The IOM is the International Organization for Migration.
Until not too long ago it was a non-profit group just like the other federal resettlement contractors that depended mostly on taxpayer funding (like they do) and was (still is) involved with processing refugees in to the US (and elsewhere).
It is now an agency of the United Nations and you might see evidence of them (their bags visible in airports worldwide) as they shepherd migrants around the globe.
You saw those bags in this photo (below) of the Australian rejected ‘refugees’ as they were leaving detention on their way to Anytown, USA. (BTW, some reports said that the IOM bought the detainees some really nice clothes and shoes.)
Here is the Washington Post story entitled:
Trump nominee for U.N. migration post called Muslims violent, Christians top priority
(I didn’t know that the US gets to nominate the chairman, but I guess that makes sense because we supply the IOM with most of its money!)
Emphasis below is mine:
The Trump administration’s nominee to coordinate billions of dollars in assistance to migrants around the world has suggested in social-media posts that Islam is an inherently violent religion and has said Christians in some cases should receive preferential treatment when resettling from hostile areas.
In tweets, social media posts and radio appearances reviewed by The Washington Post, Ken Isaacs, a vice president of the Christian relief organization Samaritan’s Purse, made disparaging remarks about Muslims and denied climate change — a driving force behind migration, according to the agency the State Department has nominated him to lead.
In June, after a terrorist attack in London, Isaac reposted and commented on a CNN International story that quoted a Catholic bishop saying “This isn’t in the name of God, this isn’t what the Muslim faith asks people to do.”
Now (drum roll please) here is what Isaacs said that the Washington Post and critics of Isaacs say disqualifies him from this job!
The WaPo continues…..
Isaacs responded: “CNN, Bishop if you read the Quran you will know ‘this’ is exactly what the Muslim faith instructs the faithful to do.”
Isaacs was announced Thursday as the Trump administration’s pick to become director general of the United Nations’ International Organization for Migration, or IOM. The 169-member organization has a nearly $1 billion annual operating budget and for decades has deferred to the United States, one of its top benefactors, to lead the organization.
Trump’s pick could be at risk of being the first U.S. nominee since the late 1960s to lose an election by the group’s voting members, according to several people involved in international relief coordination.
“I don’t know the nominee, but I’ve seen some of his statements and they reflect a troubling prejudice that is really incompatible with a position of leadership for the world’s most important international migration agency,” said Eric Schwartz, president of Refugees International and a former assistant secretary of state under President Barack Obama.
“The person who leads this needs to be a symbol of the international community’s support for humanity. And that means that dark-skin people and Muslim people have the same inherent worth as any other people.”
Continue reading the Washington Post here.
We urge the President to not withdraw this nomination.
And, heck, if the IOM board votes him down, consider cutting IOM funding (after all, now that the number of refugees being admitted to the US is slowing, you won’t need their services so much!).
See my archive on Eric Schwartz here.