US shuts the door on refugees, wails 'Think Progress'

07/13/2017 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

…..and it is confirmed by their go-to commenter—Mark Hetfield of the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society— who says of Trump’s ceiling that it is “lower than it’s been in history.”
But, what he doesn’t say is that even at 50,086 (the number this morning), that is not the lowest ADMISSIONS number in the history of the program as we pointed out here (and will show you below).
Here is Think Progress (John Podesta):

“We’ve reached a low point in U.S. history today with the Trump administration setting and enforcing a refugee admission ceiling which is lower than it’s been in history,” HIAS President and CEO Mark Hetfield told ThinkProgress in a phone interview Wednesday.

I just told you two days ago (something Think Progress will never tell you), that groups like HIAS are quasi-government agencies paying CEO salaries at major corporation levels. Hetfield makes $358,718 (doing well by doing good!) annually. Only one of the nine CEOs makes more, and that is David Miliband of the IRC ($591,846). https://refugeeresettlementwatch.org/2017/07/11/updating-financial-data-on-refugee-contractors-big-bucks-for-humanitarian-work/

HIAS, a nonprofit organization that provides humanitarian assistance and aid to refugees, has long helped refugees resettle in the United States. Hetfield was immensely displeased that at least one HIAS client, who was approved as a refugee, will be unable to come in despite having a grandmother in the country. Others will also see their flight reservations cancelled.

[….]

“We’re at least grateful the Supreme Court prevented Trump from fully implementing his mean spirited executive order and that refugees will [with] ties to US will continue to be admitted,” Hetfield said. “It’s an embarrassment for our country to be taking in so few refugees when the needs are so great.”

Think Progress goes on to perpetuate a massive misunderstanding claiming that countries like Turkey (Lebanon and Jordan) take in more refugees than does the rich (mean-spirited) US.

Those countries do not take refugees permanently (another thing that Think Progress will never tell its readers!)

Those countries would never let large numbers of other ethnic groups (Iraqis, Syrians, Somalis, Pakistanis, Palestinians etc.) become PERMANENT VOTING CITIZENS. In our refugee program (the largest in the world even at 50,000) we do, and so….

….we are the number one country in the world admitting refugees for life!

Let’s look at historically low admissions levels (see charts here).

There were 4 years when we admitted fewer than Trump’s 50,086:

FY02: 27,070

FY03: 28,117

FY06: 41,279

FY07: 48,281

And, since the SCOTUS is allowing refugees with “bona fide” relationships to enter above Trump’s 50,000 ceiling, here are some other years that might easily be surpassed before September 30th (the end of FY17):

FY87: 58,863

FY04: 52,858

FY05: 53,813

And these next two are THE Man’s (Obama’s years):

FY11: 56,424

FY12: 58,238

I’m guessing that Trump will, in the end, be admitting in the low 60,000s, close to the average for the last ten years. The big question is—what will he propose for FY18???

Pew: Fewer Muslim refugees entering US since Trump inaugurated, DR Congo top sending country

07/13/2017 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Pew Research Center has done some useful number crunching using the data available to you as well at Wrapsnet.

We are cleaning out UN camps for DR Congolese ‘refugees’

DR Congo tops the list!

Here are their findings in two simple graphs. Readers should know that the flood of refugees coming in from the DR Congo are part of a five year plan agreed to during the Obama Administration to clean out the UN camps housing ‘refugees’ from the DR Congo. We reported this news in June 2013, here.

We agreed to take 50,000 over five years! As of today we have admitted 40,204!

The group contains many women with mental health issues and children (very costly to the US taxpayer). And, if other UN camp clean outs are any indication, we won’t stop at 50,000!
Last fall we showed you where 33,000 from the DR Congo were placed in America. Most from the DR Congo are not Muslims.
From Pew Research:

I have two categories that might be useful to readers wanting to dig in to data. One is entitled ‘refugee statistics’ and the other is ‘Where to find information,‘ but I warn you both are huge. This post is archived in both.

First time in history of refugee program Presidential ceiling has been exceeded

07/13/2017 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

And, you can thank the Supreme Court for unconstitutionally legislating in its decision late last month.

Refugees arriving after today are the responsibility of nine unelected justices.

I showed you here over the weekend that no ceiling has been exceeded in the over 35 year history of the program.
My worry is that what SCOTUS has done has been to literally obliterate the responsibility for refugees the law gives to the President and to Congress by defining a new standard for admittance—to those with “bona fide” relationships—ceiling be damned!
Even if one argues it is temporary, it is still an outrage! How dare the Supreme Court say that those in a newly coined category—those prospective ‘refugees’ with bona fide relationships—are not a security threat to us! That is the President’s job! Did the justices even read the Refugee Act of 1980?
But, how do you challenge the Supreme Court? And, are the contractors secretly cheering because they have longed for the day when the CEILING would become meaningless.
To top it off, there is another legal challenge before the rogue Hawaii judge that might further gum up the works (see Breitbart’s Michael Leahy on that potential legal quagmire, here).
Chaos and confusion reign, just as Clarence Thomas (with Alito and Gorsuch) predicted.
And, this was completely unnecessary because the Trump Administration could have simply lowered the ceiling when they came in to office without any Executive Order. The most they had to do was notify Congress!
As of yesterday afternoon, we have admitted 50,086 refugees to the US in this fiscal year.
Here is where the 50,086 were placed.

Here are the top ten ‘welcoming’ states. LOL! Hawaii is near the bottom as always with 3 whole refugees!

So much for Texas removing itself from the USRAP!

All of my posts on the aftermath of the Supreme Court’s decision are archived here.
There are many stories in the media today about the ceiling having been exceeded, if there is anything useful (other than the same old babble), I’ll update this post.