Trump's re-written Executive Order on immigration expected today; will it kill Lautenberg?

Who is Lautenberg?  You will see below. First the news that CNN is reporting this morning (that the new EO will likely come today).
And, the Wall Street Journal was suggesting last evening also that the newly revised Executive Order (the so-called travel ban) could come today.

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If early reports are correct, the new EO will express no preference for saving Christians of the Middle East and Africa.

Here are a few highlights that involve the UN/US Refugee Admissions Program, from the Wall Street Journal:

The new version is expected to still ban travel from several Muslim-majority nations, but unlike the original, it will leave Iraq off the list, several people familiar with the planning said. [The irony is that the refugee terrorists we have caught in the US were mostly Iraqis!—ed]

No preference for Christians?

The new order is expected to remove a provision giving preference to refugees who are members of religious minorities, which was expected to benefit Christians coming from Muslim nations, several people said. It is unclear if this or possibly other changes would be enough to address those concerns.

The revised order is expected to again temporarily suspend the admission of refugees to the U.S., but unlike the original, it is likely to treat Syrian refugees the same way as those from other countries, people familiar with the planning said. The original executive order suspended the entire refugee program for four months and indefinitely suspended admission of Syrian refugees.

Let’s talk about this issue of a religious test!

We have had a religious test for certain special groups since 1990!

Senator Frank Lautenberg, a Democrat from New Jersey, chats with an attendee after chairing a hearing of the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee on U.S. rail travel in in Washington, D.C., U.S., on Wednesday, Sept. 14, 2011. The House Appropriations' Subcommittee on Transportation, Housing, and Urban Development approved a proposal last week to cut $357.7 million from Amtrak's operating subsidy next year. Photographer: Chris Kleponis/Bloomberg via Getty Images
Senator Frank Lautenberg, a Democrat from New Jersey, served in the US Senate beginning in 1982. He died in 2013. He put into federal law a provision to FAVOR religious minorities from Russia, later expanded to include those from Iran. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Lautenberg

You will hear representatives of the federal resettlement contractors scream that we can’t possibly favor Christians because our Muslim friends will get mad at us, but…….
We have been giving special treatment and  admitting certain religious minorities AS REFUGEES for decades under a law commonly referred to as the Lautenberg Amendment!
How do you think we justified admitting religious minorities from Russia including since FY03, 1,965 Jews and 11,410 Russian Muslims known as Meskhetians (out of a total of 19,440 ‘refugees’ from Russia)! (Numbers from Wrapsnet)
What on earth made them “refugees?”
Lautenberg was later extended to include Iranian religious minorities.
Our old pals at the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society have been patting themselves on the back for decades for their work under Lautenberg!
From their website (emphasis mine):

The Lautenberg Amendment, first enacted in 1990 as part of the U.S. foreign operations budget to facilitate resettlement of Jews from the former Soviet Union, allowed HIAS to bring tens of thousands to safety. As the worldwide refugee situation changed, the Lautenberg Amendment was expanded to include persecuted religious minorities in other countries, such as Jews, Christians, and Baha’is from Iran.

Despite being a crucial part of U.S. refugee policy, it expires each year and must be reauthorized.

They then direct readers to a pdf, here.
This is a screenshot of the opening page of the document:

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https://www.hias.org/sites/default/files/lautenberg_amendment_backgrounder.pdf

 
I had a quick look at Wrapsnet for just this fiscal year (10/1/2016 to today) and learned that we admitted 1,637 ‘refugees’ from Iran (635 processed through Vienna, Austria as of January 31, 2017, data not yet available through February).  Of those only 122 were Muslims, so the remainder (1,515) were religious minorities including 26 Jews.
We have a religious test!
We processed from Russia from the first day of fiscal year ’17 (October 1, 2016) to January 31, 2017, 251 so-called ‘refugees.’  29 were Russian Jews.
We have a religious test!

I’m not a lawyer, but if the courts don’t allow a Trump Executive Order to give preference to African and Middle Eastern Christians, how is it that the Lautenberg Amendment (recently extended by Congress) is legal?  And, has been legal and Constitutional for going on 27 years?

Can we rightly expect HIAS to stand in support of Trump’s original concept of a religious test that would allow Christians in majority Muslim countries to have access to the US Refugee Admissions Program? Don’t hold your breath!

Comment worth noting: reader sends link for IRS on how to file complaints against non-profits

“The Internal Revenue Service gives serious consideration to complaints made alleging the abuse of the tax exempt status granted to certain organizations.”

(IRS website)

 
Looking for a little project to do from the comfort of home…..
For those of you getting very annoyed by the ‘non-profit’ federal resettlement contractors (which get gobs of federal funding) increasingly involved in political organizing, a reader (‘badboylookout’) did a little research and sent us a link from the IRS on how you can complain about a possible misuse of their 501(c)3 status.  The nine VOLAGs *** and their subcontractors are especially active right now as we learned here (just one example).
It looks like you may never know if they are investigated, but it might make someone, somewhere take a look.
Go here for the page itself with hotlinks, and below is a shot of what you should know.
 
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You might also wish to complain to Inspectors General at the US State Department, the Department of Health and Human Services and the Dept. of Homeland Security (all three have involvement with the UN/US Refugee Admissions Program).
This post is filed in our ‘comments worth noting’ category, here.  And, in our ‘where to find information’ category, here.
***Go to this list to see if you have a non-profit VOLAG subcontractor near you.

Rutland, VT mayoral contest focuses on candidates who could best heal rift over refugees

One of the things I came to see in my travels around America last summer is that mayors in many cities with refugees, or about to get refugees, seemed to be quietly (so as not to tip off citizen critics) working behind the scenes for the federal pro-refugee resettlement contractors, and/or the businesses looking for cheap migrant labor. I often referred to those mayors as having been “captured.”

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Mayor Louras, who quietly worked with federal refugee contractor USCRI to begin resettlement of 100 Syrians to Rutland, caused a firestorm of public controversy. Photo: http://www.pewtrusts.org/en/research-and-analysis/blogs/stateline/2016/08/05/shrinking-small-towns-see-hope-in-refugees

Rutland, VT represents one such city.
It got so heated in Rutland, that the subject of refugees is the key issue that will determine if city voters return Mayor Christopher Louras to his seat at city hall.
From Burlington Free Press (hat tip: Joanne):

MONTPELIER – The mayor of Rutland, seeking his sixth two-year term Tuesday on Town Meeting Day, would like to focus his race against three challengers on his response to the issues facing the city, including drug use and joblessness, but his plan to bring up to 100 Syrian refugees to the city overshadows everything.

I’ve always wondered, why Syrians? Why not any of the usual refugee ethnic groups that the US State Department brings in. Did someone or some group specifically want Syrian Muslims (almost 99% of the Syrians we admit are Muslims) in Rutland?  The same is happening in Charleston, WV, they want just Syrians. Why?
I digress!  Back to the story…

Louras is being challenged on Town Meeting Day by City Councilor David Allaire, who ran against Louras in the last two elections; Michael Coppinger, the executive director of the Downtown Rutland Partnership, which promotes the community; and resident Kam Johnston, who is also running for the Board of Aldermen, school board and city assessor.

[….]

Both Allaire and Coppinger say a change in leadership is needed to heal a city that has been divided by Louras’ plans to bring up to 100 Syrian refugees to the community this year, and possibly more in years to come. They say it wasn’t the plan for the refugees, but the way Louras rolled out the program, announcing it last April without having sought input from the public and city officials.

When he announced his candidacy in December, Allaire said the issue was not with the city taking in refugees, but the secrecy of the program .

Continue reading here.  See our Rutland archive here.
One of the many reforms the Trump team must make is to get the secrecy out of the discussions by the US State Department, in collusion with federal refugee contractors, to target certain towns and cities as new resettlement sites.

Maine: Sudanese refugee pleads guilty in 2015 murder of teen

This is a diversity is beautiful alert!

A variety of migrants had a shoot-out in Portland, ME in 2015 and the result was that one young man (believed not to have known the shooters) died.

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Nancy Laxson with a photo of her son murdered by Majok. Photo and 2015 story here: http://www.pressherald.com/2015/07/27/portland-police-make-second-arrest-in-old-port-killing/

Before I give you the story (thanks to reader Frank), you must know that anyone granted asylum, as was the case with this Sudanese killer, is then considered a refugee and all of the protections, and welfare goodies that refugees we flew in on your dime receive, are also available to the successful asylum seeker.
To have been granted asylum, Majok arrived in the US on his own and convinced federal authorities that he would be persecuted if returned to Africa. (#ThisIsARefugee)
When you read through stories about him, see here for example, you see that he had several run-ins with law enforcement over the years.  I would like to know in what year he was granted asylum (before or after his criminal activities began?).
(Reminder: Sudan is one of 7 countries on Trump’s earlier ‘travel ban’ EO.)
From the Portland Press Herald:

Gang Deng Majok pleaded guilty to murder Friday in the shooting death of Treyjon Arsenault, the 19-year-old Westbrook High School graduate who was gunned down inside a Portland recording studio on Memorial Day weekend in 2015.

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Screenshot of photo of admitted murderer Majok. I left the ad from one of the nine major refugee contractors (the IRC) in my shot. You probably get these ads popping up wherever you go on the internet too! http://wgme.com/news/local/sudanese-immigrant-pleads-guilty-in-portland-recording-studio-murder

Majok, who was sentenced to 30 years by Justice Andrew M. Horton, agreed to change his plea rather than risk a trial.

Arsenault’s mother, Nancy Laxson of Scarborough, said she struggled with the decision to pursue the plea agreement, but is now relieved to see the sentencing completed before Sunday, which would have been Arsenault’s 21st birthday.

[….]

Laxson also was critical of authorities for not deporting Majok, a Sudanese national who had been granted asylum and had pleaded guilty to a string of misdemeanors.

It was not immediately clear whether someone with asylum status could be deported after being convicted of a misdemeanor. Majok will be subject to deportation after he completes his sentence for Arsenault’s murder.

[….]

According to authorities, Majok and one of Majok’s associates, Johnny Ouch of Westbrook, got into an argument with Mohamed Ali, a longtime rival of Ouch. [Was Mohamed a Somali?—ed]

The argument escalated and Majok and Ouch started shooting, according to Ouch’s attorney.

Many more details here.
We have a huge archive on Maine, click here. BTW, Maine attracts a lot of asylum seekers due to the structure of its welfare program. The Gov was trying to change that awhile back, but not sure if he did.

Will the President's new Executive Order, so-called "travel ban," come tomorrow?

Politico is reporting that it will be tomorrow, but who knows.
What we do know is that the portion of the Executive Order reducing the number of refugees being permitted entry to the US this fiscal year was not affected by the court wrangling and that the federal refugee resettlement contracting agencies*** are going to mount a campaign against Trump no matter what the new EO says.

trump-and-bannon
Pow-wow on the EO? Hope it includes step #2, getting Congress to reform the Refugee Admissions Program.

Their money is already being cut off by virtue of the reduced numbers since they are paid by the head for each refugee client they place. (Fewer clients=less money for them)
This morning we have admitted 37,323 refugees in FY2017, and the Trump team says the number for the year will not go over 50,000.
But, I am repeating (until I want to barf) that 50,000 is not that low considering that George W. Bush had 4 years under that number, see here. And, as soon as he left office, Obama opened the spigot.
Here is Politico:

President Donald Trump is expected to sign on Monday a new executive order on his controversial travel ban at the Department of Homeland Security, according to senior government officials familiar with the matter.

It is unclear how significant the changes to the current order will be or whether the White House will continue a court fight over its old order.

The original order restrained immigration from seven Muslim-majority countries, temporarily halted the entry of refugees and indefinitely shut down the entrance of refugees from Syria.

White House chief strategist Steve Bannon was heading on Saturday to Mar-a-Lago “for an EO launch meeting” with a team from the Department of Justice. They will meet with DHS officials and the president, according to a source familiar with the matter.

Repeat seven times!

congress
I’ve lost track of how many times I have said it, but tinkering around the edges and simply reducing the number to 50,000 will do nothing to reform the UN/US Refugee Admissions Program.

Only a complete moratorium for an extended time will force Congress to BEGIN to examine the present flawed system. 

If not reformed/trashed/re-written (or whatever), the next President can just open the spigot wide again!

Congress is only too happy to hide on the subject, Trump must make them do their jobs!
*** These are the nine federal contracting agencies that monopolize the system of placing refugees in your towns and cities: