Month: September 2016

We need to get rid of slippery REPUBLICAN Senators like Bob Corker (R-TN)

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Don’t let letters like this one from Senator Bob Corker of Tennessee (thank God Trump did not choose him as VP) deter you. I’ve been asking all of you to write/call or whatever even if you know your US Senator or Congressmen are losers.
Thanks to a reader for sending this with this comment:

So much for contacting my senators and congressman, there are significant reforms don’t you know which makes everything all right.

Corker has done zip! He is one of the biggest problems we have in the US Senate and here he thinks he can blow you off with throwing the blame onto the Obama administration.  Corker and his fellow Republicans in the Senate hold the purse strings. They could cut off Obama’s funding if they wanted to—they don’t want to!

corker-and-obama
Surely Senator Corker is pressing Obama here on the golf course to slow the flow of mostly Muslim refugees to America!

With this letter, he insults his constituents by assuming you know nothing about refugee resettlement.  The Visa Waiver program has nothing to do with refugee admissions!  And, then he falls back to blame those dastardly Senate Democrats (who are in the minority!) for not getting anything done.
Corker is going to “press the administration!”  How about pressing your own leadership namely Mitch McConnell!
Letter from Senator Corker:

Thank you for taking the time to contact my office with your concerns regarding homeland security and the resettlement of refugees in the United States. Your input is important to me, and I appreciate the time you took to share your thoughts.

Like you, I believe there can be no shortcuts when it comes to guaranteeing the safety of the American people, and that protecting American citizens is the most significant responsibility of the United States Senate. In light of recent attacks in the United States and Europe, Congress can and should examine all potential gaps that might allow individuals who pose a security threat to enter our country, including in our refugee and visa programs and at our nation’s border, and resolve these issues in a constructive way to make sure our citizens are protected.

For this reason, I was pleased the Fiscal Year 2016 Omnibus Appropriations law included significant reforms to strengthen the visa waiver program, including prohibiting individuals who have traveled to Iraq, Syria, or countries that are state sponsors of terrorism, or are nationals of those countries, from using the visa waiver program to travel to the United States.

As you may know, I also voted to advance H.R. 4038, the American SAFE Act, which would put new requirements on the refugee vetting process for refugees who are nationals or residents of Iraq or Syria, or have been present in those countries at any point since March 2011, the beginning of the Syrian Civil War. Specifically, the FBI Director would have to certify the refugee vetting process, and refugees from these countries, could only be admitted into the United States after the Secretary of Homeland Security, the FBI Director, and the Director of National Intelligence certify that each refugee does not represent a threat to national security. While there was majority support for proceeding to debate this legislation, unfortunately Senate Democrats blocked it from coming to the floor.

Please know, I understand your concerns about the potential security risks from immigrant visa programs, including the resettlement of refugees in the United States. I will continue to use my position in the United States Senate and on the Foreign Relations Committee to press the administration to demonstrate leadership on this issue and protect Americans from all those who seek to do us harm.

Thank you again for your letter. I hope you continue to share your thoughts with me.

Sincerely,

Bob Corker
United States Senator

Are you getting slippery letters like this one, send them my way and I will publish some (can’t promise to publish all if you send me dozens and dozens!).
And to our reader and all of you getting letters like this.  Write back and tell them their answer is unsatisfactory and you want to know what he/she is going to do right now on this year’s omnibus—tell them you want the funds cut completely for the Refugee Admissions Program because there has never been a satisfactory answer to the security screening issue.  Tell them in fact security screening time has been reduced for Syrians and ask slippery Senators like Corker what he is doing about it!

Paris building refugee camps, segregating the sexes

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Invasion of Europe news……

paris-camp
Refugee camp to open in Paris in October.

It isn’t quite this bad here. We don’t have camps yet, but…..  could it happen?
Already housing is short for the tens of thousands of refugees Obama (and the Republican Congress) have admitted this fiscal year.  We still have over 10,000 to squeeze in to America this month (see here)! And, we have tens of thousands of so-called ‘unaccompanied alien children’ to house.
Could we end up with refugee camps in America?
Thanks to Joanne for this story from France at the Huffington Post.  You will have to read it yourself because it won’t allow any snips. The gist of the story is that so many asylum seekers are building make-shift camps that the powers-that-be have decided to build them some nice ones right in Paris.
They are segregating the ‘refugees’ by sex because of all the rape and other sexual abuse going on in refugee housing throughout Europe.
See our ‘Invasion of Europe’ archive here.

Will they meet Obama's goal of 85,000 refugees for FY 2016?

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Fiscal year 2016 ends in about 23 days.

biden1
Can’t make it up! Good ol’ Uncle Joe (then Senator Joe Biden) helped design the Refugee Act of 1980 along with Ted Kennedy and surprise! NO refugees went to his home state of Delaware this year and only a tiny handful in the previous 36 years!

At this time last year Obama said we would distribute to hundreds (thousands?) of towns 85,000 refugees from all over the world.  (These will be permanent residents for any of you still harboring the notion that refugees come here temporarily.)
I just checked to see where Obama is with his goal (yes, he reached the 10,000 Syrians goal by shortening the security screening time from nearly 2 years down to 3 months), but will they reach 85,000 total refugees in the next few weeks?
Already we are hearing stories from everywhere that the nine federal contractors aren’t finding enough housing for all of them (where will they put another 11,000?).
The Refugee Processing data base tells us that as of September 1, they had brought in 73,289 which leaves 11,711 to be placed within a few weeks.
Here (below) is where the 73,289 were seeded in FY2016 (last 11 months) so far.
LOL! Check it out, Joe Biden began the refugee program with Ted Kennedy in 1980 and Delaware gets zip!
 
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Northampton, Mass. to hold two "welcoming" public "conversations" this month

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

We told you the other day that Northampton, Massachusetts was ready and eager to “welcome” Syrian Muslims (99% of Syrians being admitted to the US are Muslims) this coming fiscal year which begins in only a few weeks, on October 1.
Catholic Charities, the primary resettlement agency there is holding two meetings this month to find support and help for the refugees because they do admit that after 90 days Catholic Charities’ (taxpayer-funded) help ends.  At that time the refugees become dependent on the goodwill of the city and the welfare that Catholic Charities has signed them up for.

mayor-of-northhampton-mass
Mayor David Narkewicz is apparently on board with his city becoming a “host” city for Syrians and impoverished Congolese refugees. Do they have jobs for them in Northampton? Or, does Northampton just want some poor people because diversity is beautiful.

Here is the news at Masslive.com.  Our earlier post on the new refugee program for Northhampton is here.  How is the housing in this upscale city? A shortage of housing seems to be a growing problem everywhere.

Northampton residents are invited to attend two public conversations on the upcoming resettlement of 51 refugees into the city.

Catholic Charities of Springfield***, the agency contracted with the State Department to facilitate the resettlement, will host the sessions along with a “welcome home” steering group of local leaders.

The first, to be held Sept. 19 from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. in the JFK Middle School cafeteria, will be attended by Mayor David Narkewicz. The second will take place Sept. 24 from 2 to 4 p.m. at the Northampton Senior Center.

Susannah Crolius, the Catholic Charities coordinator of outreach and resource development, said the conversations are part of an effort to build a long-term support and integration network for the refugees.

[….]

The State Department typically provides funding for 90 days of services after refugees relocate to the United States….[Catholic Charities gets a cut of that for administering the program—ed]

[….]

Catholic Charities is adopting a small-scale, carefully planned approach, Crolius said; 51 is the minimum number of refugees a host community can accept.  [The following year CC will ask for 100 until like Lancaster, PA, the city could get up to 900 a year.—ed]

The is more at Masslive.com.
***Readers who live in this area should read all of our posts on Springfield, Mass where the mayor has been begging for years for the flow to be slowed as the city was overloaded with poor refugees.  LOL! the top post at that archive is about hungry refugees in Springfield being arrested for killing and eating the small wildlife in the public park. Does Northampton have a public park?
I’m going to bore readers to death with this, but if the Republican Congress does not increase funding (and maybe even cuts what the contractors like Catholic Charities have been getting!) for the massive numbers of refugees proposed for FY17 these new sites will not be opened. Catholic Charities does not have the money on its own to do this, it requires funding from the US taxpayer to administer this program.

The federal resettlement contractors plan September 15th postcard dump on Hill

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

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.

Screenshot (1)
I first told you about the postcard campaign here: https://refugeeresettlementwatch.org/2016/08/16/washington-dc-august-28th-rally-for-refugees-planned/

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):

Sign the Postcard: Urge the U.S. to Lead by Example on Refugee Protection & Resettlement
Fill out this form to electronically sign the postcard that is also available for downloading and printing at www.refugeesarewelcome.org/get-involved/. After you sign, encourage your friends, family, coworkers, and social media networks to do the same. You can also print out a few copies to gather signatures at your upcoming events! All signatures must be collected by COB Monday, September 12, 2016. We will deliver all of the postcards together at a press conference in front of the Capitol Building on Thursday, September 15th.

 
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: