That is a rally partially sponsored by the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) to be held in Washington, DC this coming week. (As of this writing they have 847 confirmed planning to attend, here.)
I told you about it here when the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society was pushing its groupies to attend.
Curious about whether the other eight federal refugee contractors (some receiving nearly all of their funding from the US Treasury)*** were involved, I asked in that post if anyone knew.
I got my answer just now at twitter when the lobbying arm of the refugee industry (Refugee Council USA) put out this message:
So who are the membersof the refugee lobbying consortium. Here they are:
***Check out those logos, below are the nine contractors. Where is Congress? Shouldn’t there be a law that if you take most of your funding from taxpayers, you shouldn’t be marching in the streets against the President and us!
Think about it! All nine contractors (the Catholic church included!) are telling their people to march against the President and for CAIR!
Why don’t they just take good care of the refugees they are being paid to care for!
Yesterday it was St. Cloud, MN and today it is Rutland, VT!
Getting the monkey off their backs!
Mayors and Councils across America, when confronted by citizens with questions and concerns about the UN/US Refugee Admissions Program, brush off citizens with the usual garbage line—it is a federal program and they have no role in it.
Mayor attempting to get the citizen ‘monkey’ off his back by saying he has no power. This is a federal program!
Yes, they do! The Refugee Act of 1980 did give local governments a role.
And, repeatedly the State Department has said they don’t send refugees to places where they are not wanted. Mayors and councils could go on record with their opinions, but at minimum they should be attending QUARTERLY STAKEHOLDER MEETINGS. And, they should be involved in preparing the annual R & P ABSTRACT (see post yesterday).
Here we have news from Rutland, VT where the previous mayor was ousted by voters for working secretly with a refugee contractor and the new mayor depends on getting his news from a state bureaucrat. Does he attend their meetings? I bet he is not even aware of the plan the contractor in Vermont sent to the US State Department not too long ago, let alone have seen it.
Shame on any mayors who are not intimately involved in preparing the plans submitted to the State Department each year for the city or town he/she is responsible for!
RUTLAND – Rutland has recently received word that the number of refugees an agency plans to resettle in the city in this fiscal year has been reduced from 100 to 75.
[….]
Rutland Mayor David Allaire said Thursday that litigation and court action nationally associated with the president’s immigration orders raises uncertainty over just how many refugees will actually be resettled in the city this year.
In the prior fiscal year, three families, totaling 14 refugees, resettled in Rutland. The plan had called for up to 100 Syrian and Iraqi refugees to resettle in the city by Sept. 30, about a year after the city had been designated a resettlement site by the U.S. Department of State.
Why weren’t the mayor and aldermen in on the planning process?Do they even have a copy of the final R & P Abstract? Denise should give it to them! Or, do they have it and aren’t sharing it with the public. Either way it is not good!
Signs like this helped defeat previous mayor!
Denise Lamoureux, state refugee coordinator, recently sent an email Monday to leaders of community organizations in Rutland discussing the change.
The U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Population, Refugees and Migration “has approved a preliminary revised plan with an objective of 75 rather than 100 refugees for Rutland for federal fiscal year 2018 (10/1/17 to 9/30/18),” the email stated.
[….]
The issue of refugee resettlement had been a hot-button topic in Rutland during the mayoral election in March that saw Allaire win the job over longtime incumbent Christopher Louras.
The former mayor had been a strong supporter of the refugee resettlement program, while Allaire, then a veteran member of the city’s Board of Aldermen, had opposed it, citing a lack of transparency in theprocess. [Where is the transparency now?—ed]
For the past several months there has been little, if any, debate or discussion about refugee resettlement at city meetings.
“My feeling about this right along has been if indeed there are more families that are coming into Rutland, refugee resettlement families, I would welcome them as I would anyone else,” Allaire said Thursday. “This is a federal program, the Rutland government has no control over the numbers or anything else.”
See my Rutland archive, here. The major federal contractor operating in Vermont is USCRI. You will see a lot about them when you visit previous Rutland posts. Of all the arrogant contractors, they are near the top of my list!
From time to time over the years we have mentioned that refugees are required to repay their airfare loans they receive from you, the US taxpayer.
Citizen watchdog, Judicial Watch, reported yesterday that they asked, through the Freedom of Information Act, for records on those loans. No information was received and JW sued. Now in response to legal filings, the DOS (Trump’s State Department!) says they have no records!
How could that be! We know that the resettlement contractors are tasked with sending the dunning notices to impoverished refugees and that the contractors—including those kind souls at the US Conference of Catholic Bishops—keep 25% of what they collect for themselves. So someone must be keeping records!
I’m guessing the mystery relates to the fact that the public (if fully informed) would react negatively to finding that the repayment rate is pretty low and that the contractors*** put a quarter of anything repaid in their pockets (so they can teach ‘new Americans’ all about debt!).
(First Judicial Watch, then see below, what a coincidence to see a sob story on airfare loans at NorthJersey.com just yesterday as well.)
In response to a Judicial Watch lawsuit, the State Department claims in a legal document that it has no records involving refugee travel loans that the agency gives foreigners overseas to buy plane tickets to fly to the United States. The program is operated by the International Organization for Migration (IOM), an intergovernmental group that assists refugees worldwide with hundreds of millions of dollars from Uncle Sam. The money is channeled through the State Department’s Bureau of Population, Refugees and Migration (PRM). In fiscal year 2016 the State Department gave IOM $477,257,564, according to the agency’s report on contributions to international organizations. That doesn’t even include millions more that the State Department gives the IOM for special refugee resettlement “platforms” that pop up throughout the year. [IOM is now part of the United Nations—ed]
[….]
In a federal court document responding to Judicial Watch’s lawsuit, the State Department writes that its “search did not retrieve any records reflecting the number of refugee travel loans furnished per year using U.S. Government funds, the number of such travel loans defaulted on annually, nor the amount of money written off per defaulted loan.”In a footnote the agency writes that it did retrieve some records reflecting IOM’s “general reporting” on refugee travel loans, but none of it contained the “specific information sought” by Judicial Watch. This is outrageous because it suggests that the State Department can’t account for money American taxpayers are lending to foreigners to fly here to declare themselves refugees. A source with inside knowledge of the matter confirmed to Judicial Watch that the records exist and years ago a State Department insider provided figures that show only about half of the travel loans have been repaid since the program was launched in the 1950s, representing a loss of hundreds of millions of dollars to American taxpayers. Judicial Watch viewed the records, which span from 1952 to 2002 and reveal that the IOM issued $1,020,803,910 in “transportation” loans and recovered only $584, 219,453.
Continue reading here at JW’s “Corruption Chronicles.”
Now check this out! Coincidence? Just yesterday (JW’s news was yesterday) NorthJersey.comreports on poor Syrian refugees who can’t repay those loans!
Clearly this is a State Department program, so how can they possibly say they don’t keep records. In fact, how do the contractors get their 25% cut if no one is keeping records?
WE have to teach these refugees about borrowing money so that will help them be better Americans say contractors!
The travel loan program is supposed to help families build a positive credit history in the United States, advocates say. But families like the Al Samakehs worry that the reverse will be true and that they’ll be saddled with debt and a bad credit rating.
The State Department established the travel loan program after the passage of the Refugee Act of 1980, setting up a revolving fund for the continued support of refugees. Before they travel, refugees agree to repay the interest-free loans for travel costs within four years, including a six-month grace period.
The agencies that resettle and help refugees in their new lives also oversee repayment, collecting a 25 percent commission.
It helps refugees build good credit. Most pay the loan back. How do we know, if there are no records?
Sean Piazza, a spokesman for U.S. Programs at International Rescue Committee, one of the resettlement agencies, said the arrangement teaches refugee families financial literacy and helps them build a credit history. That, he said, “can later help realize huge steps in a family or individual’s self-sufficiency, including automobile or home ownership.”
Erol Kekic, executive director of the Immigration and Refugee Program of Church World Service, said the travel loan program is controversial, but that building good credit could help refugees. He also said that clients get financial counseling and that most pay back loans on time.
“They go into it knowingly and they try to honor their responsibility,” he said.
So, the State Department had records in 2015!
Nationally, around 70 percent of loan balances are repaid within five years and 78 percent are repaid within 10 years, the State Department reported in 2015. The average loan amount is $1,200 per person.
This is from the annual report of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops Migration Fund in 2014 showing clearly the travel loan collection fee of over $3 million. More recent financial docs show a similar pot of money. So, if the DOS has no records on travel loans, how do the Bishops determine their income from collecting loans (from getting the money out of the impoverished refugees they “serve.”)
Still, some critics say the agencies’ [the volags, the contractors—ed] role poses a conflict of interest. Steven Sacco, an immigration attorney at a New York City nonprofit legal organization, said a debate about the loan program had been stifled because the agencies that are primary advocates for refugees also make money from the program.
“They’re trying to support themselves and their mission, but because they are short on cash they guard their income sources,” Sacco said. “It’s a conflict of interest because it’s a burden on the people they serve.”
Sacco argued that the loan program should be illegal because it amounts to a tax on refugees.
This is one more reason that Congress should be investigating the UN/US Refugee Admissions Program.
*** Here are the contractors who monopolize all refugee resettlement in America. Six consider themselves ‘religious charities.’
By the way, back in 2007 when resettlement contractor Church World Service came to the county where I live, one of the first revelations to me came when an English language instructor told me about some poor refugee who didn’t speak English coming to her to ask about a letter he didn’t understand—it was his letter from the contractor to begin repaying his airfare loan through them. It came as an unhappy surprise to him.
Update October 16th: James Simpson at Bomb Throwers takes on Ms. Wolfe and gives a good summary of the resistance movement going on across America.
I thought Foreign Policymagazine was supposed to be a credible, thoughtful place where foreign policy eggheads debated the big issues of the day. I guess not!
writer Lauren Wolfe says this (below) about RRW (and the Center for Immigration Studies) showing a complete lack of understanding of the on-going debate raised to new heights about the use of the words “assimilation” and “integration” during Obama’s tenure.
This is a postI wrote to explain it to my readers. Although it began before Obama, Obama’s open borders agitators were bent on getting the word “assimilation” out of use throughout the government. Trump has just brought it back. If Ms. Wolfe is giving me credit, I’ll take it!
Keep it up girls! Everytime I think that 10 years of putting out the facts about refugee resettlement is long enough, along comes someone like Ms. Lauren here to inspire me to keep going!
You will have to read the whole story yourself, but here is the part that appears in my alerts today.
(You see how these Leftwing ‘journalists’ write, and Foreign Policy goes along with it, using hot button words to describe me, and then she doesn’t even link to the post I wrote on the subect, so readers won’t see what I did say!)
Ms. Wolfe….
Indeed, the language in the directive is suspiciously similar to the language used online by white supremacists and members of the alt-right, including Ann Corcoran, who in June 2013 lamented on her nationalist website, Refugee Resettlement Watch, that the term “‘assimilation’ is no longer a part of government lexicon and does not even occur in dozens of recent reports and papers generated about refugee resettlement.The operative term in vogue now is ‘integration’ with its clear intent of maintenance of ethnic identity.” And it’s not just that Trump’s determination echoes the language of racists and hate groups — such groups seem to have played a direct role in this language modification. The Sept. 29 White House fact sheet cites as a source the Center for Immigration Studies, an organization that the Southern Poverty Law Center classifies as a hate group because of the “fear-mongering misinformation” it publishes about immigrants.
Do you know why she is so angry?
Hint: It is not about great-grand-pa!
She is angry because the Left has always controlled the language and they can’t stand it when we demonstrate that the jig is up!
CEO Harpstead pulls down a salary and benefits package of over $300,000 annually to head the $91 million a year operation. Link to Form 990 below.
If they succeed they will be placing 27 more than they did in FY17 which ended on the 30th of September.
Checking Wrapsnet, here is a summary (below) of the refugees (mostly Muslims) who were placed by a subcontractor (Lutheran Social Service of Minnesota) of the Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service mothership located in Baltimore.
Refugees who went to St. Cloud in direct resettlement (there are no reliable numbers on secondary migrants) last year are below.
Secondary migrants are refugees placed elsewhere who migrate (legally!) on their own to another town or city.
Minnesota does have the highest number of secondary migrants in the country as we learned a few years ago when such information was published.
In FY17 St. Cloud received 198 of the 1,623 refugees resettled in the entire state.
Burma (4)
Ethiopia (19)
Iraq (9)
Somalia (166)
St. Cloud had the second highest Somali resettlement after Minneapolis (364).
Here (below) is the FY18 R & P Abstract for St. Cloud.
This is the document that should be made available to the public BEFORE it goes to Washington. These numbers are determined by Lutheran Social Service in Minnesota (Harpstead’s organization) with the help of “stakeholders.” Stakeholders should include your local elected officials!
Normally this document is kept from the general public, but we were fortunate enough to obtain it. Knowledge is power and that is the primary reason there is so little transparency with refugee resettlement. The feds and the contractors don’t want citizens to have all the facts!
I maintain that if the program is a good one for the community, they should be able to sell it with all the facts on the table!
Below are screenshots of the pages. Serious students should go to this post where I explained some of the numbers, categories etc. But, I am far from an expert!
Documents like this (reporting the capacity of your town to ‘welcome’ refugees and from where) come in to Washington from hundreds of towns and cities and are put together to become the basis for the Presidential determination which we know is a maximum 45,000 refugees for FY18(which is now underway as of Oct. 1).
Again, knowledge is power!
I leave it to you, again with the help ofthis postto examine the plans that Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service in conjunction with the US State Department and the US Department of Health and Human Services have in the works for St. Cloud.
LOL! Do you see that line in the last chart about voluntary hours/miles? What that represents is the number of hours and the miles that volunteers put on their own vehicles converted to a cash value. The contractor uses that figure to show the federal government that they have put some skin in the game (it is supposed to be a public-private partnership after all). I wonder do volunteers know that they are worth money to the contractor?
Check out the actual cash from foundations/corporations in FY16 and the enormous jump estimated for FY18. Is that realistic? Can they just make up numbers?
Housing specialist? So the refugees get a housing specialist? Do just regular poor Americans get one from LSS of MN?
The most recent Form 990 for LSS of Minnesota is here (or see LSS financials page):
Citizens in St. Cloud, see my complete archive on what I’ve reported about your city since 2008.
Concerned citizens elsewhere, go to the list of contractor/subcontractors I linked above. Call one near you and ask for the FY18 R & P Abstract(Reception and Placement Abstract). Ask your local elected officials—mayor and council—if any of them have ever seen the plans for their town/city?
Addendum! If you get a runaround complain to your elected officials in Washington—your member of Congress and US Senators. If they can’t (or won’t!) get it for you, then you have even more to complain about!
