Venezuelans are not refugees, but you will be told they are!

03/25/2018 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

I don’t know how many times I have to say it, but people on the move because they need work and food (or their climate is changing some), or fear crime in their own countries are not legitimate refugees requiring resettlement.

Venezualans into Brazil — Venezuelans pour into Brazil. Photo: https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/brazil-declares-state-of-emergency-on-venezuela-border-over-migrant-influx-52fnsb7wg

By the internationally understood definition, a legitimate refugee must be able to show a credible fear of persecution—that they will be persecuted in their home country due to their race, religion, political persuasion and so forth.
The No Borders Left has for decades been trying to blur the definition suggesting that everyone moving for any reason is a refugee when the vast majority around the world are economic migrants.
Because the socialist government, in the once-rich Venezuela, has so ruined the country that people are starving is not a reason for refugee resettlement protection, nevertheless, watch for demands for resettlement as the crisis deepens.
Here Bloomberg headlines a story earlier this month with this choice of words:

Venezuelans, Go Home: Xenophobia Haunts Refugees

The story focuses on how Panamanians don’t want (poor and hungry) Venezuelans flooding in. Besides the word ‘refugees,’ you will be hearing that word Xenophobia more often too—-like in South Africa when the black South Africans are violent against their fellow black Africans. LOL! They can’t call it racism.
Xenophobia is the cool word, but what it really means is that humans are tribal, and horror-of-horrors no one wants to admit that!
Here are a few snips from the Bloomberg story with that headline:

Hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans fleeing economic collapse are crowding into cities and makeshift camps in Colombia, Brazil, Ecuador and throughout the region, the largest mass emigration in modern Latin American history. The resulting friction mirrors that in nations from the U.S., where immigration pervades the national debate, to Germany, where war refugees have upended politics, to Italy, where an anti-migrant party made stunning gains Sunday.

In Panama, the sympathy that greeted early arrivals from Venezuela, many wealthy professionals, is giving way to fear and resentment of the poor and desperate. It is evinced by outbreaks of nationalistic insults, harassment and even violence.

[….]

Venezuela’s slump since socialist autocrat President Nicolas Maduro took office in 2013 is the deepest in the Americas in recent history. Oil output, the economy’s mainstay, has plunged as the state producer runs out of money — and as Maduro imprisons its officials and replaces them with military men. Hyperinflation has made the currency worthless, and malnutrition is now endemic.

Almost 2 million Venezuelans are living outside the country.

Here is where they are:

venezuelans to US

Much more here.
I haven’t been following the Venezuelan issue and wondered if there was a push for Temporary Protected Status for those in the US, and sure enough there was such a push last summer (even Senator Marco Rubio was pushing it), but I can only assume the Trump Admin is not entertaining it.
I have a little-used category on South America. This post will be archived there and I expect more news will be coming from that region of the world as time goes on.
Since Brazil is being overrun by Venezuelans will they be so eager to take in more Syrians?
Endnote: I wonder if the SPLC hate list creators will create a new hate category (in addition to racists and Islamophobes) for xenophobes? For example, do you remember a few weeks ago when Somalis were fighting with African Americans (tribalism!) in a Minneapolis high school? Did the SPLC refer to the Somalis as xenophobes? What a dilemma for the SPLC—two of their favorite protected groups hate on each other!

GAO: Huge numbers of Special Immigrant Visa holders not finding work

03/23/2018 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

But a big problem, says the Government Accountability Office , is that neither the US State Department or the Office of Refugee Resettlement in HHS are doing much to track the outcomes of those admitted to the US from Iraq and Afghanistan who supposedly worked for us as interpreters.

I told you here recently that the number admitted to the US from those two violent countries is pushing 70,000 in the last ten years.
As Special Immigrant Visa (SIV) holders they are treated as full-fledged refugees with all the welfare benefits other refugees receive.
We have been told that the resettlement contractors*** are relying on these paying clients to keep federal dollars flowing to their budgets as the refugee flow they hoped for is not materializing.
Some members of Congress must have requested this GAO study because problems are obviously brewing with this portion of our ‘welcome’ to Middle Eastern Muslims. I did not read the whole report, here, but it seems that there are some pretty disillusioned SIVs who thought they would have good jobs and decent housing when they got here.
Here are a few snips from the summary:
Not exactly a bombshell title:

AFGHAN AND IRAQI SPECIAL IMMIGRANTS: More Information on Their Resettlement Outcomes Would Be Beneficial

What GAO Found

Since fiscal year 2011, about [about?—ed] 13,000 Afghan and Iraqi nationals (excluding family members) have resettled in the United States under special immigrant visas (SIV), but limited data on their outcomes are available from the Department of State (State) and the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). State collects data on SIV holders’ resettlement outcomes once—90 days after they arrive. GAO’s analysis of State’s data from October 2010 through December 2016 showed that the majority of principal SIV holders—those who worked for the U.S. government—were unemployed at 90 days, including those reporting high levels of education and spoken English.

Screenshot (313) — Very high unemployment rate at 90 days. Why is 90 days important? That is when their resettlement contractor is done with them and has moved on to the next batch of paying clients (aka refugees). By 90 days the SIV is expected to be self-sufficient. BTW, don’t you wonder who the 1,760 “interpreters” without “good spoken English” are?

GAO continues…

Stakeholders [must be referring to the resettlement contractors—ed] GAO interviewed reported several resettlement challenges, including capacity issues in handling large numbers of SIV holders, difficulties finding skilled employment, and SIV holders’ high expectations.

Officials from local resettlement agencies in Northern Virginia reported capacity challenges for their agencies and the community due to the large increase of SIV holders. In almost all of GAO’s focus groups with principal SIV holders, participants expressed frustration at the need to take low-skilled jobs because they expected that their education and prior work experience would lead to skilled work. [You can bet they aren’t going to the slaughterhouse jobs where contractors like to place those in their care.—-ed]

State and HHS have taken steps to address some resettlement challenges. For example, in 2017 State placed restrictions on where SIV holders could resettle and HHS announced a new grant to support career development programs for SIV holders, refugees, and others.

In addition, State provides information to prospective SIV holders about resettlement. However, the information is general, and lacks detail on key issues such as housing affordability, employment, and available government assistance. Providing such specifics could lead to more informed decisions by SIV holders on where to resettle and help them more quickly adapt to potential challenges once in the United States. [I don’t think that GAO knows that the SIVs original resettlement location is not chosen by the refugees, but by the State Department in conjunction with contractors*** as they bid for bodies (aka paying clients).—ed]

In light of so many disillusioned and unemployed SIVs, I sure hope that someone is reporting that news to others in the pipeline on their way to America!

Why the discrepancy in the numbers?

I wondered if GAO is downplaying the numbers on purpose…. were they as shocked as we are to find these enormous numbers?
In the summary, GAO talks about 13,000 SIVs since 2011, excluding family members, but in the full report they describe the real numbers we have placed in your towns and cities.
And, rather than saying “over 60,000”, they could have said closer to 70,000! As I reported early this month, using data readily available at the State Department’s Refugee Processing Center (Wrapsnet), we admitted from FY2008-right up to my post on March 8th, the numbers as follows:

Iraq: 18,084

Afghanistan: 49,358

Total to March 8th: 67,442
When I went to the full report they say this (below) on Page 1, but once again use the word “about.” They do clarify one point: “about 20,000” are the people who worked for us or on behalf of us, the remaining, over 40,000! are their family members.

Afghan and Iraqi nationals who were employed by or on behalf of the U.S. government in Afghanistan or Iraq and have experienced ongoing serious threats as a consequence of such employment, or who worked directly with the U.S. Armed Forces or under chief of mission authority as a translator or interpreter, may apply for a special immigrant visa (SIV) to the United States.

Upon securing a visa, the principal SIV holder and his or her eligible dependents may resettle in the United States and are granted lawful permanent resident status upon admission into the United States. Since fiscal year 2008, over 60,000 individuals—about 20,000 principal SIV holders and their families—have been admitted under SIVs and received federal resettlement assistance upon arrival.

SIV holders are authorized to receive resettlement assistance from the Departments of State (State) and Health and Human Services (HHS), as well as federal public benefits, to the same extent and for the same periods of time as refugees.

***These are the nine federal contractors working with the US State Department to place the SIVs and their families. Although GAO seems to have been fixated on how poorly the State Department and ORR are keeping track of the SIVs and their progress toward assimilation, it seems to me that the contractors should come in for more blame if their charges are doing so poorly.
The number in parenthesis is the percentage of the nine VOLAGs’ income paid by you (the taxpayer) to place the refugees, line them up with jobs, and get them signed up for their services! From most recent accounting, here.

German Chancellor Merkel still insists Islam belongs in Germany

03/23/2018 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

And, she continues to defend her decision to admit a million or so, mostly fake, refugees to the country. I hope the historians of Western Civilization out there are writing this down (especially since it will be Muslim historians writing in the next century if this keeps up).

Invasion of Europe news…..

From Quartz:

Merkel insists Islam is part of Germany in the first speech of her new term

She’s been chancellor of Germany for 12 years, reduced to a caretaker for the past six months until she could form a new government. Today (March 21), Angela Merkel gave the first speech of her latest term to parliament, addressing the controversial topic of migrants and their place in German society.

GERMANY-EUROPE-MIGRANTS — Merkel v. Seehofer: What will historians say about them?

The chancellor directly contradicted her new interior minister—an old foe when it comes to the topic of refugees—Horst Seehofer, leader of the Christian Social Union. Seehofer sparked a furor last week when he told the Bild newspaper that “Islam does not belong in Germany.”

“There is no question that our country is historically Christian and Jewish,” Merkel said.“It is also true that Islam has in the meanwhile become part of Germany.” She acknowledged, however, that some Germans find that hard to accept.

[….]

Merkel said the atmosphere in Germany had become “polarized,” and the refugee crisis of recent years had challenged the country “in an unprecedented way.” She noted that Turkish and Italian immigrants had played a vital role in the rebuilding of post-war Germany and that their families were part of mainstream life.

About 4.5 million Muslims live in Germany, and the majority rejects radicalism, the chancellor said.

Unusually for Merkel, she admitted that in retrospect, her initial hope that the chaos of the war in Syria wouldn’t harm Germany was naïve. It soon became clear that the country wasn’t prepared for an influx of displaced people, she said, describing the taking in of more than a million refugees was a necessary “humanitarian exception.”

More here.
My complete ‘Invasion of Europe’ archive is here (it goes back many years). My posts on Germany are here.

South African xenophobia is the reason some Somalis are in Mankato, MN

03/22/2018 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

When I saw this—one more story on Trump’s ‘Muslim ban’ and the slowdown in refugee arrivals to America, it was just one more ‘ho-hum’—so what else is new.
But, like most of the stories a little nugget pops out that gives me a better picture of how the UN and the US State Department are changing America. Only rarely do I see stories that tell us where other African blacks experiencing hatred from black South Africans are moving to. This is one of those where we see the pipeline start to finish!
Of course they can’t call it racism when its black vs. black, so for those Somalis who arrived in South Africa as illegal aliens and were transformed into refugees for your towns and cities by the thousands, they say it is xenophobia that is responsible for their ticket to America.

The story is about Mankato, MN a city that went from a 19% poverty level in 2000 to a 26% in 2015 being resettled with Somalis by the Minnesota Council of Churches (a Subcontractor of Church World Service).
That (left) is the CWS logo in the picture below…..

cws protest at wh — Here we have an anti-Trump protest by federally-funded Church World Service and HIAS with CAIR at the White House in January. https://refugeeresettlementwatch.org/2018/01/28/church-world-service-and-hias-join-cair-to-protest-at-white-house/

…. and it is Church World Service that is paid gobs of taxpayer dollars to run the resettlement program for the US State Department out of Kenya and out of Johannesburg, South Africa.
Here is the Mankato Free Press falling for the big boo-hoo story on the drop in number of Somalis arriving in that southern Minnesota city.

MANKATO — Refugee resettlement in the Mankato area has slowed over the past year amid President Donald Trump’s attempts to ban travelers from certain Muslim-majority countries.

The local drop is a reflection of what’s happened statewide and nationwide, adding further uncertainty for refugees already in the middle of lengthy resettlement processes.

Somali refugees and their families awaiting reunification in Mankato have been most impacted by the ban.

Ben Walen, director of refugee services with the Minnesota Council of Churches, said his organization knows of 16 individuals who would’ve likely settled in Mankato before September 2018 if the ban never happened. Now he doesn’t expect them to arrive in Minnesota before the end of the year. And an arrival next year is anyone’s guess.

Then this is what I found most informative. Minnesota Council of Churches employee, Habiba Rashid, came to Minnesota as a refugee from xenophobia in South Africa (aka the “Rainbow Nation”). Then she got her family in through chain migration.
So, as I have been saying, the white South Africans who are being persecuted by racist black South Africans should apply to the UN and Church World Service to get to the US as refugees. Head on over to that UN/Church World Service office in Johannesburg and (try to) get on the list!
After all, CWS is paid by the head to bring refugees to the US, it shouldn’t matter to them whether they are black or white, right?
Mankato Free Press continues…

Not knowing when the wait will end has been hard on families in the area, said Habiba Rashid, who settled in Mankato with her husband six years ago.

“Families here are panicking,” she said.

Now a community navigator in the council’s Mankato Area Refugee Services office, she waited six years before her resettlement here and another four afterward for her mom, dad and siblings younger than 18 to join — a timeline she describes as “lucky” compared to others. She said a term like “chain migration” is a misleading term for what should be thought of as family reunification.

Calling it chain migration also assumes refugees can just attach family members to their resettlement applications, which she said doesn’t resemble her experience or the experiences of the families she knows.

[….]

Aid organizations try to comfort them, knowing many waiting for resettlement grew so restless they turned to dangerous crossings into Europe.

Others who wait out the process in countries like South Africa, like Rashid’s family did, face xenophobic attacks.

More here.
If I were organizing a campaign to bring the persecuted white farmers to America, I think I would start writing to key offices at Church World Service, like these below:
Address to Church World Service. Re: Save the South African White Farmers!

Screenshot (310)
See my extensive South Africa archive, here.
Don’t miss my post from yesterday where Minnesotan Bob Enos tells us what a fictional Somali family is costing taxpayers of that state and nation.

Judge dismisses Tennessee States' Rights case on refugee resettlement

03/22/2018 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

A Tennessee judge this week moved to dismiss a case that would have, we believe, once and for all, settled the issue of whether the federal government can place refugees in a state and expect state taxpayers to pay for many of their needs.

Screenshot (308) — So sad. I had such high hopes for AG Sessions. He of all people should have known how significant this case is.

But, as you read the story, remember that the Judge was dismissing the case because the US Justice Department (Jeff Sessions) asked for the case to be dismissed.
We told you back in May that DOJ lawyers were pushing for dismissal.
I find it stunning that AG Jeff Sessions did not see the significance of this Tenth Amendment case for, not just the refugee resettlement program, but for other programs where the feds dump financial responsibility on states that don’t want it! (And, don’t tell me he might not have known what his lawyers were doing!).
Here is Neil Munro writing at Breitbart on Tuesday:

A March 19 federal court decision requiring taxpayers in Tennessee to fund the federal government’s refugee program ignores a 2012 Supreme Court decision, says Richard Thompson, president of the Thomas More Law Center.

The judge’s 43-page decision on the refugee program “is filled with appealable issues,” Thompson told a Tuesday event hosted by the Center for Immigration Studies. “Our view is that we should appeal it” at no cost to state taxpayers, said Roberts, who is the lead pro-bono lawyer in the case.

tenth amendment

“We would relish that … this case could very well end up in the Supreme Court,” he said.

A Supreme Court majority ruled in 2012 that the federal government cannot force states to fund federal programs, so “the judge basically backed off because it was too controversial and ruled on the basis of standing,” Thompson added.

The case is important for many states because the federal refugee program forces state taxpayers and governments to fund most of the welfare, aid, and education costs of federal government’s policy of dropping refugees and their children in the states, he said. If states balk at paying the costs, the federal government can threaten to cut their share of federal funding for the Medicare program, he said.

In Tennessee, the federal Medicare program funds one-fifth of the state budget, or $7 billion per year.

[….]

The judge did not hold a hearing on the case but relied on written statements from the plaintiffs and defendants.

The judge’s decision shows the political power of the federal program, said Mark Krikorian, director of the center. “A state can check out of the refugee program, but it can never leave,” he said.

More here.
As I understand it, it is now up to the state of Tennessee to decide to take the Thomas More Law Centers‘ offer to appeal the case, free of charge. (Or, will big industry—meatpackers!—prevail on the pols to drop the whole thing so their steady supply of cheap refugee labor continues to flow into the state.)