The nine major federal resettlement contractors*** which are largely funded by you, the taxpayer, understand the process for getting money (for them) out of your wallets! The millions of dollars they depend on to run offices, pay rent, pay salaries and travel comes from Congress not from passing the plate at worship services or holding fundraising events.
The process works like this: The President sends a “determination” to Congress in late September with how many refugees he wants to be placed in your towns in the coming years. (BTW in earlier years of the program, which is 36 this year, the President sent the determination letter during the summer to give Congress a little more time). But, heck in recent years they sent it almost on October 1st because Congress didn’t care what the President sent, they rubber-stamped the plan and gave him the money without a required hearing.
Obama’s last determination….
Obama will be sending his determination probably after he does his dog and pony show at the United Nations on September 20th and we expect (and will be demanding!) that the House and Senate Judiciary Committees hold hearings on his proposal before October 1 (as required by law). More on that later.
During this month, the House and Senate Appropriations Committees will be deliberating about next year’s budget (next year starts on Oct. 1, 2016). What matters will be how much of your money they appropriate for the Department of State and the Department of Health and Human Services for the resettlement of Obama’s last refugee wishlist (which will probably come in around 200,000).
The contractors get it!
They understand that their futures depend on this—on how much the Republican Congress gives them!
If they get gobs and gobs of (your) money they will continue to open new offices at newly targeted sites for the expanded number of refugees Obama will propose. If Congress slashes their funds they have to let staff go, and possibly even close offices.
So, they plan a rally and a dump of their postcards on September 15th on Capitol Hill!
Notice they are not focusing on governors, state legislatures, or local elected officials, or on the White House, their lobbying effort is directed at one place right now—Congress. You should be too! (I don’t want to hear how useless they are, the buck stops with them!)
That is not to say you shouldn’t continue pressing all other elected officials at all levels of government since they might in turn put pressure on your US Reps, but now is the time—September!—to do whatever it takes to get your US Senators and Congressmen focused on this one issue!
This is from the US Committee for Refugees and Immigrants website (I wrote about them yesterday):
I’ve been writing about this for about 2 weeks, see my tag ‘Where is Congress’ for more background on the Appropriations process and the players, more today and every day going forward.
***These are the nine major resettlement contractors that monopolize all refugee resettlement in America, under them are 350 or so subcontractors:
- Church World Service (CWS)
- Ethiopian Community Development Council (ECDC)
- Episcopal Migration Ministries (EMM)
- Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society (HIAS)
- International Rescue Committee (IRC)
- US Committee for Refugees and Immigrants (USCRI)
- Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Services (LIRS)
- United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB)
- World Relief Corporation (WR)