New Mexico: Lutheran resettlement contractor puts brakes on new Sante Fe refugee program

12/23/2016 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

With Trump win, Santa Fe’s refugee program on hold

(Albuquerque Journal headline)

Hurrah! We found another*** of the supposedly 47 sites the Obama Administration has (secretly!) approved or was working on approving for the massive numbers of refugees they expected to resettle had Hillary won the election rather than Donald Trump.
Here is the sad tale from Sante Fe (a city yearning for more diversity). After an initial heartwarming intro:

In less than a year – and largely through the efforts of Santa Fe’s faith communities – what snowballed into a group calling themselves Welcoming Santa Fe were able to get the city designated a refugee resettlement site by the U.S. State Department.

“We were elated,” Dickenson [Nancy a Sante Fe filmmaker who spear-headed the effort] said.

NEW YORK, NY - DECEMBER 08: Santa Fe, New Mexico Mayor Javier Gonzales attends a press conference after attending New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio's Mayor's summit on immigration reform on December 8, 2014 in New York City. The summit focused on how cities can best utilize President Obama's executive action on immigration reform. (Photo by Andrew Burton/Getty Images) — Sante Fe Mayor Javier Gonzales wanted more diversity for Sante Fe. He was one of 18 mayors who demanded Syrian refugees for their cities in 2015. See here: https://refugeeresettlementwatch.org/2015/10/14/act-for-america-launches-citizen-action-campaign-urging-18-mayors-to-re-think-their-demand-for-more-syrian-refugees/

But that was in October. Weeks later, on Nov. 8, Donald Trump won the presidential election. He campaigned on a strict immigration policy that included building a wall on the southern border to stop illegal immigration. He also proposed a temporary ban on allowing Muslims into the country, a message he repeated Wednesday in response to this week’s terrorist attack in Berlin that was allegedly perpetrated by a Tunisian asylum-seeker.

No one knows what a Trump presidency will mean for immigration policy. And that’s what caused Lutheran Family Services, an affiliate of Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service – one of nine national organizations that work on behalf of the U.S. government to resettle refugees in different parts of the country – to put on hold using Santa Fe as a refugee settlement site.

One hundred refugees, including up to 20 families and 30 children mainly from Central Africa but also from the Middle East and South America, were scheduled to make Santa Fe their new home next month. The startup of a refugee resettlement program was mentioned at a recent meeting of the city Immigration Committee and notice had been issued for a fundraising concert.

Money is the main reason it is on hold!

Burnett [Tarrie Burnett, program director for Lutheran Family Services in Albuquerque] said future funding is also a major concern. Trump has talked about scaling back the nation’s admissions program for refugees, defined by the State Department as people who face persecution in their native lands.

[….]

Burnett said her office operates on a budget of about $1 million, about 75 percent of it coming from the federal government. The rest comes from various grants, pass-through funding, donations and other sources.

Much more here at the Albuquerque Journal.
Bottomline! Resettlement subcontractors like Lutheran Family Services (LIRS is the major resettlement contractor) are not going out on a limb now to open offices, pay rent, and hire staff when Donald Trump could drastically cut the number of refugees arriving beginning on January 21st.

The contractor’s initial federal funding is paid out by the number of ‘clients’ they place. It is a per head payment!

*** We can now add Sante Fe to our list!

Below are new sites we have identified so far of the supposed 47 the Obama Administration is (or has been) trying to get established.

One of the first things the Trump Administration must do is to make all of this information public information. Here are some of the sites we have identified so far by just keeping an eye on local news reports:

Asheville, NC (not decided yet)

Rutland, VT (approved, waiting)

Reno, NV (open)

Ithaca, NY

Missoula, MT (open)

Aberdeen, SD (not now)

Charleston, WV (approved, see Senator Capito as the Frau Merkel of WV!)

Fayetteville, AR

Blacksburg, VA

Pittsfield, MA

Northhampton, MA

Flint, MI

Bloomington, IN (dead for now)

Traverse City, MI

Poughkeepsie, NY

Wilmington, DE

Hudson, WI (dead for now?)

Watertown, NY (maybe)

Youngstown, OH (maybe)

Storm Lake, Iowa

Sante Fe, NM (approved but on hold)

Texas AG makes stupid, uninformed comments about refugee program!

12/23/2016 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Approximately 6,000 refugees came to Texas in 2015 and 2016, but Texas never knew the extent of the program. (Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton)

Who is he trying to fool!

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton said on Fox & Friends yesterday that the state never knew the extent of the refugee program in the state. OMG! The State had been paying a refugee coordinator for years and years and no one apparently at the governor’s level ever asked? What incompetence! Or was it?

texas-ag-paxton — Texas AG Ken Paxton. The real test for Texas comes after January. Will they then sue the feds with a Wilson-Fish states’ rights suit? Or, are they all talk and no action!

If we knew that Texas was the number one state in the nation for refugee resettlement (it gained that distinction in 2011), why didn’t Texas leaders know?
By the way, the Texas governor pulled the state out of the program (officially in January the state will be out), but what did they expect was going to happen, that the refugee flow would be cut off?
Did no one investigate the Wilson-Fish program and how the feds will step in and simply appoint a non-profit contractor to run the program in the state? This strikes me as sheer incompetence!
They still have a way out, or a possible way out! Once they are designated a Wilson-Fish state we will see if the governor and this Attorney General have the guts to sue the feds as Tennessee is doing!
From Newsmax:

Texans are “stuck with no control” over the refugees coming into their state, and Attorney General Ken Paxton said Thursday state leaders are concerned the same situation going on in Europe will happen in the United States.

[….]

Texas has sued the federal government to try to stop refugees from being placed in the state, but federal law controls the issue, Paxton said. [Yes, but it was a dumb lawsuit!—ed]

[….]

Earlier this fall, Paxton warned Texas will pull out of the federal refugee-resettlement program in January unless major changes were made. Approximately 6,000 refugees*** came to Texas in 2015 and 2016, but Texas never knew the extent of the program.

Hey, Mr. Paxton, do you need a phone number for the Thomas Moore Law Center, or can you handle finding that yourself?
Paxton also told Fox that they were counting on Donald Trump to save their bacon.
See our complete Texas archive here, and don’t miss Austin mayor working against the state here two days ago.
***He doesn’t even have the numbers correct. Checking Wrapsnet.org we learned that for calendar years 2015 and 2016 (until December 20th), the state of Texas admitted 15,681 refugees.

Asheville, NC still under consideration for new refugee site

12/23/2016 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

At least that is what the International Rescue Committee told a local newspaper this week.

Image #: 30348799 Rep. Mark Meadows (R-NC) questions IRS Commissioner John Koskinen as he testifies before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee in Washington Monday June 23, 2014. REUTERS/James Lawler Duggan (UNITED STATES - Tags: POLITICS) Reuters /JAMES LAWLER DUGGAN /LANDOV — Rep. Mark Meadows opposes the plan for Asheville to be a new resettlement site, but it is important you follow up with him now and tell him what you think (even if you live elsewhere in NC).

By the way, as an update, Hudson, Wisconsin has dodged a bullet for now and will not be getting the Syrian families; plans for which caused a huge public outcry and the Congressman representing the district got involved.
See my post yesterday with update. Did the Republican Congressman help push the decision in that direction? (Be sure to read the update and open links, see the medical problems with that group of Syrians.)
The news from Asheville tells us that the member of Congress for the district where the city is located (Rep. Mark Meadows) opposes the resettlement site. Could that be the holdup?
Note that another Republican, West Virginia Rep. Alex Mooney apparently is welcoming the plan for his district and it has been approved. It is too early to draw conclusions, but it sure looks like some consideration is given to whether the member of Congress representing the district is willing to stand against it. [Hint! Montana!]

From the Citizen-Times:

A visit from the International Rescue Committee in June sparked a debate in Western North Carolina as the global aid and humanitarian organization announced it was exploring the possibility of making Buncombe County a resettlement site for refugees.

Representatives from the International Rescue Committee met with residents at the Unitarian Universalist Congregation to discuss the feasibility of relocating about 150 people fleeing persecution in their home countries to the Asheville region.

At the time, J.D. McCrary, executive director of the IRC office in Atlanta, said that if plans move forward, the first household could come as early as next spring. Others would arrive over the ensuing 12 months, he said.
The organization has remained tight-lipped since their first visit to town.

“There are still no new updates,” IRC spokesman Sean Piazza said in December. “We are still considering Asheville as a potential site that would welcome refugees and give them a chance to rebuild their lives.”

The majority of refugees now being resettled domestically are Congolese, Bhutanese, Burmese, Afghan and Iraqi, although there are likely to be more Syrians in the near future, McCrary said in June.***

[….]

That month a spokesman for Meadows said the congressman opposed the IRC’s plans and is working with the group and the State Department on the issue.

If you live in Asheville, you need to stay on top of this and on top of Rep. Meadows!

So which ethnic groups have been placed in North Carolina?

***I was interested in the list McCrary gave and especially because he didn’t mention the Somalis! Does NC not get Somalis?
So, I checked Wraps.org and had a look at FY2016 and FY2017. Fiscal years run from Oct. 1 of the previous year to Sept. 30th of the following year. So, for new readers, FY 2017 began on Oct. 1, 2016 (we are over 2 and 1/2 months in to it).
I did see that Asheville got 21 refugees from Moldova recently. I don’t know what that is about.
In that timeframe, one year and 2 and 1/2 months, NC took in 4,101 refugees. NC has often been in the top ten states for refugee resettlement in the years I have been writing RRW.
Here are the top nationalities that have been placed in NC since October 1, 2015 (FY 2016).

DR Congo (1,201)

Syria (705)

Burma (594)

Somalia (301)

Bhutan (231)

Afghanistan (157)

Iraq (145)

Below are new sites we have identified so far of the supposed 47 the Obama Administration is (or has been) trying to get established.

One of the first things the Trump Administration must do is to make all of this information public information. Here are some of the sites we have identified so far:

Asheville, NC (not decided yet)

Rutland, VT (approved, waiting)

Reno, NV (open)

Ithaca, NY

Missoula, MT (open)

Aberdeen, SD (not now)

Charleston, WV (approved)

Fayetteville, AR

Blacksburg, VA

Pittsfield, MA

Northhampton, MA

Flint, MI

Bloomington, IN (dead for now)

Traverse City, MI

Poughkeepsie, NY

Wilmington, DE

Hudson, WI (dead for now?)

Watertown, NY (maybe)

Youngstown, OH (maybe)

Storm Lake, Iowa

I would like to get more updates from you, let me know if you have anything more on these sites.

Obama State Department approves 100 Syrian Muslims for West Virginia state capitol

12/22/2016 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Where were you WV Republican Senator Shelley Moore Capito and Republican Rep. Alex Mooney? Only two choices!—either asleep-at-the-switch or in support of this move by a local ‘interfaith’ group to be named a federal subcontracting agency for the purpose of beginning a new refugee resettlement site in the state. (Charleston previously received a few refugees through Catholic Charities, but no where near this scale).
If Capito and Mooney had put up significant opposition, we would have heard about it and this decision might have turned out differently.
Does Obama think he can stick it to West Virginia (Trump territory) voters in his final weeks in office? And, where is Joe [Manchin]? He must be all for it too!

Just this morning we reported that in Wisconsin, Republican Rep. Sean Duffy sent a strongly worded letter about plans to begin placing Syrians in his district and here a few days ago we learned that the plan for Bloomington, Indiana was shelved because opposition had grown there and because it is expected that Trump will make some move after January 20th to slow (or stop) the flow of refugees to America (money for resettlement is drying up as well).
So why go ahead with this new site at the West Virginia state capitol?
For new readers we have followed the growing controversy in Charleston extensively for months, see here.
From the West Virginia Gazette-Mail (emphasis is mine):

The U.S. Department of State has approved an application to establish a refugee resettlement program in Charleston, officials announced Wednesday. But that decision could be reversed by the incoming administration, according to an expert on refugee resettlement law.

The West Virginia Interfaith Refugee Ministry, which also is the name local organizers have been informally using to describe their humanitarian effort, will begin as a program of the Episcopal Diocese of West Virginia.

In a statement issued Wednesday, the Rev. Canon E. Mark Stevenson, director at Episcopal Migration Ministries, announced that the West Virginia Interfaith Refugee Ministry had been approved to join its network of 30 refugee resettlement sites throughout the country.

[….]

In October, they submitted an application for a resettlement agency to place 100 refugees in Charleston in the first year.

David Ramkey, chief financial officer for the Episcopal Diocese of West Virginia, said the refugees should be a “welcome addition” and “very productive part” of the community.

[….]

Neil Grungras, executive director of the nonprofit Organization for Refuge, Asylum and Migration, said the Donald Trump administration could reverse the decision.

“The State Department is never obligated to allow even an approved refugee into the U.S.,” Grungras said. “The answer, with regard to the 100 approved, is that it probably depends where they are in their processing. [I will bet a buck that the Obama Administration is packing as many as they can into that pipeline right now!—ed]

[….]

Lynn Clarke, a local organizer, said the group had been told that, if they were approved, the refugees would likely begin arriving this summer. She said the group anticipates refugees fleeing from Syria, Afghanistan and Iraq, but she said they also could be from other countries. –

As I said in a previous post, I don’t know why this ‘interfaith’ group was so hot for Syrian Muslims (apparently Iraqis and Afghans too), they usually don’t get to pick their favorite ethnic groups, but actually get a little bit of everything.

Trump must trash Obama CVE policy on day one, or we will be Berlin

12/22/2016 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

That is the key takeaway from Leo Hohmann’s (WND) report on the Berlin terror attack and his interview with Homeland Security whistleblower Phil Haney. See a previous post here at RRW about Obama’s misguided Countering Violent Extremism (CVE) policy.
Here is Hohmann overnight:

What appears from the outside to be a bungling of basic law-enforcement operations in Germany – allowing a known illegal alien with a criminal and terrorist past to move about freely in German society for more than a year – may not be a bungling at all.

obama-cve — Never again! The Obama/Merkel mindset on Islam and terror must go. Trump must erase all vestiges of the policy wherever it has been installed in the government.

Rather, it’s part of a coordinated strategy also being used by open-borders globalists in the Obama administration, says a retired Homeland Security officer.

Philip Haney, co-author of the whistleblower book “See Something Say Nothing,” explains how a Muslim migrant was able to stay in the country long enough to plan an attack that killed 12 and injured nearly 50 at a Berlin Christmas market Monday.

Anis Amri, a Tunisian national, was allowed to float about undetected by German authorities for more than a year, even though he was a known terror threat who had his asylum bid rejected and had spent four years in an Italian prison for burning down a school. [How many rejected asylum seekers, fake refugees, are floating around your towns and cities?—ed]

The policy that treats Islamic radicals with the soft touch of a preschool teacher, making sure not to violate their “civil rights and civil liberties,” is called “countering violent extremism,” or CVE.

It’s the same policy that governs the Obama administration’s actions in fighting terrorism in the homeland.

The CVE program is rooted in United Nations Agenda 2030 principles on migrant rights, which are adopted by sanctuary cities throughout the world. The principles of CVE are being implemented in city police departments worldwide through the U.N.’s Strong Cities Network, as well as through the U.N. New Urban Agenda.

As previously reported by WND, the Rockefeller Foundation is promoting the New Urban Agenda as the means to transform cities into multi-cultural havens for migrants.

[….]

Haney said President-elect Donald Trump must do away with the suicidal CVE policies installed by Obama, because these policies are more concerned with violating the civil rights and civil liberties of Islamic radicals than they are with protecting America.

Germany is reaping the bitter fruit of this same policy. Twelve Germans, including several women and children, are dead, and more than a dozen more are seriously wounded by a terrorist who should never have been let in the country. And even after he was allowed in, the government had multiple opportunities to arrest and deport him but failed to do so.

German political correctness is directly responsible for those deaths!
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