Month: September 2017

White House could announce refugee ceiling for FY18 this week

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

“We don’t really know who is driving this train”

(whines Melanie Nezer of the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society)

Update: My friends at VDARE cross-posted this story and added an excellent chart that illustrates the ceilings and admissions over the years. See here.

The decision could come this week and the contractors*** are scared to death that the number could be 50,000 or lower. At least that is what VICE News is reporting and they clearly have an inside line to Leftist/Open Borders leakers in the administration if this report is to be believed, and I have no reason not to believe it.

It also confirms the vibes I got listening to the HIAS conference call last week—the contractors are out of the loop!

Before you read the VICE story, be sure to see my post yesterday entitled:

Consider the optics Mr. President! Thousands of impoverished people arriving in the US when Americans are homeless

Now, here is VICE News (emphasis is mine):

The Trump administration is expected to drastically reduce the number of refugees that will be allowed into the United States in the coming year, VICE News has learned.

Stephen Miller 2
VICE reports that Stephen Miller is butting heads with Mattis and McMaster over refugee numbers for FY18 (which begins in a little over 2 weeks)

Multiple sources, including an official in the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program (USRAP) with direct knowledge of the situation, say Trump plans to cap refugee admissions for the 2018 fiscal year at no more than 50,000. That limit would be the fewest in modern history, and less than half as many as President Obama authorized last year.

[….]

Trump hasn’t yet made a final decision on refugee admissions, the sources said, but according to the USRAP official, “it won’t exceed 50,000” and could even be fewer. White House officials and members of the National Security Council were scheduled to discuss the refugee cap Tuesday, and an official announcement could come as soon as this week.

[….]

A White House spokesman declined to comment on “internal discussions” about refugees. The State Department, which oversees U.S. refugee resettlement programs, told VICE News the cap would be set “after appropriate consultation with Congress” and before the start of the 2018 fiscal year on October 1, but declined to answer additional questions.

According to a source familiar with the discussions, Stephen Miller, Trump’s senior advisor for policy, has been the leading advocate for fewer refugee admissions, and has attempted to sideline other key players in the discussions, including Defense Secretary James Mattis and National Security Advisor H.R. McMaster.

[….]

In his proposed budget for 2018, which is under consideration by Congress, Trump calls for slashing the budget for refugee resettlement from $544.7 million to $410 million. Overall spending on U.S. refugee programs, including ones that provide aid to refugees and displaced people overseas during humanitarian crises, would be cut by 13 percent, falling from $3.1 billion to $2.7 billion.

[….]

Under the Refugee Act of 1980, which established the current standards for screening refugees and admitting them into the country, the president has broad authority to dictate how many refugees the U.S accepts. In certain years the U.S. has admitted fewer refugees than allotted, but Trump’s proposed cap would be the lowest ever.

melanie-nezer

Transparency my a**!

This next bit should make your blood boil if you have been (for years) a citizen activist in your community and have been excluded from refugee planning meetings and denied documents about your towns/cities!

Humanitarian groups, which have typically been consulted ahead of a final decision by the president, complain they’ve been completely shut out of the process this year.

Melanie Nezer, senior vice president of public affairs at the refugee resettlement agency HIAS, said in past years there was transparency and an open dialogue between the White House, the State Department, and Congress, but uncertainty is now the status quo. [THERE WAS NEVER TRANSPARENCY FOR TAXPAYERS AND CITIZENS QUESTIONING HOW THEIR MONEY WAS BEING SPENT AND WHO WAS COMING TO THEIR NEIGHBORHOODS!–ED]

“We don’t really know who is driving this train,” Nezer said. “We’re guessing like everyone else. That’s very unusual. In prior administrations, both Democrat and Republican, we’ve been a real partner on this.”

Continue reading VICE here.  However, have a look at accurate numbers for the ceilings and actual admissions here.  Obama never set a ceiling anywhere near 110,000 until he was walking out the door in 2016.  Also there were many years when admissions dropped below 50,000.

For new readers, the point to remember is that each refugee (client) comes with a pile of money (taxpayer dollars) attached that goes to the contractors, like HIAS, to keep their phony-baloney ‘non-profit’ groups afloat.  See (here) how much they are being paid to do their ‘charitable good works.’

(BTW, HIAS is one of the plaintiffs in the ‘Travel ban’ lawsuit against the President while pocketing millions of federal dollars.)

We have been arguing for weeks that the President should suspend the program altogether for FY18 and tell Congress to investigate the program with an eye to reform it.  Irma and Harvey have made that the most sensible course of action.

America First!

We have refugees of our own!

Tell the President what you think by clicking here to get instructions…Tell your members of Congress and US Senators too!

***The federal contractors paid by the head for refugee “clients” they place (secretively!) in your towns and cities:

So what would motivate Chechens to kill gay men?

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Just now I was scrolling around to see what the reaction is among members of the refugee industry about the Kennedy decision at the Supreme Court yesterday.

So I stopped by Amnesty International and see that, of course, they are not thrilled, here.

(But, as I have told you innumerable times, the Supremes went too far in the first place and much of what people are having anxiety attacks over will be moot in a few weeks.)

But, then I noticed this action item and was interested to see their involvement in saving gay men in Chechnya from kidnapping and death (that is good), but I noticed one important item not mentioned in their action item for supporters.

Amnesty to their supporters: Tell those bad Russians what you think…..

 

Screenshot (830)

Screenshot (831)

 

So tell me, what have they failed to mention?

95% of Chechnya is Muslim. Islam directs the killing of gay men.

As the demographic makeup of a country becomes more Islamic, they become emboldened.

Maybe if Amnesty was more honest about the source of the prejudice they could save more people instead of making it sound like the bad ol’ [rightwing] Russians (who have little control over Chechnya!) are to blame.

Consider the optics Mr. President! Thousands of impoverished people arriving in the US when Americans are homeless

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

 

Irma in Florida
Irma damage in Florida. This article says the cost of hurricanes Harvey and Irama to the US economy will be $290 billion.  I’ve seen higher estimates. http://www.businessamlive.com/hurricanes-harvey-irma-damages-cost-us-economy-290-bn-accuweather-says/

 

As I have said until you are surely sick to death of it, President Donald J. Trump is expected to present to Congress a ‘determination’ within days about how many third world impoverished people will be admitted to the US beginning on October 1.

But, here is the thing—he has complete authority to say that NO refugees will be admitted in FY18 because the Refugee Act of 1980 gives that power to the President!

In the last 2 days, three reporters (that I know of) wrote about suspending, or shutting down, the UN/US Refugee Admissions Program for this year.

Frank Sharry
Open Borders activist Sharry admitted that Trump can “zero the program out.”

First, Thomas Allen at VDARE wrote this (read it all, it is full of historical knowledge about the program).  Allen mentions this:

But even Open Borders activists recognize Trump has the legal authority to set the number at zero for 2018. Frank Sharry [Email him] a leading Treason Lobbyist, told a group of activists at the National Partnership for New Americans conference in September 2017 [2016-ed] that Trump could “zero the program out” if he chose to. And Congress certainly could zero out the funding of the program if it chose to.

Not only did Sharry acknowledge this, but so did Bill Frelick from Human Rights Watch, here.

Bill Frelick of Human Rights Watch: “…there is no requirement that the U.S. resettle a single refugee….”

And, indeed HIAS executives reported (here) that George W. Bush delayed a Presidential determination in the wake of 9/11 without any legal consequences to him. (The administration must have been worried about Islamic terrorists getting in to the US even then!)

Harvey trash
Harvey leaves American homes in Texas ruined by flood waters. Maybe the refugee contractors could get their volunteers busy helping Americans first!

Next, read Daniel Horowitz yesterday at Conservative Review.

And, finally don’t miss Leo Hohmann at World Net Daily where I am quoted saying this:

Ann Corcoran, who has followed refugee resettlement for more than a decade, said Trump has plenty of reason to do just that and still come across as a great humanitarian by focusing on needy Americans.

“The public should be outraged to learn that in the wake of Hurricanes Harvey and Irma, which have left tens of thousands of Americans homeless, that we are poised to take in thousands of impoverished refugees when we now have our own refugees, struggling people who have lost their homes, lost everything, with their lives shattered, living in tents, shelters and RVs,” Corcoran said.

“To bring in more from other countries in a time like this would be the ultimate insanity.”

Read it all.

The refugee industry (the resettlement contractors and the cheap labor lobby) want you to think that the President must submit a determination of at least 50,000 for the upcoming fiscal year, but it just isn’t so!

Tell the President what you think by clicking here to get instructions…Tell your members of Congress and US Senators too!

America First!

Catholic Bishop Dolan says that the USCCB is not after more money when defending DACA kids, I beg to differ

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment
Bannon and Dolan
Bannon vs. Dolan! If the general taxpaying public had any idea of how many of their tax dollars ‘find their way’ in to the Catholic Church they would be getting out the pitch forks and hitting the streets! Bannon hit them where it hurts!

You can read about all of the back and forth as Steve Bannon maintained that the Bishops want more immigrants because it means more cash in their coffers and more bodies in their pews (see Michael Leahy at Breitbart).

Maybe more cash isn’t reason number one (‘social justice’ is), but it is most assuredly reason number two!

They were discussing mostly illegal immigrants, but you need to know that all of the federal refugee resettlement contractors*** (including the US Conference of Catholic Bishops) supported the Gang of Eight Amnesty back in 2013 because it would have expanded their taxpayer-funded role from resettling refugees (getting them their social services) to helping all the newly amnestied file their paperwork and get their government-supplied goodies.

The Gang of Eight Amnesty contained a “slush fund” for our usual gang of contractors (euphemistically called immigrant-serving organizations) according to an analysis by the Center for Immigration Studies, see here.

Up until this point in time, I wondered why refugee contractors would support amnesty for millions of immigrants who would then compete for limited jobs with refugees that those same ‘non-profit’ groups were tasked to find employment for! It made no sense on a humanitarian level, but it does on an economic level.

Jon Feere for CIS:

Section 2537 of the Schumer-Rubio bill provides “Initial Entry, Adjustment, and Citizenship Assistance” grants to public and private, non-profit organizations that promise to help illegal immigrants apply for the amnesty (p. 384). For example, this includes help with “completing applications”, “gathering proof of identification”, and “applying for any waivers”. But the recipients of these funds are given a lot of discretion, as the funds can also be used for “any other assistance” that the grantee “considers useful” to aliens applying for amnesty. The bill appropriates $100 million in grant funding for a five-year period ending in 2018, plus any additional “sums as may be necessary for fiscal year 2019 and subsequent fiscal years”. (p. 392). There are no limits to the amount of money that may be given out to pro-amnesty groups.

So the Bishops have (and had in 2013) every reason (social justice and money!) to support amnesty (which is what DACA is). The Gang of Eight amnesty didn’t pass, but you can be sure any legislation to legalize the DACA ‘children’ will contain grant money as a pass-through to help them ‘adjust’ their status.

Then there is the payola the USCCB gets every year to resettle refugees. 

Here is the USCCB segment of my recent analysis of the nine major federal refugee agencies budgets:

US Conference of Catholic Bishops Migration Fund (97% taxpayer funded)

Now it gets even trickier! The Bishops don’t file a Form 990 and their operations are so vast, I could spend the whole day and still not sort it out.  Also, maybe you can find one, but I have not found an annual report for their refugee program since I found this one for 2014.

So we will have to rely on it (again). Keep in mind these funds for their refugee resettlement program do not include millions that go directly from the feds to some individual Catholic Charities and Dioceses around the US. (If you are researching your local CC or Dioceses, you can often find good numbers at USASpending.gov)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“Federal grants” is your money, so is the Travel Loan Collection Fees, so that puts the Bishops’ refugee resettlement program at 97% taxpayer funded.  (I am not sure if the Unaccompanied Alien Children fall in to yet another fund!).

I would like to get a more up-to-date accounting for the Bishops, but they must be hiding those reports really well!  I suspect they are pulling down even more payola in more recent years.

Obviously we don’t know what salaries are being paid for their Washington, DC lobbying shop. Their previous head lobbyist was Kevin Appleby.

Go here to see how the Bishop’s money compares with the other eight major federal contractors.

And, that isn’t all there is. 

You can search individual Catholic Charities (USASpending.gov) and find even more of your money going  to local dioceses for migrants. I promise you, you will be blown away by the amounts of money flowing from the US Treasury to your local diocese.

In addition to the US Refugee Admissions Program, Catholic Legal Services gets a vast amount of federal money to pay for lawyers for the ‘kids.’  I’ll leave that research to you.

***For new readers, these are the nine major federal refugee contractors which would have financially benefited from Amnesty in 2013.  We can never thoroughly reform the refugee program (or immigration itself) as long as these nine are paid by you to lobby, community organize, sign immigrants up for welfare, and act as head-hunters for big businesses in need of cheap labor.

It is time for all of these quasi-government agencies to raise their own private money for their charitable ‘good works.’  If they give up their federal hand-outs then they will demonstrate that caring for human beings is their first and only concern!