Refugee lobby in high dudgeon over Trump refugee numbers slump

03/27/2018 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Their paying client numbers are very low right now and could hit an all-time low if this trend continues.
I started this post simply wanting to let readers know what the normal sequence is in a given year as the feds move toward the next fiscal year, but then I noticed the press release from the Refugee Council USA-–the lobbying arm of the refugee industry.
I wanted to get the jump on them as we approach the 6-month mark in the refugee admission year of FY18 by telling you what the time table for their action will be. (Fiscal years begin on October 1 and extend to September 30th, so April first marks the 6 month mark.) So, I’ll do that, then tell you about the press release.

Mary and Eleanor — Ms. Giovagnoli is now the director of the Refugee Council USA the lobbying arm of the refugee industry and on the left is Eleanor Acer of Human Rights First at an earlier event.

And, I said here yesterday, admission numbers are way below where they would normally be at this time of year (that isn’t to say they won’t rebound in the second half of the year because some of that depends on how much cash Congress put in the recent gigantic omnibus).
Abstract prep
At about this time in a normal year, the subcontractors are busy as beavers in hundreds of US towns and cities putting together their ‘Abstracts’ in secrecy. That is the plan for your community with how many refugees your local agency desires.
Scoping meeting sham
In a normal year the US State Department holds a scoping meeting in about May to basically see how many refugees the contractors want in the upcoming year and where they might come from. (The State Dept. did not hold such a meeting last year that we know of, and I’m betting the newbies in there don’t even know about it.)
Ostensibly the scoping meeting is to gauge your views too, but in a number of years where we participated and many of you, my readers, sent in comments, it was pretty clear that the State Department did not want to hear about objections to the program. If anyone is interested in what we said, there are dozens and dozens of posts filed here about what happened in 2012-2016 with those “scoping meetings.” (See category drop-down for State Department Testimony.)
It would be nice (and fair!) if the State Department reinstated scoping meetings and made them available to all Americans. Heck, it would be great if they went on the road and held hearings!
Presidential determination for coming year
The Abstract prep and the scoping meetings were (are) lead-ups to August when the President’s people supposedly meet with Congressional committees in the House and Senate to discuss the coming year. There are supposed to be Congressional hearings (before the submission of the ceiling) at this point, but that never happens.
The President then sends a ‘determination’ letter (and report) to Congress for the new fiscal year which begins October 1. The President decides what the CEILING will be for the coming fiscal year—how many refugees and from where. This is a CEILING, A CAP, and is not a goal although the contractors want it to be a goal or target.
I told you yesterday about the myriad stories in the media about “plummeting” numbers.
And, also yesterday, the lobbying arm of the refugee industry—Refugee Council USA sent out a press release to whack the Trump Administration and beg for this year’s 45,000.
Right now, for new readers, the CEILING is 45,000, but at the present rate of entry we will get no where near that (thus the press blast yesterday from RCUSA).

Washington, D.C. – Midway through Fiscal Year 2018, the Trump administration has admitted only a quarter of the 45,000 refugees it pledged to take in, making it highly unlikely that the United States will meets its anticipated admissions goal. Instead, the administration appears to be on track to admit roughly 22,000 refugees, far below any admissions number since the modern refugee program began in 1980. Today, Refugee Council USA (RCUSA) gathered experts to discuss the immediate and long-term implications of this failure.

More here. Mary, Eleanor and others participated.

Trump and Pompeo — Mike Pompeo at the State Department is still a wildcard!

Get ready for the big FY19 push to start at any time
Although they are still in panic-mode and pushing for the 45,000, this is about the time of year the yammering begins for next year’s numbers. The contractors shoot really high.
Watch them ask for 100,000 or more (to make up for lost time and lost revenue for them).
Last year, because of Trump’s campaign promises they were pushing for a paltry 75,000. What will it be this year? We will be watching!
The Refugee Council USA has an Activist Toolkit that you might benefit from seeing. Click here. It might give you some ideas!

I sure hope that none of this is being paid for with our tax dollars! Congress are you paying attention?

And lastly, I got a chuckle seeing this sample letter (from the toolkit) that refugees are encouraged to send to newspapers:

RCUSA sample letter

TB cases take big jump in big Apple

03/27/2018 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Health officials claim they don’t know why….
….but then go on to point out that most cases are among immigrants! Too funny if it weren’t such a deadly serious business.

tuberculosis-cartoon — Is this the scariest cartoon!

From the New York Post (Hat tip: Judy):

The number of tuberculosis cases in New York City suddenly jumped by 10 percent last year — the largest increase since 1992, according to the Health Department.

TB is a highly infectious bacterial disease that largely attacks the lungs, but can also infect and spread to other organs, including the kidneys, spine or brain.

[….]

In an alert to medical professionals Monday, the Health Department offered no explanation for the surge.

[….]

Sixty-three percent of TB cases occurred among males.

TB disproportionately affects foreign-born New Yorkers — accounting for 86 percent of all cases in the city.

Many of the infected city residents came from China, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, India or Mexico.

For much more on the re-emergence of Tuberculosis in the US, see my ‘health issues‘ category by clicking here.

Parents arrested in teen abuse case; father was an Iraqi interpreter for US

03/27/2018 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

There are dozens of reports in publications around the world about the case of a missing San Antonio teen, Maarib al-Hishmawi, now found alive and well in the care of an unnamed organization that protected her.
She went into hiding because she didn’t want to go through with an arranged marriage (this is the United States!) and she reported she suffered physical abuse by her parents because of her refusal to essentially be sold to a man she didn’t know for $20,000. (Did I mention that this is the United States!).

Maarib screenshot — Photo from: http://english.alarabiya.net/en/variety/2018/03/26/Iraqi-girl-tortured-with-Hot-Oil-in-US-for-refusing-forced-marriage.html

I read several stories on the case and note that some, including the Washington Post, skirted the subject of just how this family came to live in the US in the first place.
At other reports, including here at the Daily Caller, we learn that Maarib’s father was an interpreter and thus is likely to have been admitted on a Special Immigrant Visa.
Faithful reader know that I have been writing about the huge number of Afghans and Iraqis (with extended families) which have been arriving in the US for the last ten years and the pace has actually been increasing, especially from Afghanistan, during the Trump Administration. (This family obviously arrived during the Obama Admin.)
See my recent posts on SIVs here and here.
Here is the Daily Caller, but if you simply search for ‘Maarib al-Hishmawi’ you will see the story has gone viral.

Authorities arrested a Muslim couple from Iraq March 23 in San Antonio, Texas, for beating and torturing their daughter after she refused a forced marriage.

Sixteen-year-old Maarib Al Hishmawi ran away from Taft High School at the end of January and remained missing until authorities announced they found her as of March 24, according to the San Antonio Express-News. When authorities finally located Maarib, she told them she fled because her parents beat her with broomsticks, poured hot cooking oil on her, and choked her “almost to the point of unconsciousness.” These actions were due to Maarib’s refusal of consent to a forced marriage with an older man.

Iraqi girl parents — Parents arrested last Friday

“This young lady … was subjected to some pretty bad abuse because she didn’t want to be married to this person,” Bexar County Sheriff Javier Salazar told The Washington Post.

Maarib’s parents, Abdulah Fahmi Al Hishmawi and Hamdiyah Sabah Al Hishmawi, arranged in mid-2017 to marry their daughter to an older man once he agreed to pay the family $20,000, investigators said.

[….]

Abdulah became increasingly agitated during the investigation, blaming a lack of police effort for his daughter’s continued disappearance and even suggested she was kidnapped and taken back to the Middle East. Authorities found Maarib, however, in mid-March in another city. They declined to name the group who sheltered her during that time.

[….]

Abdulah immigrated to the U.S. in 2016 from Iraq with his six children after having worked for the U.S. forces as an interpreter, he said. Maarib’s family held two year visas for the U.S. but did not go into detail about what kind of visas they were, Officials told San Antonio Express-News. [I don’t know what the reference to two years is, perhaps they have to renew it at that time. I’ll see if I can find out.—ed]

More here.
I should mention that SIV families come under the care of the usual gang of US State Department resettlement contractors and are treated as refugees. So, assuming they were resettled in San Antonio, resettlement agencies headquartered there would know them. I guess these parents missed the cultural orientation sessions they were supposedly given.
I expect to see women’s rights activists and the NOW gang out in force condemning arranged marriages!
Find resettlement agencies working where you live by clicking here. They can place refugees within a hundred miles of those offices.