RRW weekly round-up for week ending December 2, 2016

A couple of things before I give you the top three most-read posts of the week:
If you subscribe to RRW, are you getting your e-mail notices in a timely fashion?  That would be usually within minutes of my posting.  Of course you don’t know exactly when I posted, but if you get an e-mail and see that I actually posted that news the day before, then something is wrong.
For example this post I wrote entitled: ‘Comment worth noting: We aid and abet ISIS when we don’t tell the truth about Islam‘ arrived in my e-mail inbox a day after I posted it.  As I have said before, I don’t control those e-mails to subscribers, wordpress does.  The fact that it was sent out a day late made me wonder if someone somewhere is screening certain topics.  It could even be my e-mail server.  So, just wondering if you are seeing that either with RRW or some other blog not in favor with the PC police.

screenshot-80
This is one of my tweets this morning. There is so much news I could hardly post on all of it. So see my tweets in the right hand side bar here at RRW, or better still follow me at twitter. Every post I write is tweeted and it might be a better way to see what I am writing about than subscribing to the blog.

And, another word about comments. I do screen them so please don’t get carried away. I know you are ticked-off, but you can be angry without threats or foul language.  Also, I wouldn’t recommend signing your comments with your full name and town because who knows who is reading RRW.  So, if you’ve wondered about the fact that you did use your name and town (and sometimes phone #) and it doesn’t appear, I have taken the liberty of removing it!
Fake news alert!  Someone wrote to me in the last week and I am sure it was an attempt to get me to fall for fake news.  I am planning to write about it if I get a few extra minutes. He/she was pretty humorously ham-handed.  So, do keep an eye out for Lefties/Open borders types attempting to lure you in to a trap (some are pretty unhinged since Trump won the presidential election) especially if you are blogging yourself.
Excused absence!  I have jury duty starting tomorrow. Not sure yet how much of my time that will be eating up, but alas it is our duty. I don’t expect to be chosen to actually sit on a jury, but I do have to report for the next month.

Here then are the Top Three Posts of last week (daily top posts are in the right hand side bar):

First two months of FY2017, Somali ‘refugees’ entering US at highest rate ever!

At least four (more!) reasons SC Governor Nikki Haley as UN Ambassador makes me nervous

Ohio Somali slasher family’s lawyer says family scared by Trump

For new readers, go to this October roundup and scroll down for instructions.   In addition to twitter (@refugeewatcher), RRW does have a facebook page, here.
And, as always, thanks so much for your donations. It isn’t necessary, but appreciated as a vote of confidence for my work.

Was Nebraska student diagnosed with TB in November a refugee?

That is what we would like to know!   Michael Patrick Leahy of Breitbart is on the case.  I know most of you are reading Breitbart (right!), but I wanted to be sure we get this latest Tuberculosis news posted to keep our ‘Health Issues’ category up to date.
Also, before you read what Leahy says about this Nebraska case, see our recent post on Nebraska here (3 days ago).
Leahy at Breitbart:

A student enrolled at Benson Magnet High School, one of seven high schools in the Omaha, Nebraska Public Schools system, was diagnosed with active tuberculosis (TB) in November.

benson-high-school
Health officials said they will now have to test 195 students and 12 faculty members who may have been exposed.

Two hundred thirty seven of Benson Magnet High School’s 1,273 students, or 18.6 percent, are refugees, according to Omaha Public School’s District English Language Learner/Refugee Report, 2015-16.

Officials with the Nebraska Department of Health and Human Services and the Douglas County Public Health Department are withholding whether the student was foreign-born or American-born.

A number of Omaha’s refugee students were born in countries burdened by TB; Myanmar/Burma (617), Nepal (186), Somalia (140), and Bhutan (84).

As Breitbart News reported previously, foreign-born residents of Nebraska accounted for 82 percent of all cases of TB diagnosed in the state in 2014, much higher than the national average of 66 percent….

Continue reading here.  The article is full of links to important related news.

I’m wondering if the problems with the US Refugee Admissions Program will hit home once families in resettlement towns and cities find that their kids have to be tested for TB!

And, I’ve wondered for a long time if volunteers who work with refugees are given instructions on how to stay safe and keep their families safe when interfacing with newly arrived refugees. Does anyone know? (For new readers: Yes we admit refugees with TB.)
Our ‘Health Issues’ category (320 previous posts!) is here.

Honeymoon over in Canada for many of Trudeau's 35,000! Syrian refugees who can't find work

justin-trudeau
A youthful Justin Trudeau featured in this blog as a young-up-and-coming leader of Canada. I thought this photo was appropriate to highlight this news. http://ojoecollege.blogspot.com/2011/05/young-democratic-leaders-in-canada-and.html

This time last year Canada began ‘welcoming’ thousands of Syrian refugees who were flying in by the planeload as the young new Prime Minister had promised when he was elected weeks before.  As a result, Justin Trudeau became the darling of the world’s humanitarians who were clamoring for America to do the same!
Now, one year on, my alerts today are filled with stories like these—panic sets in as one year of government support ends and Syrians can’t find jobs to support their families!
From The Star:

Bedrettin Al Muhamad and his wife, Mariam [featured family—ed] have been taking English classes and making every effort to immerse themselves in Canadian culture since arriving here from Turkey in February.

[….]

But the honeymoon will soon be over, as the Mississauga couple ponders quitting their English classes and starting to look for jobs to support their five children, Hanan, 13; Hasan, 11; Azzam, 9; Mohammad, 8; and Rahaf, 6.

“We are scared we are not going to find jobs. It’s a cause of stress. How are we going to pay for our ($1,735) rent when money stops coming in?” asked Al Muhamad, 37, whose family’s monthly government refugee resettlement assistance ends on Feb. 12.

[….]

For many of the 35,000 Syrians who have arrived in the country — 15,000 in Ontario — since Canada started bringing in planeloads of newcomers last Dec. 9, what is commonly known in the refugee resettlement circle as “Month 13” is looming.

After a year of being warmly welcomed into local communities across the country, the 12-month financial commitment to these refugees by Ottawa and private sponsorship groups will start to come to an end.

trudeau-bearing-coat
Trudeau in December 2015: I come bearing coats (no jobs) but we have coats for this year at least! http://www.ctvnews.ca/canada/we-came-to-paradise-syrian-refugees-arrive-in-canada-on-government-plane-1.2696122

And, here is another story (with another featured family) from The Guardian:

Canada had previously granted asylum to a small number of Syrian refugees. But one year ago this week, 163 Syrian refugees were greeted at the airport by Justin Trudeau, Canada’s prime minister, in scenes that contrasted sharply with the hostile rhetoric emanating from some US politicians, including then Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump.

Thousands more refugees would arrive in Canada the following months, supported either by the federal government or by private citizens who committed to covering their expenses for their first year in Canada.

[….]

But the one-year mark means an end to the monthly living allowance from the government that has, along with food banks and donations, sustained their new lives. From February onwards, the family must either support themselves – a seemingly monumental task considering the parents’ search for jobs have so far been fruitless – or enroll in the province’s social assistance program, in which they would likely receive less of an allowance than what they’re currently receiving.

“All the Syrians say the same thing, we’re worried about what happens after one year. We don’t know. With no stipend, how are we going to live?” Alsakni said through a translator. “It’s like we’re blindfolded. We don’t know what is coming.  [This is the mother in the family speaking, she is the only adult in the family to begin to learn English, but she still needs a translator!—ed]

There are many more stories like this in my alerts today.

It is a good thing we have Germany and Canada as models for what NOT to do about Syrian refugees!

For our complete Canada category, go here.

Senate voted (and Obama signed) the Continuing Budget Resolution overnight, refugee program comes up short

The federal government will continue to be funded mostly at the Fiscal Year 2016 level until late April.  The budget extension had passed the House earlier in the week and the Senate voted last night to send the bill to Obama’s desk.
Many Dems were unhappy because instead of funding the government for the year—until September 30th—the whole issue will be revisited in the spring.  The election of Donald Trump was pretty much the deciding factor and this short term fix gives the Trump team time to get in place and put their funding priorities in the mix.

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Elections have consequences as Congress defers to Trump’s wish to weigh in on the federal budget for a portion of FY17. Funding=policy.

You can read about the final vote here at The Hill.
For our purposes (we have been writing about the issue of funding for the Refugee program for months), the results are good news.
Last week we reported that the Obama Administration was looking for billions in additional funding for the Office of Refugee Resettlement claiming that if they didn’t get their big tranche of money, ORR would go broke in February.
Well they didn’t get most of it which should make it even easier for Trump to stop or significantly slow the flow of refugees after January 20th since clearly the Congress is signalling that there is not much support for the high level of refugees that Obama wanted and surely Hillary would have enthusiastically supported had she won the election in November.
Obama’s 110,000 refugee goal for this year will now (in my opinion) be out of reach.
Here is what Numbers USA is reporting:

Fri, Dec 9th

The House overwhelmingly approved, with bipartisan support, a short-term spending bill yesterday without any significant changes to the refugee program and without expanding the H-2B guest-worker program.

[…..]

The short-term spending bill would fund the government through late-April, so there will likely be another battle then. But negotiations will be with a different administration that’s more focused on eliminating fraud within the refugee program and protecting the jobs and wages of American workers.

We faced two threats with this week’s fight. First, back in September, Pres. Obama demanded an increase in funding for the refugee program to accommodate an additional 25,000 refugees over last year’s already inflated numbers. The White House more recently requested a doubling of refugee funding through the short-term spending bill. The money not only would pay for the additional refugees, but would house and resettle across the U.S. the thousands of border surgers who have illegally entered the U.S. in recent months.

Congress added a small increase in refugee funding, but none of the additional funds can be used to resettle new refugees in the United States nor can they be used by the Obama Administration to house and resettle the border surgers.

The budget battle will now resume in the spring—a battle which could be significantly less important for us if Trump acts on his campaign promise to halt refugee admissions from terror-producing countries—which is about half of the flow coming in right now.
This is strange…..
I searched around this morning to see if the VOLAGs (refugee contractors) or their lobbyists were wailing, but am not seeing anything. Delayed reaction? Maybe they had some leftover funds sloshing around? But, they have already said they don’t!
Keep me posted if you see anything.
What you might see before I do is some local news reports that say that the opening of a new resettlement site is being ‘delayed.’

This post and all posts on the budget process are tagged ‘Where is Congress.’

Mississippi Governor: Don't send us any Syrians until Washington DC 'welcomes' them

This is from Infowars (hat tip: Richard at Blue Ridge Forum).  It is a good thing for the governor that the Obama Administration is headed out the door, or they might just flex their federal muscles and send Mississippi Syrians just for spite.
Here is what Infowars says about what the Governor said on a Fox News program:

Mississippi Governor Phil Bryant informed Stuart Varney that his state has not accepted any ‘Syrian refugees’ to date, and has no plans to even consider doing so until the District of Columbia takes some first.

gov-phil-bryant
Governor: There are no Syrians resettled in the District of Columbia. He is right.

Appearing on Thursday on Varney and Co., Governor Bryant discussed the stand he has taken against the Obama administration on behalf of his constituency.

“[We have taken] none so far, so certainly we can claim that as a win,” he said. “In November of 2015, I sent a letter to the President saying much of the same that other governors had said – that we will simply just refuse to accept Syrian refugees because we don’t think that they can be properly vetted.”

[….]

Governor Bryant also noted that nearly half of Mississippi’s 2016 non-Syrian refugee intake has been comprised of Cubans fleeing a totalitarian regime that Obama and his comrades in the mainstream media, Hollywood, and academia continue to romanticize to this day.

Bryant went on to highlight the hypocrisy of the Beltway Elite, who have appropriated massive sums of American tax dollars for their ‘refugee resettlement’ programs, importing tens of thousands of incompatible, low-skilled welfare leaches from Third World countries to small communities in the United States – despite not having accepted any ‘Syrian refugees’ themselves.

“Strangely enough – [there are] no Syrian refugees in the District of Columbia,” he observed. “So, when we see some moving to Georgetown and Pennsylvania Avenue, certainly we’ll reconsider them moving to Mississippi.

Again, it is a good thing Obama is on the way out, or they would send some to Mississippi just to show they can!

We know that neither Mississippi or the District of  Columbia get very many refugees, but I thought it would be interesting to check.  For those of you following the program closely, you know that some states are overwhelmed every year with thousands upon thousands of refugees while others get only a trickle.  I’m guessing the feds see both Mississippi and the District of Columbia as ‘unwelcoming’ for very separate reasons.
This is what I learned after having a look (at Wrapsnet.org) at the last ten fiscal years for each location. (Oh, and by the way, when the governor says they are getting Cubans in Mississippi that would likely be secondary migrants since I found only one Cuban actually placed through the RAP in the last ten years.)
In ten fiscal years Mississippi got 89 total refugees.  The countries from which ten or more were placed there were as follows:

Afghanistan (22)

Burma (15)

DR Congo (10)

Eritrea (15)

Iraq (13)

Six other countries were represented by less than 10 individuals. The state got 3 Somalis.
In those same ten fiscal years, the District of Columbia took in 249 refugees.   The ethnic groups admitted with ten or more were as follows:

DR Congo (12)

Eritrea (38)

Ethiopia (29)

Iraq (124)

13 other countries were represented, but in each case it was less than 10 individuals. DC got 4 Somalis.