That headline is the important takeaway from this story at NorthJersey.com.
Although largely built around the demise of a recently established resettlement site—Newark! Newark! Yes, Catholic Charities was gearing up to place impoverished third worlders in Newark—the long article is pretty informative.
It begins with a whinefest about all the used clothes and furnishings the new office had collected for the needy people they planned to welcome to the city.
I’m sure you will have the same reaction as I did—what! No poor people in Newark who could use these items!
Why are foreign poor people so much more deserving (and attractive) than our own poor and homeless?
Here are a few snips from the story:
Pillows and bedding were stacked against a wall, while pots, pans, dishware and cleaning supplies spilled from boxes in rows of overloaded bookcases. In two other rooms, piles of folded clothing, shoes and toys shared space with hand-me-down sofas and dressers.
Sandra Fils glanced around the basement of the office building in Cranford and wondered if the donated items would ever find a home. Catholic Charities of the Archdiocese of Newark had collected them as it prepared to welcome dozens of refugees — a wave that has failed to materialize.
“Right now, we don’t have refugees,” said Fils, division director of workforce Development at Catholic Charities. “We are basically not doing the work that we are dedicated and committed to do.”
[….]
So far this year, fewer than 7,000 refugees have been let into the United States, of whom just 48 settled in New Jersey, according to the State Department’s Bureau of Population, Refugees and Migration. With less funding and fewer clients, refugee agencies are now scaling back their operations and relying more heavily on community support to keep their offices afloat. Some are shutting down local offices.
This month, less than two years after the Newark Catholic Charities office started its refugee resettlement effort, employees learned that the program would be shutting down.
What a difference a couple of years (and an election) make!
Back in the closing years of the Obama Administration, the US State Department was creating new resettlement sites at a rapid pace—over 40 were in various stages of the planning process—and we were scrambling to try to figure out where they were because secrecy has always been the watchword of the program.
The article goes on to report the dramatic drop in numbers of refugees arriving, then this….
The big news!
Leaders of the refugee agencies worry about even more severe cuts in the fall, when the new fiscal year begins. The State Department has said that it will not renew contracts with some of the nine agencies*** that resettle refugees in the United States, a blow for faith and charity-based groups that have been serving refugees for decades. Officials have not indicated which agencies will lose contracts.
In this next paragraph we see that reporter Hannan Adely has done her homework.
Rarely do you see information on taxpayer-provided payments to the mostly ‘religious’ charities that contract with the government. In fact, seeing this information provided to the public is one of the big changes I’ve noticed since I began writing RRW in 2007.
Resettlement agencies receive $2,125 for initial costs like rent, security deposits and furnishings for each person they assist. Other support programs are funded with state and private grants and donations. [Private grants are very small compared to federal grants.—ed]
As the resettlement contractor placing the largest share of refugees in to your towns and cities, the Catholic Bishops/Catholic Charities are surely now taking the greatest hit to their budget.
The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops’ migration and refugee services department resettles around 30 percent of all refugees who arrive in the country each year. It has already closed nine resettlement sites and 11 more are at risk in the coming year, said a spokesman, Mike Priceman.
There is much more here.
*** These are the nine federal contractors that have monopolized refugee resettlement in the US, some for decades! Which one (or more than one?) will get the ax?
The number in parenthesis is the percentage of their income paid by you (the taxpayer) to place the refugees and get them signed up for their services (aka welfare)! From most recent accounting, here.
If you are wondering, I post this list every chance I get because we have new readers daily and because I want all of you to know that for reform to be possible these nine fake non-profits have to go.
- Church World Service (CWS) (71%)
- Ethiopian Community Development Council (ECDC) (secular)(93%)
- Episcopal Migration Ministries (EMM) (99.5%)
- Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society (HIAS) (57%)
- International Rescue Committee (IRC) (secular) (66.5%)
- US Committee for Refugees and Immigrants (USCRI) (secular) (98%)
- Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Services (LIRS) (97%)
- United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) (97%)
- World Relief Corporation (WR) (72.8%)