Day: January 16, 2018

Acting Asst. Secretary of State for PRM, Simon Henshaw, steps down

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

He says it has nothing to do with the fact that under the Donald Trump Administration the number of refugees being admitted to the US has plummeted. (I checked yesterday and in the first 2 weeks of January only around 200 came in.)
For new readers, the Assistant Secretary of State for Population, Refugees and Migration is normally a political appointment used by a new President to set a tone in the Department of State reflecting his (or her) political view on the controversial issue.

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Anne Richard with then UNHCR Antonio Guterres. Richard is a hard core ideologue who has recently been speaking around the country against Trump and his immigration policies. 

President Obama had two hard core Leftwing Open Borders advocates running the program. The first was Eric Schwartz and many of you know of Anne Richard who was selected after Schwartz moved on.
The job is a political appointment that requires Senate approval (both of Obama’s picks were approved).
However, here is the rub:  Donald Trump has put no one forward for this position thus leaving it in the hands of State Department career professionals. 
Perhaps he has a strategy behind that—-one less battle with Senate Dems, and Rs like Flake and Graham, and maybe it is easier to shrink the program without a leading figurehead.  I don’t know the answer.
Anyway here is the latest news at a pro-more-refugees website.
LOL! My first thought when I saw this was: okay where is Hans and his reporter pal at Reuters?
From Refugees Deeply:
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Henshaw is moving on….

The top U.S. diplomat dealing with refugees has resigned his post. Simon Henshaw became the third senior official dealing with refugees to depart or be reassigned in recent weeks.
The acting assistant secretary of the State Department’s Bureau of Population, Refugees and Migration (PRM) said it was a routine professional departure.

“It very honestly had to do with the fact that I’d felt I’d spent enough time,” Henshaw told Reuters. “I’m used to moving on every two or three years.”

The 33-year public service veteran said his move was not a protest at the Trump administration’s refugee policies, which have seen cuts to financial support and resettlement numbers as well as travel bans.

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Carol O’Connell is moving in:  https://www.state.gov/r/pa/ei/biog/bureau/272122.htm

Henshaw, who has been with PRM since 2013, will hand over to Carol O’Connell, the deputy assistant secretary of state for African affairs. On January 9 Lawrence Bartlett, previously the head of the refugee admissions office at the State Department, was reassigned to the office handling Freedom of Information Act requests.

Since taking office, President Donald Trump has suspended the entire refugee program for four months, slashed resettlement places and funding for refugee programs and withdrawn the U.S. from the negotiations for a global compact on migration.

Earlier in January, Barbara Strack, chief of the Refugee Affairs Division at U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, under the Department of Homeland Security, said she would retire this month.

The White House is also preparing to slash funding to the U.N. agency supporting Palestinian refugees (UNRWA).  [Yippee!—ed]

See our stories on Bartlett, here and Strack, here. (Hans and reporter pal again!).
I bet the head honchos of the nine US State Department refugee contractors are running as fast as they can to meet O’Connell (if they haven’t done so already).  If past is prologue, she will be their information pipeline (and advocate, they hope).
Here are the nine that are largely funded (involuntarily) by you, the taxpayer:

No surprise! UN Secretary General (Socialist) Antonio Guterres pushing mass migration

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Update: Leo Hohmann has more on this story at his new website, here.
In his argument posted at The Guardian, he says more legal pathways are needed because they (from the third world) are coming illegally (whether we like it or not).  Sounds like blackmail to me!
He also confirms my oft-repeated contention that it is the desire by industries for labor that we should be satisfying in the new borderless (dream) world.

Aspiring migrants, denied legal pathways to travel, inevitably fall back on irregular methods. This not only puts them in vulnerable positions, but also undermines governments’ authority. The best way to end the stigma of illegality and abuse around migrants is, in fact, for governments to put in place more legal pathways for migration, removing the incentives for individuals to break the rules, while better meeting the needs of their labour markets for foreign labour.

Thanks to reader Deb for sending me Jihad Watch’s take on his screed here.  See discussion there about hijrah and the OIC.

Obama delivers remarks to reporters as he welcomes Guterres in the Oval Office at the White House in Washington
Guterres in happier times (December 2016)  https://refugeeresettlementwatch.org/2016/12/03/big-smooch-from-obama-to-new-un-secretary-general-guterres/

Then check out Breitbart’s report :

United Nations Secretary General António Guterres has unveiled his plan to promote global mass migration in the left-liberal Guardian newspaper.

 

Guterres, a former Socialist Party prime minister in his native Portugal, took over the top job at the UN on January 1st, having previously served as the institution’s High Commissioner for Refugees.

His article, titled ‘Migration can benefit the world. This is how we at the UN plan to help’, makes the bold claim that mass migration “powers economic growth, reduces inequalities and connects diverse societies”, in order to promote the Global Compact for Migration.

“This will be the first overarching international agreement of its kind,” he boasted — but claimed it would not “place any binding obligations on states”, but rather serve as “an unprecedented opportunity for leaders to counter the pernicious myths surrounding migrants”.

Trump dumps!

Breitbart continues:Trump at UN

These assurances have failed to convince the Donald Trump administration in the United States, with the White House rejected it as “simply not compatible with US sovereignty”, and President Trump summarizing it as “no borders, everyone can come in!”

Then this….

He [Guterres] made the contentious claim that migrants “take jobs” that local workers “cannot” fill, and asserted that this is a positive thing. He also attempted to spin the fact that migrants send huge sums of money straight out of their host countries and back to their countries of origin as a kind of supplement to foreign aid.

Breitbart continues here.
Pay attention to this last issue above about remittances.  It is huge!
I remember when the Temporary Protected Status for Salvadorans was up for renewal under George W. Bush.  It was quickly renewed with his administration saying that the money the Salvadorans sent OUT OF THE US ECONOMY was propping up El Salvador (so we needed to continue doing that).
Guterres at RRW:
We followed Antonio Guterres here at RRW for a decade since he was previously the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (before moving up to top dog position at the UN).
Go here for my Guterres archive.
Just a reminder that in June of 2009, as UNHCR, he said it was sharia law that underpins international refugee law and United Nations refugee activities. See here:

New York, 23 June (AKI) – The 1,400-year-old Islamic custom of welcoming people fleeing persecution has had more influence on modern international refugee law than any other traditional source, according to a new study sponsored by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).

High Commissioner Antonio Guterres said that more than any other historical source, Islamic law and tradition underpin the modern-day legal framework on which UNHCR bases its global activities on behalf of the tens of millions of people forced from their homes around the world.

Take that Christians and Jews! You thought Biblical Judeo-Christian charity predated Islam, silly you.