And we almost missed it! US Conference of Catholic Bishops celebrates its National Migration week

Update January 12th: Don’t miss Leo Hohmann’s expanded news on the Bishop’s Migration Week, here.
Just now when I was writing about Catholic Charities crowing about the Somali Muslims they are placing in Minnesota, I came across this news.  Sheesh! And, I almost missed it.  If you are a Catholic you are likely being bombarded this week (January 8th -14th) with propaganda about welcoming the stranger.

Special Event: on “Common ground for the common good” (to mark the concluding day of the World Interfaith Harmony Week (1–7 February 2012), as proclaimed by General Assembly resolution 65/5 (A/RES/65/5)) (organized by the Office of the President of the General Assembly, in cooperation with the NGO Community at the United Nations Bill Canny - Catholic RElief Services
William Canny at the United Nations. Time to tell Catholics you are mostly funded by American taxpayers.

Longtime readers know that the US Conference of Catholic Bishops is one of the nine major federally employed refugee resettlement agencies in the US.  Here the Crux tells us the Bishops are the largest of the nine:

Migration and Refugee Services of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops is the largest private refugee resettlement agency in the United States and has helped to resettle more than one million refugees since 1975.

Nearly 80 Catholic Charities agencies across the country are involved in refugee resettlement work, helping refugees with housing, legal services, language proficiency, trauma counseling and employment training. [Implying that this is all done with Christian charity!—ed]

If you want to, you can read the rest of the Crux’s glowing report on what the good Bishops are doing on immigration, here.

What is missing from this long story is any mention of the MILLIONS OF TAXPAYER DOLLARS the Bishops receive to do their work!

And, guess what I learned!  The Bishops don’t file an IRS Form 990 (no wonder we haven’t been able to find one). That is the tax form that non-profit organizations must file every year which is of vital importance for citizens to understand how their money is used and what salaries are paid.
The Bishops say they are a PRIVATE refugee agency (I say they are a quasi-government agency), but then use the religious exemption to avoid reporting to the IRS!

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Why do you think their office is in Washington? Maybe they need to stay close to keep the pressure on Congress to keep their funds flowing!

Because we can’t get a Form 990, we have had to rely on the USCCB Migration and Refugee Service’s annual report, but unfortunately the most recent one available (that I can find) is for 2014. But, you get the gist of it—they get millions from you.  And, frankly, if they would be honest with the public and their parishioners about these vast amounts of government funding, I will shut up about it.
Here is the breakdown of their income for 2014:
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Federal grants is your money. But, so is the ‘travel loan.’ Makes them 97% funded by you!

Now just to impress upon you how much money the Bishops are getting from the US treasury, here (below) is a screenshot of one small portion of the list of grants and contracts they have gotten in recent years at USASpending.gov.
In the last few years the total is over $200 MILLION in grants, subgrants and contracts.  And, that is just what went directly to the Bishops (when doing your own search, spell out United States Conference of Catholic Bishops).
It doesn’t include government grants and contracts for individual dioceses.   You will have to look those up separately and find more pots of money.
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This is just a section of one page at USASpending.gov!

So come on Bishops! Fess-up! Tell your loyal Catholic flock that this Migration and Refugee Services isn’t being funded by them, through their Christian charitable giving, but by the taxpayers of America!
And, it begs the question, when it comes down to taking moral stands on controversial social issues, will the USCCB choose government funding if it comes down to a choice between a moral stand or millions of free bucks?

Catholic Charities placing Somalis from Uganda refugee camp in Minnesota

The other day when I wrote about the large number of Somalis entering the US from refugee camps in Kenya, I wondered who were all the refugees coming from Uganda and here we learn they are Somalis too!
We have written so many posts about Somalis/Catholic Charities in Minnesota, I have lost track. But, I do remember when I first learned that it was three ostensibly Christian federal refugee contractors who first placed Muslim Somalis in Minnesota decades ago,and they are still at it.  See that 2011 post here.
It was the generous welfare that made Minnesota so attractive to these resettlement contracting agencies.
 

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Somali Muslims are being placed in Minnesota from Nakivale Refugee Camp in Uganda.

 
Here is the story that caught my eye just now, from CNS news:

A Somali couple with three children is seeking a new life in Minnesota thanks to a Catholic Charities’ resettlement program that cites a Christian imperative for its work.

“Now the family is together and thankful for their new home. While they are learning about Minnesota and adjusting to the cold weather, they have a place to live and food in the cupboards,” Julia Jenson, Catholic Charities St. Paul-Minneapolis director of external affairs and communications, told CNA.

The family comes from the Nakivale refugee camp in Uganda, which hosts 100,000 Somalis who have fled conflict at home.

[….]

laurie-ohmann
Laurie Ohmann: the Pope tells us to work with the “poor and the vulnerable in our community.” So why not help the American poor before bringing in third world poor? Photo: https://www.cctwincities.org/our-organization/our-people/leadership/

For Ohmann [Laurie Ohmann, senior vice president of client services and community partnerships at Catholic Charities of St. Paul-Minneapolis], the agency’s motive for refugee resettlement is clear.

“It’s an issue of human dignity and supporting their participation in our economic and cultural life,” she said. [Refugee resettlement is about protecting people from persecution, not about economic and cultural opportunities we can give them. See recent report about a Minnesota Somali safely going home to Somalia!—ed]

She cited the principles of Catholic social teaching and Pope Francis’ prominence in “welcoming the stranger and working with the poor and the vulnerable in our community.”

[….]

Ohmann acknowledged some Americans’ safety concerns about refugees.

Ohmann then goes through the usual talking points about security screening, which we have learned is pretty much useless with nomadic Somalis who have no records and whose children have grown up to become jihadists right here in America!  See my answer, here, to their talking points about their assertion that refugees are harmless.
And, much to the reporter’s credit for bringing up another of Catholic Charities placement—the Ohio State stabber! So much for vetting!

Among those aided by Catholic Charities affiliates was Abdul Razak Ali Artan, the 20-year-old who in November drove a car into a crowd at Ohio State University then started to stab passersby before he was shot and killed by a campus police officer. The attacker hurt 11 people, one critically.

Artan had come to Dallas as a refugee from Somalia in June 2014 and stayed in Dallas with his six siblings and his mother for about three weeks before moving to Columbus, Ohio. They had been aided by Catholic Charities of Dallas after vetting by the U.S. State Department.

Dave Woodyard, the Dallas agency’s president and CEO, said there was nothing that stood out about Artan during his brief stay there. [There are many questions still unanswered about this family’s short stay in Dallas and their abrupt move to Ohio—ed]

More here.
See my HUGE archive on Minnesota by clicking here.
Warning to Trump transition… remember we are bringing in certain potentially dangerous ethnic groups from safe places in the world. So it is important not to say something like: “We will stop refugees from Somalia (the country).” We don’t take refugees from Somalia, we take Somalis who have spread out all over the world!

More news blaming Trump for Africans crossing in to Canada from US and asking for asylum

Expect to see a spike around the time when Trump takes office until refugees get a sense of the direction in which the new president may take immigration policy.

(Canadian Immigration lawyer Bashir Khan)

Readers might want to first check out a post from a few days ago where we reported that ‘refugees’ from Ghana were found freezing after a long walk across the US/Manitoba border, click here.
For new readers, just a reminder, we have a Canada category, here, with 186 previous posts going back nearly 10 years.
Canadian immigration lawyers are saying there is an increase in the number of mostly Somalis leaving the US and heading north and they predict that when Trump is inaugurated (in 9 days) the numbers will tick up even higher.
What concerned me most about this news is that if these Somalis were legally admitted to the US, they have nothing to fear.  Why bother risking their lives traveling to Canada?  So, that can only mean that they were in the US illegally and were possibly waiting on asylum claims to be processed and simply disappeared. How many more illegal Somalis are wandering around America?
Editor: I had previously posted a photo here that I now believe came from a fake news site. I apologize and have removed it.
From CBC Manitoba (hat tip: Joanne). Emphasis is mine:

The number of asylum seekers crossing the Canada-U.S. border into Manitoba on foot instead of through official ports of entry has risen fivefold in the past three years. [Keep in mind that the numbers were going up before Trump even came on the scene!—ed]

In the 2013-2014 fiscal year, 68 people illegally crossed the international border near the small, southern Manitoba community of Emerson and claimed refugee status, according to the Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA). That jumped to 340 in 2015-2016.

This fiscal year’s numbers have already surpassed that, with 410 asylum seekers making the journey between April and December 2016.

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Emerson is just north of the United States border at the point where the province of Manitoba and states of Minnesota and North Dakota meet. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emerson,_Manitoba

According to Jacquie Callin, a CBSA spokeswoman, most of those crossing near Emerson are from Somalia, which has been wracked by civil war and political instability since the overthrow of military dictator Siad Barre in 1991.

Canada has the reputation of being a land of liberty and appeals to the unprecedented number of refugees displaced by the world’s various conflicts and crises, said immigration lawyer Bashir Khan. [Business must be booming for Mr. Khan!—ed]

[….]

CBSA reports 119 asylum seekers came to Manitoba in the coldest winter months between December 2015 and March 2016 without passing through a port of entry or border checkpoint.

Pay attention to this next line! Legitimate asylum seekers are to ask for asylum in the country in which they first arrive. If this international understanding was enforced everywhere then many of the problems the world is experiencing with migrants would be solved.  Instead migrants now believe they can wander around the world looking for the best deal! It is called asylum shopping.

Under the Canada-U.S. Safe Third Country Agreement signed in 2002, individuals must seek asylum in the country in which they first arrive, with a few exceptions. For instance, if a Somali refugee who arrived in the United States presented themselves at the Canadian border seeking asylum, they would be sent back to the U.S. unless they had family in Canada.  [But were the illegal border-crossers sent back, there is no mention!—ed]

[….]

People entering the country without visas or proper immigration papers have been spotted walking through fields and gravel roads near the border in Emerson, whose southern boundary borders the states of North Dakota and Minnesota.

[….]

RCMP D Division patrols 520 kilometres of the Canada-U.S. border, the world’s longest undefended border. When officers find a person trying to illegally cross, they bring them to the nearest port of entry to be assessed by a CBSA official.

If there’s no admissibility concerns and the person’s refugee claim is legitimate, they are released and a date is set for the claim to be heard [How many ever show up?—ed]

[….]

Khan said he expects to see a spike around the time when Trump takes office until refugees get a sense of the direction in which the new president may take immigration policy.

LOL! I bet some of you are wondering if you could hire buses to take loads to the border of Justin Trudeau’s ‘welcoming’ Canada.