Pope announces immigration propaganda week for Catholics (October 7-13)

09/30/2017 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Bishop Vasquez cropped photo — We are disturbed and deeply disappointed by the proposed presidential determination number of 45,000,” said Bishop Joe S. Vasquez of Austin, Texas, who is chairman of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Committee on Migration. http://www.catholicnews.com/services/englishnews/2017/faith-groups-ask-government-to-reconsider-historically-low-refugee-cap.cfm

The US Conference of Catholic Bishops insisted that Trump admit 75,000 paying refugee clients to the US beginning October 1. But, not a word at Crux that they receive millions of tax payer dollars for their Christian charity as the largest of nine federal refugee contractors.***

Crux:

During his weekly audience on September 27, Pope Francis will kick off a two-year “Share the Journey” campaign aimed to encourage Catholics to “encounter” migrants and refugees. In response, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) is calling for a National Week of Prayer and Action, scheduled from October 7-13.

The new campaign is focused on providing practical ways for Catholics to break down barriers of fear and build bridges with migrants and refugees.

Catholic Charities USA (CCUSA), Catholic Relief Services (CRS) and the USCCB are part of a global network of organizations participating in the campaign organized by Caritas Internationalis.

Pope Francis invited the invasion of Italy:

Throughout his papacy, Francis has made the cause of refugees and migrants one of special concern to him. His first trip outside Rome as pope was a day trip to the tiny Italian island of Lampedusa, where he celebrated mass to memorialize the thousands of refugees that had died there trying to reach Europe.

pope-on-lampedusa — Pope Francis welcomes migrants to Lampedusa Italy in 2013, see what happened: https://refugeeresettlementwatch.org/2016/05/20/migrants-burn-down-refugee-center-on-lampedusa-thank-you-pope-francis/

[….]

The National Week of Prayer and Action comes at a time when many leaders of the U.S. Church have clashed with the Trump administration over its policies toward migrants and refugees.

Earlier this month, the administration announced that it would be ending the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program known as DACA, which provides protection from deportation for qualified immigrants. This decision prompted widespread outrage among members of the U.S. church hierarchy.

In the coming days, the president is also expected to set a ceiling on the number of refugees the U.S. will accept. Administration officials have suggested a limit of 50,000, while the USCCB is advocating for at least 75,000 to be welcomed.

(This story was posted at Crux before the final decision was announced. We know now that Trump came in at 45,000.)

More at Crux here.

Trump’s 45,000 cap on refugees has the Bishops hopping mad, see here. (Not a word there either that the number admitted will affect the Bishop’s bottom line!)

Here is an idea for Christian charity….

How about the Bishops’ divert their approximately $100 MILLION annual taxpayer-funded income to rebuilding the CATHOLIC island state of Puerto Rico!

***The UN/US Refugee Admissions Program will never be reformed as long as these nine federal contractors are allowed to accept federal funds and then lobby and otherwise community organize in order to keep the taxpayer-funded gravy train rolling.

Hillary’s legacy in Libya could affect you!

09/30/2017 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

UN short-circuiting the flow from Libya to Europe by sending migrants to the good ol’ welcoming USA?

Hillary, along with her gal pals Susan Rice and Samantha Power, are the leading culprits in the Obama Administration’s disastrous involvement in the overthrow of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi and the creation of a failed state that has become a primary route for the migrant invasion of Europe.

hillary and gal pals — Susan Rice, Samantha Power and Hillary. Photo is from a blog called The Political Girl that asks: Are women leading the way in Libya?

Now we learn that the UN, partially in hopes of saving the present Italian government (Italians are pretty angry about the Libya to Italy express), is planning to open up a refugee holding facility in Tripoli where migrants will be detained until they can be moved to transit centers.

But, guess what! Most in the transit centers will go to Canada, Norway, and drum roll—the United States.

Hillary gloats about knocking off Gaddafi turning Libya into a completely unstable hell hole, and America gets more refugees!

From Reuters (emphasis is mine):

ROME (Reuters) – The U.N. refugee agency is seeking to open a refugee transit center in Tripoli early next year to resettle or evacuate as many as 5,000 of the most vulnerable refugees out of Libya each year, a senior U.N. official said on Friday.

It is a small fraction of the total number of Libya’s migrant population, estimated at as many as 1 million, but would be a welcome outlet for the 43,000 refugees that the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) estimates are now trapped in Libya.

“We hope to have the (written) authorization soon,” Roberto Mignone, the UNHCR’s representative in Libya, told Reuters in Rome. The U.N.-backed Tripoli government has already approved the project verbally, he said.

[….]

Italy has become the main migrant route to Europe since an agreement between the EU and Turkey shut down smuggling through Greece last year, but arrivals have fallen sharply since July, when an armed group clamped down on departures.

With the backing of the European Union, Italy has financed, trained and equipped by the Tripoli-based coast guard. With a national election due early next year, Italy is also promising tens of millions of euros to Prime Minister Fayez al-Seraj and municipal governments to put a stop to smuggling.

[.…]

Italian Interior Minister Marco Minniti has said he is depending on the U.N. refugee and migration agencies to improve conditions for refugees and migrants now trapped in Libya.

“We can’t be the only solution,” Mignone said, also because Libya remains very dangerous and international staff still have very limited access to the country.

[….]

While the UNHCR hopes to resettle many of them, it is a lengthy process. Many countries do not have a permanent diplomatic presence in Tripoli, further complicating matters.

So the agency will seek to evacuate most of them, Mignone said, to emergency transit centers in Romania, Slovakia or even Costa Rica, where they will have more time to apply for resettlement. The agency is currently working to open another emergency transit center in Niger, he said.

More at Reuters, here.

Here is one article I found telling us that ‘refugees’ in a transit center in Slovakia are destined for Canada, Norway and the US. And, I had previously written a post on the Costa Rica transit center with our old friend HIAS being paid by the US State Department to work there. I better start paying more attention to these transit centers!

So, if the scheme goes through, illegal aliens in Libya will be moved to a transit center and ultimately Anytown, USA instead of pushing on to Europe.

Yippee! They could be part of Donald’s FY18 45,000!

(Fiscal Year 18 begins tomorrow!)

See all my posts, going back years, on the ‘Invasion of Europe’ by clicking here.

Trump White House press release seeks to justify 45,000 FY18 refugee cap

09/30/2017 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

This is more than the usual press statement from the White House on the Presidential Determination. In my experience previous statements have been shorter and certainly not so defensive.

trump-tillerson-haley-mcmaster-super-tease — Whose bright idea was it to ‘split the baby’ and place a cap on refugees arriving in the US at a number to anger both sides (Tillerson, Trump, Haley, McMaster?) Unless he morphed into Obama, Trump will never make the Open Borders Left happy, so why look weak and disrespect the base?

Below (hat tip Richard at Blue Ridge Forum) are just some of the nuggets (interspersed with comments from me) that interested me. Read the whole thing here.

It reads like a press statement to justify suspending the whole program, or at least dropping the number significantly! 45,000 is not a significant drop!

President Donald J. Trump is Taking a Responsible and Humanitarian Approach on Refugees

President Trump has determined that up to 45,000 refugees may be admitted into the United States in Fiscal Year 2018. [George Bush averaged under 45,000 admissions from FY 2002-2008.—ed]

Editor: The difference between us and other countries being flooded with ‘refugees’ is that those refugees will not become permanent voting citizens in places like Jordan, Turkey and Lebanon. Those we take are on a path to citizenship.

With this new ceiling, the United States will continue to permanently resettle more refugees than any other country and we will continue to offer protection to the most vulnerable…

Editor: Remember readers that successful asylum seekers (those granted asylum) are refugees eligible for all the perks and privileges given to the refugees we fly in. They can access welfare and become citizens. They are refugees even if the media continues to say that the likes of the Boston Bombers are not refugees.

The decision reflects the need to concentrate limited resources on the approximately 270,000 aliens who have applied for asylum but have not been properly vetted, and are already present in the United States.

Editor: The next time you hear the contractors/volags say there are no terrorists in the refugee pool in America, remember this:

As of February 2017, more than 300 individuals who were initially admitted to the United States as refugees were under FBI investigation for potential ties to suspected terrorists.

Since 2011, there have been at least 20 admitted refugees who have been arrested or removed from the United States based on terrorism investigations.

In 2016, a Somali refugee attacked 11 Americans at Ohio State University in Columbus, Ohio.

Since the terrorist attacks of September 11, approximately two dozen individuals who had been admitted to the United States as refugees have been removed or arrested and convicted of terrorism-related offenses.

Editor: This is the first time in a long time we have heard a word about any state or local say about what is being dumped on communities from Washington, but couched in squishy language (help build trust in refugee resettlement). Who wrote this press release???

In February, the President met with local sheriffs at the White House to hear their concerns, including those about refugees who were resettled in their communities without local input.

President Trump believes in enhancing existing efforts to work closely with State and local leaders to help build community trust in refugee resettlement efforts while also determining the best placement of resettled refugees in the United States.

Editor: Regarding this next section of the White House press statement, there is no mechanism in place for any refugees who have been admitted to the US to go home. Over the years penniless unhappy refugees have come forward to say they made a mistake and want to go back home, but can’t afford to pay the airfare. We have argued that there should be a way to accommodate their wishes.

One primary goal of United States refugee policy is to enable refugees to ultimately return home, where they can be reunited with friends and family and help rebuild their communities.

[….]

The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) spent more than $96 billion on programs supporting or benefiting refugees between 2005 and 2014.

HHS surveys from the Obama Administration show that 45% of refugees arriving between 2011 and 2015 were receiving cash assistance, 49% were receiving Medicaid, and that nearly 75% were receiving Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits.

Read it all here. I am sure I will be revisiting it.

45,000 is way too many and nothing here has changed my mind about that!

Indeed much of what is written above could have been used as justification for suspending the whole program!

And, by the way, where is the much more useful report that is supposed to have been delivered to Congress before the determination?

Endnote: In case you missed it, Donald began welcoming those Australian rejected asylum seekers just this week as he surpassed his 50,000 CEILING for FY17 by 3,695! Total as of this morning for FY17 is 53,695.

Maybe the Prez should invite those mostly single men who have lived in detention for as long as 4 years to the White House and show them to the media (and show his family what a humanitarian he can be)!