Month: November 2016

Charleston, WV rally Tuesday: We want Syrian Muslims in our city!

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

You know what strikes me as different about this pro-refugee rally scheduled for tomorrow evening (Nov. 15th) at 5 p.m. is that it is specifically a rally to welcome Syrians (99% of the Syrians the Obama Administration is admitting to the US are Muslims even as we see Christian genocide in the Middle East).
In most locations where an ‘Interfaith’ group advocates for refugee resettlement they don’t pick a specific nationality/religion. Indeed, a new agency like the one proposed for Charleston won’t get to choose its favorite nationalities either—they will take a mix of people from different regions of the world.

rabbi-victor-urecki
Rabbi Victor Urkecki suggests we must atone for mistakes in WWII when the US turned away Jews, by inviting tens of thousands of Syrian Muslims to the US. I do not get this logic!

So here is the latest from Charleston.  Longtime readers know that West Virginia has taken very small numbers of refugees over the years and those that have been resettled were placed by Catholic Charities.  Now, Episcopal Migration Ministries wants in on the action.
From The Charleston Gazette-Mail:

Volunteers are planning a rally for Tuesday in Charleston to send a welcoming message to Syrian refugees fleeing their war-torn country.

The second-annual West Virginia Welcomes Refugees rally will be held at 5 p.m. in the mini-pavillion at Court Street and Kanawha Boulevard East.

Episcopal Migration Ministries, one of nine national refugee resettlement agencies that works with the U.S. government and local groups to place refugees, and the West Virginia Interfaith Refugee Ministry have been working together in hopes of making Charleston a safe haven for refugees.

Last month, the ministries submitted an application to the U.S. Department of State to turn Charleston into one of its “resettlement communities” and place 100 refugees in the first year in Charleston. The State Department has not yet made a decision.

Then below we hear the story about how some Jews were turned away from America in WWII (yes, it was an awful mistake). But, I fail to see how throwing America’s gates open to large numbers of Muslims (Sunnis in the case of Syrians who form the basis of ISIS and Al Qaeda) is equivalent in any way.
Please someone explain to me why an error of 75 years ago somehow requires us to invite to America tens of thousands of participants of a religious civil war in the Middle East! 
Update: And tell me why this isn’t a rally for the Christians facing genocide in the Middle East which would be the real equivalency argument to what happened to the Jews in WWII.
But here we go again with the guilt trip:

“These are people that are escaping the same forces of evil that we are opposed to,” said Rabbi Victor Urecki, one of the organizers.

“There is a sense that America is not welcoming to the other — to the refugee, to the immigrant,” he said. “And this is our response, to say ‘We are together. We stand in solidarity and hospitality to all who come to our state. We are a city of tolerance and love.’”

Urecki noted that at one point in America’s history, America’s border was closed to the Jewish community.

“The best way I can show that I’ve learned the lesson of what it’s like to be an outsider is by embracing the outsider and the other,” he said.

How many Syrian Muslims will Rabbi Urecki take home with him? How many would even want to go home with him?
Is the huge cost of resettling large numbers of refugees of any concern to the Rabbi and the local ‘Interfaith’ activists?
Learn about Charleston’s ‘Interfaith’ group here, and go here for more posts on the Charleston refugee controversy.
For West Virginians who are not happy with what you are learning, you must contact your two US Senators and Congressman Alex Mooney who represents Charleston and let them know what you think!
Endnote! I don’t want to hear from any readers who think this is a Jewish plot. This is about political ideology. Remember that most resettlement in America is being done by Leftist Christian organizations.  There are many people of the Jewish faith who disagree vehemently with our policy of admitting large numbers of Muslim refugees, not to mention those who have serious concerns about the economic impact on local communities and state governments and are working hard to bring attention to the enormous cost to taxpayers.

Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society lectures Trump; never mentions its pecuniary interest in refugees

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

This is one more in my continuing update and review of the financial positions of the nine major federal refugee resettlement contractors.
Here we have HIAS CEO Mark Hetfield admonishing Donald Trump on the day after his big win last Tuesday. I might respect the resettlement contractors a bit if they would make it clear somewhere, sometime, that they have a vested financial interest in the resettlement of refugees rather than this usual holier-than-thou pontification.  LOL! maybe there should be a little disclaimer at the end of all media references to them—“This organization is paid by the taxpayers of America to place refugees in towns and cities in 49 states.”

mark-hetfield
CEO Mark Hetfield is pulling down a salary package worth $336,323 running this ‘charity.’ http://www.give.org/charity-reviews/national/human-services/hias-in-silver-spring-md-19163

So far I’ve updated our older financial information on USCRI, LIRS, World Relief, and Church World Service.
USCRI is here (97% funded by taxpayers).
LIRS here (95% funded by taxpayers).
World Relief here (73% funded by taxpayers).
Church World Service here (64% funded by taxpayers).
The Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society is up next.
And, btw, HIAS was given a huge grant a few years ago to study the growing opposition to the UN/US Refugee Admissions Program and mentioned RRW as a site that should be investigated by the Southern Poverty Law Center which did just that, see here.
Headquartered in Silver Spring,MD, HIAS had an income in 2014 of $36,161,323 according to this Charity Report. Their website is here.
This is how their income breaks down.  The way I see it, they are 56% funded by you, the taxpayer, which is the best of the contractors so far as some are above the 90% taxpayer funded level. (The service fee and operating grants below might be tax dollars too, but will give them the benefit of the doubt. The Migrant loan fee is definitely your money).
screenshot-65
From full report here: http://www.give.org/charity-reviews/national/human-services/hias-in-silver-spring-md-19163

You can check out their Form 990 for that year as well by clicking here.
riva-silverman
Riva Silverman ($250,000)

You will see on page 9 that in addition to CEO Hetfield, they have 9 other staffers making in excess of $100,000 at the top of a paid staff of 76! Why does Riva make so much $$$? And, where is Melanie?  As I have said many times before. If these were truly private charitable non-profits and not quasi-government organizations I wouldn’t care what they chose to pay their staff, but since we fund them, we have every right to publish and question their salaries.
Here are some of the places HIAS works:

Affiliates

Carolina Refugee Resettlement Agency
Gulf Coast Jewish Family and Community Services
HIAS New York
HIAS Pennsylvania
Jewish Child and Family Services (Chicago)
Jewish Community Services (Baltimore)
Jewish Family and Children’s Services of Pittsburgh
Jewish Family and Children’s Services of San Francisco –
Jewish Family and Children’s Services of the East Bay
Jewish Family Service of Buffalo and Erie County
Jewish Family Service of Greater Seattle
Jewish Family Service of Los Angeles
Jewish Family Service of Metrowest
Jewish Family Service of San Diego
Jewish Family Service of Washtenaw County
Jewish Family Service of Western Massachusetts
Jewish Family Services of the Silicon Valley
Jewish Vocational Service of MetroWest New Jersey
US Together

HIAS was very involved in lobbying for the ‘Gang of Eight’ amnesty bill a few years ago in the Senate.  Still don’t understand why a group resettling legal refugees in search of jobs would want to make it even harder for their refugee clients when they must compete with mostly Hispanic laborers for low skilled jobs.
And, one final thing. It was HIAS that went crazy going after Donald Trump Jr. about likening a decision to take in not properly screened refugees to being told that one skittles candy in a handful was poisoned and asked if you would thus eat any. See what I mean—google HIAS and Skittles.
Our complete archive on the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society is here.

Three Arkansas members of Congress question new resettlement plan for Fayetteville area

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Fayetteville, Arkansas is one of the newest resettlement sites approved by the US State Department to accommodate the large number of refugees that Barack Obama has proposed for FY2017. We previously learned that there are 47 new sites, most chosen in secrecy.  Below is the list of those we have heard about so far.***
From Talk Business & Politics:

Canopy Northwest Arkansas received final approval from the State Department on Sept. 30 and is waiting for the assignment of its first refugee family, which could come as early as mid-November.

steve-womack
Real test for Rep. Steve Womack (R) is whether he will support defunding the Refugee Admissions Program when Congress addresses the FY17 budget starting this week! Womack is on the Appropriations Committee: http://womack.house.gov/biography/committees.htm

Canopy partners with the Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service (LIRS), one of nine national resettlement agencies that contract with the State Department to run the refugee resettlement program. LIRS is the agency that will assign refugees to Canopy after the refugees go through an extensive screening process, sometimes lasting more than two years. [Learn more about LIRS, here, 95% taxpayer funded!—ed]

Over the course of the coming year, Emily Crane Linn, resettlement director at Canopy, said they expect to settle 20 to 25 families in Northwest Arkansas. [That would likely be over 100 refugees—ed]

[….]

It is the Syrian refugee possibility that caused U.S. Reps. Rick Crawford, R-Jonesboro, Bruce Westerman, R-Hot Springs, and Steve Womack, R-Rogers, to send a letter dated Oct. 24 to U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry to “express our concern” about the resettlement program. (Link here for a PDF of the letter.)

Sending a letter won’t cut it.

Sending a letter makes constituents feel better, but….
….we know how that turned out when Rep. Trey Gowdy thought that he could slow the flow to then new resettlement site Spartanburg, SC by writing to John Kerry. It did nothing!!!

Defund! Defund! Defund!

Only one thing matters, and if there is a ‘pocket of resistance’ forming in Arkansas you must tell these three members of Congress to work to cut the funding in the upcoming lame duck budget battle!

I see (here) that Arkansas has no members of Congress who have tried to lift a finger to cut the funding so far.
See Conservative Review’s Liberty score card for the Arkansas delegation.
BTW, how many poultry processing plants in Arkansas are hankering for cheap refugee labor?
***Is your city one of the newest targets for resettlement of third worlders?

Asheville, NC

Rutland, VT

Reno, NV

Ithaca, NY

Missoula, MT

Aberdeen, SD (may have been thwarted as a primary resettlement site!)

Charleston, WV

Fayetteville, AR

Blacksburg, VA

Pittsfield, MA

Northhampton, MA

Flint, MI

Bloomington, IN

Traverse City, MI

Poughkeepsie, NY

Wilmington, DE

Watertown, NY (maybe)

Youngstown, OH (maybe)

 

Sec. of State John Kerry agrees to deal, we will take Australia's rejected 'refugees'

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Think about this! In 2013 Australia, being invaded by boat people from mostly Muslim countries, declared anyone arriving illegally by boat would be turned back or sent to offshore islands like Nauru where they could submit asylum claims.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry testifies at the Senate Foreign Relations Committee while on Capitol Hill in Washington, April 8, 2014. Kerry squarely blamed Russian agents on Tuesday for separatist unrest in eastern Ukraine, saying Moscow could be trying to lay the groundwork for military action like in Crimea. REUTERS/Larry Downing (UNITED STATES - Tags: POLITICS)
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry. Only two more months of this guy! So how many refugees is he taking to his home?

Those rejected refuse to go back to their home countries, so guess what! The Obama Administration has agreed to take over a thousand of them to your towns and cities as full-fledged refugees with all the benefits of our welfare system available to them.
How many of our illegal Mexicans and Central Americans is the prosperous country of Australia going to take off our hands?
We told you this was in the works, here, yesterday.  And, now here is news from Aljazeera that we are going to do this. (If their asylum claims have been rejected by Australia they are NOT refugees by definition.)

Australia has reached a resettlement deal with the United States for refugees being held in offshore prisons after trying to reach the country by boat.

The Obama administration had agreed to resettle refugees among a group of almost 1,300 people held at on the island nations of Nauru and Papua New Guinea. Rights groups have been scathing about conditions at the prison camps.

Another 370 who came to Australia for medical treatment and then refused to return to the islands would also be eligible.

[….]

US Secretary of State John Kerry confirmed that the US had “agreed to consider referrals” from the United Nations refugee agency, UNHCR.  [If we are doing this and are sending Homeland Security people to screen the refugees, why does the UN have to have its nose in this business? Are they getting a cut of your tax dollars as middlemen?—ed]

[….]

US Department of Homeland Security officials are expected in Australia this week to begin assessing refugees.

Turnbull would not say how many refugees the US might take, but said the most vulnerable would be given priority. [And, prosperous Australia can’t take the most vulnerable???—ed]

More here.
See our Australia category by clicking here. And, if you are interested in learning more about this practice—of the US taking illegal aliens off the hands of other countries—see our Malta archive as well.
Australia is always in the top three countries from which readers arrive at RRW.

RRW weekly round-up for week ending November 11, 2016

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

I don’t need to summarize this momentous week, needless to say, it was a great week for RRW and an even greater week for America as Donald J. Trump was elected as the 45th President of the United States.

 

first-family-2
Welcome to our new first family!

 
Thanks to all who sent exuberant messages of thanks, but I’m embarrassed because I’m not sure I had much to do with Trump’s victory.

Media is on the ropes! You too can be an investigative journalist!

Before I get to the usual round-up news about the top posts of the week, I want to renew a pitch that I’ve made on and off for years and that is that you too can be a reporter.  Of course I’m not talking about reporters like those at the New York Times or Washington Post, or even like the reporters at your surely left-leaning local newspaper. Since they are all too busy being pitchmen and women for their favorite political party, not much real investigative reporting is being done, and that is where you come in!
Over the past few days I read several great reports on how the alternative media is really where the action is (I wish I had saved the links) and that some of the new-media outlets are really what helped push Trump over the edge.
Just like I have focused on one narrow issue—-the UN/US State Department Refugee Admissions Program—you too can become a reporter on one of the myriad programs (of your choosing) at the state and federal level that need to be investigated and reformed.
Please pick a topic and get to work. No matter your age or your profession, you can squeeze out a little time to research and post on some problem that you see.  Right off the top of my head, I’m thinking that Food Stamp Fraud is a really hot subject as is Medicare/Medicaid fraud.  Or, how about writing on the Diversity Visa Lottery or the insane Temporary Protected Status program where no one ever goes home.
You might have something in your state that really appeals to you.
Or, you can help get more out on the Refugee Program, goodness knows I can’t keep up with it all.  Consider writing on Asylum, a subset of the refugee program, that is growing by leaps and bounds. Or how about that mess surrounding the Unaccompanied Alien Children Obama has been distributing to hundreds of US cities.
I do recommend blogs rather than facebook pages for your new investigative journalism career!
Enough of my nagging, you get the idea…….

Here are the Top Three Posts of  this week (top daily posts are in the right hand sidebar):

Refugee resettlement industry panicked; fears funds will be slashed

Trump improves immigration score at NumbersUSA, but Diversity Visa Lottery opposition should be no-brainer for all Republicans (old post)

Heads up Poughkeepsie, New York: ‘Christian’ charity to bring you Syrian Muslims likely before January 2017

For new readers, visit our October round-up and scroll down to the section for new readers.

And one final thing:  Thanks to all who have sent donations for my work here.  Your thanks and recognition are greatly appreciated.