Ninth Circuit rules, HIAS crows as Judicial coup is confirmed

06/13/2017 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

It is not a surprise that the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled against the President and his legal Constitutional power to keep America safe.
I’m in a hurry this morning to get to my chores, so just want to give you Daniel Greenfield’s reading of the decision here at Frontpage magazine:

9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals Announces It Is In Charge of Determining National Interests

Here is his opening paragraph:

The Judicial coup against democracy rolls on. The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals announced with its latest ruling that it has the powers of the executive branch. To understand how insane the latest illegal and unconstitutional judicial effort to block common sense migration reform is, here are the powers that the 9th has decided it possesses.

Continue reading his excellent analysis.
As I have said till I’m blue in the face, I regret the fact that the 50,000 CEILING was announced in an Executive Order when the President already had the power to admit any number under the 110,000 CEILING set by Obama last September without even mentioning any cap. He could have quietly slowed the flow the minute he took office. At that time we had admitted just over 30,000 refugees in this fiscal year. Now, the Trump State Department is approaching 50,000 with months yet to go.
But, more troubling is the utter confusion created by proposing a complete ‘travel ban’ from six countries in the same EO as an announcement on refugee admission numbers and a temporary moratorium from across the world (across all nationalities and all religions). What a mess!

Hetfield is so excited! More paying ‘clients’ coming their way!

Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society cheers along with two other federal resettlement contractors which have a financial stake in keeping numbers of refugees high—they are paid by the head to place them in your towns and cities.
HIAS was joined in its amicus brief by the International Rescue Committee and the US Committee for Refugees and Immigrants—all multi-million dollar federal resettlement contractors who have a pecuniary interest in the outcome.
HIAS press release yesterday begins:

WASHINGTON—Today, the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit issued a ruling in the challenge to President Trump’s March 6 executive order barring the resettlement of refugees for 120 days, banning the entry of people from six Muslim-majority countries for 90 days, and cutting the overall number of refugee admissions for the year by more than half. The challenge was initiated by the State of Hawaii on behalf of individuals impacted by the executive order, and supported by HIAS and other refugee and human rights advocates in the public and private sector.

After hearing oral arguments before a three-judge panel on May 15, the court has affirmed the injunction on the parts of the order that would suspend entry of nationals from the six designated countries, suspend refugee admissions for 120 days, and cap the number of refugees to be admitted this fiscal year at 50,000. This ruling will allow refugees to continue finding safety in the United States through the refugee admissions program, unless the Supreme Court chooses to reverse the Ninth Circuit.

The Fourth Circuit case does not address the 50,000 CEILING issue. So, let’s hope that lawyers for the Justice Department are doing their homework and separating the CEILING issue from the ‘travel ban.’
And, HIAS knows they are on shaky ground regarding the President’s power to limit the numbers from all over the world (all religions/all ethnic groups) and so they continue to mix the ‘Muslim travel ban’ issue with the 50,000 cap to confuse their donors and the uninformed public.
If you missed it, see (here) how far below the CEILING other Presidents have gone—even Obama was tens of thousands below some of his earlier CEILINGS.
Also, see that HIAS, a federal contractor dependent on millions of your tax dollars, organized an anti-Trump rally, here in February. There ought to be a law—federal contractors shouldn’t be able to stage anti-government protests! Did they use any federal dollars???
Imagine the outrage if a military contractor was staging demonstrations because they wanted more federally-funded work!

Too funny! 'Anonymous' channels me and Daniel Horowitz

06/13/2017 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Reader Sonya sent this video (thanks!) of ‘Anonymous’ from Saturday entitled: Anonymous–Message to the President of the United States (Donald Trump).
He admonishes the Trump Administration and tells them to cut the refugee numbers entering the US to zero (where have I heard that before?).
LOL! Toward the end of the five minute video (with 257,596 views right now), I thought his British-accented words sounded familiar! The phrase about having to “drag Congress kicking and screaming” is what got my attention.
Here is my post (from June 6th) on Daniel Horowitz’s prescription for the President and my comments that ‘Anonymous’ (whoever he is!) is using (LOL! I have no copyright):

You will be hearing more from me going forward on the specific legislation needed to scrap or reform the UN/US Refugee Admissions Program. But, I tell you that the Republican ‘leadership’ in Congress will not lead on this and will have to be dragged kicking and screaming to lift a finger to reform/re-write the Refugee Act of 1980.

In my view, there is only one thing the President can do to move Congress on the issue and that is to put a complete halt to the USRAP. He must set the refugee admissions level at zero! And, leave it there until reform measures are passed by Congress!

And, here is the truth: if he makes no move along those lines, or the additional lines addressed by Horowitz, he will be blamed for a Manchester in America (not Ryan, not McConnell, not the refugee contractors, not the ‘deep state’ blocking his moves, not the media or the Leftwing).

The blame will be on DJT exclusively.

Here is just a bit of the transcript:

Watch the video here:

Whatever it takes to get the message to the President!

Is State Department refugee data being manipulated? Why are CEILING numbers missing?

06/12/2017 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Bill Frelick of Human Rights Watch: “…there is no requirement that the U.S. resettle a single refugee….” https://refugeeresettlementwatch.org/2017/03/31/confirmed-trumps-department-of-state-is-going-back-to-normal-refugee-admission-numbers/

Readers, more important, in my opinion, than the so-called ‘travel ban’ portion of the Trump Executive Orders held up in our power-hungry court system, is the issue of the President’s power to set the CEILING on refugee admissions for the year.
My contention is that he has the right to set the CEILING and change the CEILING without any Executive Order.
The Refugee Act of 1980 says only that he must “consult” with Congress on an annual determination. If he changes the number throughout the year (the law envisions a wish to increase the number and is silent on the issue of decreasing it) he must notify Congress.
Since the number set annually is a CEILING (not a target), then there would be no need to even announce any lowering of the number during the year, nor would there have been a need to address a procedure for lowering the incoming numbers in the original law. The Dept. of State and Homeland Security would simply just bring in fewer numbers.
The dirty little secret is that for years, the refugee industry has tried to turn the CEILING in to a target, but at least Frelick is honest.
Frelick of Human Rights Watch (a pro refugee organization) knows that this garbage (the Buffalo story mentioned it again) we keep seeing that there is a minimum 50,000 refugees required under the Act is inaccurate, see what he said here.
It’s the media, the contractors, and the bureaucrat holdovers who are busy bluffing the White House by counting on the fact that no one there understands the program and its history!
And, now as for the missing CEILING data…..

I’ve been following the program since 2007 and Presidents have never reached the CEILING in those years. Obama came pretty close several times, but he was under the ceiling—by huge numbers—in two years in particular.
See this chart (below) from Wrapsnet for 2006-2016. Pay close attention to the columns for CEILING and the ultimate admission numbers. See the gap! It varies from year to year under the CEILING.

In FY11 Obama set the ceiling at 80,000 and came in with 56,424 (a shortfall of 23,576).
In FY12 Obama’s ceiling was 76,000 and he ultimately admitted 58,238 (a shortfall of 17,762).
Did anyone sue President Obama for leaving thousands “stranded in war-torn countries”? No!

There were NO lawsuits and no screams (at least in public!) from the contractors!

Look at this same chart for the end of March 2017 (at that point Wrapsnet still lists the last CEILING set by Obama (110,000) his highest ceiling by far). I discussed it here.

Now here is the chart for the end of April 2017. I discussed it here. See the note! **FY2017 ceiling is currently in litigation.

Today, I decided to have a look at Trump’s numbers for May because of my earlier post today about the contractors getting excited by increasing numbers coming in, but what did I find when I checked this monthly update?
Can you see what is missing?

Incompetence or an effort to obscure the facts?
Did you see it? They have removed the CEILING column arguably the most useful number from this particular data base.
Why? Is it a deliberate attempt to hide facts? Or, just some dumb mistake by an underling at the Refugee Processing Center (aka Wrapsnet)? You decide.
And, one last thing, for a chuckle, note how extraordinarily high the numbers were for October, November, December of FY2017 compared to the previous ten years. Do you think the outgoing Obama Admin. was in a hurry to pour as many refugees in to your towns and cities as they could before getting out of Dodge? You betcha!

Buffalo, NY refugee contractors jumping for joy as refugee arrivals pick up

06/12/2017 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

…and they seem especially pleased to announce that they are getting them from those terror-producing countries—a flow that the Trump Administration was trying to curtail.
From Buffalo News:

WASHINGTON – President Trump’s promise to cut in half the number of refugees coming to America – and therefore Buffalo – has turned into a dream unfulfilled.

Buffalo offers proof of it. State Department figures show the city welcomed 376 new refugees between Trump’s Jan. 20 inauguration and last Wednesday. That’s a 32 percent reduction from the 554 who arrived a year before, but nothing close to a 50 percent reduction.

Yippee! More refugees coming to Buffalo from Africa and the Middle East. Ms. Scott works for a subcontractor of Church World Service. http://www.jersbuffalo.org/index.php/news/entries/journeys_end_refugee_services_announces_new_executive_director

What’s more, 149 of those new arrivals come from Iran, Iraq, Somalia, Sudan or Syria – nations subject to Trump’s travel ban before the federal courts ruled it was unconstitutional.

And now, the city’s refugee resettlement agencies are gearing up for a growing wave of refugees under a new State Department announcement that further undercuts Trump’s promise.

“We had a very busy May, and we will have a very busy June,” said Karen Andolina Scott, executive director of Journey’s End Refugee Services, one of Buffalo’s four refugee resettlement agencies.***

Church World Service, the national refugee agency affiliated with Journey’s End, “was able to send us more people than we thought,” Scott added.

[….]

Now Buffalo stands poised to welcome a growing number of refugees in the next few months. That’s because the State Department last month quietly abandoned the weekly refugee admission quotas that had been in place earlier in the year.

[I’m highlighting this (above) because I have readers who still don’t believe this happened.—ed]

Congress fully-funded refugee resettlement for the remainder of FY17 and Trump signed it!

Budgetary constraints previously limited the number of refugees coming to America in the current fiscal year. But a State Department spokesman said the temporary budget bill that Trump signed on May 5, which funds the government through Sept. 30, includes full funding for the nation’s refugee resettlement program.

That returns the annual cap for refugees coming to America the same as the one Obama set: 110,000 for the year ending Sept. 30. [This part is still up in the air, however, a reminder that this number—110,000—is a ceiling not a target!—ed]

Refugee resettlement advocates doubt the nation will receive that number. They said it appears the Department of Homeland Security, which vets prospective refugees, slowed down that process in several countries in wake of Trump’s earlier actions, which in turn could slow refugee arrivals in the United States.

Still, local resettlement agencies expect the pace of new refugee arrivals to grow in the coming months.

Yippee! Their paying “clients” are arriving!
More here.
I have a fairly large archive on Buffalo (here) and its problems (similar to Utica).
*** Go here for the list (not sure if it is complete) of resettlement contractors working near you.

Update: Refugee admissions picking up in Twin Falls, Idaho too! See here.

First 50 Syrian families head home to safe zone in Syria….

06/12/2017 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

….And, it has nothing to do with any Trump Administration plans. Other actors have stepped in to begin to make it happen and as the story tells us, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees had no comment.
Before critics jump in, it should be none of our business if these families want to put their lives in the hands of Hezbollah, it is not our role (or the UN’s!) to play the papa and tell them where to live and what to do with their lives (which is a large part of the psychology that drives refugee resettlement—the ‘we know what’s good for you’ mentality!).
From Lebanon’s Daily Star (hat tip: Joanne)

BEIRUT: Dozens of refugee families returned to Aasal al-Ward in southern Syria after leaving the Lebanese border town of Arsal over the weekend as part of a deal brokered by Hezbollah and Syrian rebel factions.

The Lebanese Army said in a statement that 30 civilian vehicles carrying an estimated 50 families departed from the northern Lebanese town in the early hours of Saturday and a military escort accompanied them until the last military checkpoint.

According to the Army statement, the move was undertaken in response to a “keen interest of the families” to return to their homeland. Hezbollah’s Al-Manar TV circulated a video Sunday depicting the Syrian families celebrating their return to their hometown.

Local media estimated that 50 families chose to leave Lebanon for Syria Saturday. A total of 500 families are expected to relocate following negotiations earlier this year to establish small safe zones for civilians in the Qalamoun region, brokered by Hezbollah.

A security source in the town of Arsal told The Daily Star Saturday that the return of dozens of displaced families was the result of behind-the-scenes negotiations between Hezbollah and the Syrian regime on one hand, and armed factions present in the area on the other.

[….]

The United Nations refugee agency, UNHCR, had no comment when contacted Sunday evening.

There is more, but you may have to subscribe to get it.
Truth be told, most ‘refugees’ just want to go home and that should be our number one goal—to get them there—not move them around the world like pieces on a chessboard.