpayers of America! It could be higher.
Remember! They are not passing the plate on Sunday to pay for their supposed Christian charity!
Go here to see if you have a subcontractor of LIRS at work where you live.
For more details on their federal grants go to USASpending.gov and type in Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service and see their hundreds of millions in grants and contracts over the last 8 years or so.
The buck stops with the Republican Congress!
Tell your representatives in Washington starting now, starting on Tuesday morning! to withhold funding for the US Refugee Admissions Program for fiscal year 2017 which begins in 4 weeks—on October 1, 2016! Let these supposed non-profit groups raise private money for their charitable pet projects!