Day: November 15, 2017

Obama to UN in 2013: We will take 50,000 from DR Congo off your hands

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

That is what we learned here in June 2013 when Anne Richard, then Asst. Secretary of State for Population Refugees and Migration for President Obama, announced the deal presumably to begin in Fiscal Year 2014 and continue for five years.

 

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Richard with then UN High Commissioner for Refugees Antonio Gutteres who is now Secretary General of the UN.

 

I just checked the numbers (at Wrapsnet) and see that we have admitted 38,431 from FY14 to the present. So, expect UN pressure to take 11,569 more Congolese from UN camps in Africa over the next couple of years.

(By the way, going back to FY08, we have admitted 48,870 from DR Congo in nearly a decade.)

But…..

We learned the stunning news just a couple of days ago that some of those DR Congo ‘refugees’ would return to African camps if they could. See Utah here.

Although the Trump Administration has slowed the flow from camps in countries like Tanzania, we sure hope that maybe the trend (saying “no” to the UN) will continue.

We can’t afford to bring more extremely impoverished and uneducated people to America (with huge families to boot) to live jobless and unhappy in roach-infested apartments! Doesn’t sound very humanitarian to me!

(In case you are wondering, only 1,860, 3% of the DR Congolese we have admitted since FY08 are Muslim. The remainder represent many religious groups.)

One of the key takeaways for readers is that once we begin admitting large numbers from certain countries, mostly because the UN tells us to, the flow never stops.

Anyone suggesting stopping the flow is hit with the ‘how can you be so cruel to keep family members out’ meme.

Somalis are a prime example—we’ve been admitting them for decades—will we ever stop?  How many decades do we continue to clear out the never-ending UN camp pipeline?

Over the next few days I’m going to tell you about some other ethnic groups we aren’t ever going to stop—from Burma, Nepal (Bhutanese) and Iraq—unless someone has the guts to tell the UN NO! No more.

And, this is why it’s a good thing we didn’t open the Syrian spigot in a big way!

Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society sues Trump Administration again

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

They apparently want to make it clear to the Muslim world that they are the good people.

 

HIAS we support Muslim neighbors
From The Jewish News of Northern California https://www.jweekly.com/2017/11/13/jewish-family-services-silicon-valley-files-suit-halt-refugee-ban/

 

Here is what Mark Hetfield CEO of the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society (aka HIAS) said in an e-mail yesterday. (Emphasis is mine)

The Trump Administration shows no signs of backing off their policies against refugees, so we’re taking the Administration to court. Again.

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HIAS could lose more than half of its funding if the US Refugee program was dismantled. See below. Don’t miss Hetfield’s salary! Doing well by doing good!

From the moment the first executive order banning refugees and travelers from Muslim countries was issued on January 27th, HIAS and our partners in the American Jewish community have opposed every attempt by President Trump to close America’s doors to those in need of protection.

Our outrage has only grown stronger with every new executive order that prevents thousands of refugees from finding safety in the U.S.

Enough is enough. Together with our longstanding local resettlement partners Jewish Family Service of Seattle and Jewish Family Services of Silicon Valley, HIAS yesterday filed a suit to again challenge restrictive policies that seek to prevent vulnerable refugees from finding freedom and safety. As we have for the last 136 years, we will continue to work tirelessly to ensure that America remains a country that welcomes refugees instead of turning them away.

Then here is the news from Seattle:

Lawsuit: ‘It’s the dismantling of the U.S. refugee program’

rabbi berkowitz
Rabbi Berkovitz says Trump is dismantling the whole refugee program which would mean HIAS will lose millions of taxpayer dollars for its advocacy work. (LOL! he didn’t say the last part!)

“People are dying who were given permission to come into this country. It’s tragic,” said Rabbi Will Berkovitz, CEO of Jewish Family Service of Seattle, one of the refugee agencies that’s filed the lawsuit.

“The agenda that’s really thinly veiled here is the dismantlement of the refugee resettlement program as a whole,” Berkovitz said. “Not for now, but forever.”

The lawsuit claims the order is unconstitutional, discriminates against Muslims and gives preference to Christian refugees. [The US might actually give preference to Christians, what is the world coming to!—ed]

You have to give them credit for chutzpah!

HIAS has been a long-time supporter of the Lautenberg Amendment which gave preference for resettlement to Soviet Jews among others, see here.

So are they now saying that the Lautenberg Amendment must go?  Look for HIAS to reverse itself and ask Congress to abolish Lautenberg (Ha! Ha!).

Here is what we learned from the Jewish agency in California:

Plaintiffs are being represented by the International Refugee Assistance Project at the Urban Justice Center; the National Immigration Law Center; attorneys Lauren Aguiar, Mollie M. Kornreich and Abigail Sheehan Davis; Perkins Coie; and HIAS.

Learn more about the director of the National Immigration Law Center when she was bragging and disparaging then candidate Donald Trump by clicking here. Jim Simpson and I attended the spectacle.

This is a screenshot from a recent financial accounting post on the nine federal refugee contractors:

Screenshot (1077)_LI
Since all of the refugee contractors receive funding by the head for the refugees they place in your towns, and if the Trump Administration continues to lower the incoming numbers it blows a hole (a crater!) in the budgets of the big nine. HIAS could lose about $23 million if the program was dismantled as they (supposedly) fear.