I’m happy to report on a letter-to-the-editor at Syracuse.com because I had meant to post on the original article that generated this reader’s letter and never got around to it.
Letter-writer George Checksfield is referring to an article, here, in which we learn that the State of New York is plugging the “hole” created by lost federal revenue for Catholic Charities (from you really, the taxpayer).
He wants to know why does a private group like this need taxpayer dollars to hold on to employees they don’t need.
In 2014, Syracuse’s Holy Trinity Catholic Church became a mosque and these Catholic Charities refugee pushers don’t even get what is happening to them. https://refugeeresettlementwatch.org/2014/03/30/syracuse-refugee-group-buys-catholic-church-will-be-converted-to-a-mosque/
The mainstream media rarely makes the connection clear to the average taxpaying citizen reading a story like this that there is a direct relationship between the number of refugees being brought in and Catholic Charities of Onondaga County (this one and many others throughout the US) budget.
Their payments from the feds are based on how many refugees the agency places. It is a per refugee head basis and so big families bring in bigger bucks to CC (sorry for the zillionith time I’ve repeated that!).
When the President reduced the number of refugees being admitted to the US, it caused all these federal contractors to see their budgets shrink.
So, federal refugee contractor Church World Service is beefing up its political activist activities with new hires and holding events like this one on Sunday in the heart of Amish country. (And they are not just protesting for more refugees, they want open borders for all!).
Lancaster advocates, leaders criticize immigration policies during ‘March for Humanity’
Decrying the strict immigration policies that have made the U.S. border harder to cross in both legal and illegal ways, Lancaster’s preeminent refugee resettlement organization led a call for action on Sunday.
“We have to stand up, be loud and lift our voices in solidarity with all of our neighbors regardless of where they’re from,” Stephanie Gromek, a spokeswoman for Lancaster’s Church World Service office, told a crowd of more than 100 in Penn Square.
Marching for humanity?
In a “March for Humanity” event, CWS and civic leaders criticized several decisions by President Donald Trump’s administration — from reducing the number of allowed refugees to separating immigrant families at the border.
Trump capped refugee admissions last year at their lowest point since 1980.
The change led to CWS resettling 144 refugees in the last 10 months compared with 407 two years ago, director Sheila Mastropietro said. They’ve had to cut staff as a result and now have 23 full-time employees — three less than a year ago. [Three less, big deal!—-ed]
The group is now moving to bolster its advocacy role. With some new funds raised through the national organization, they’ll hire a new grassroots organizer to help refugees and immigrants become more active in the community — from volunteering to voting, Mastropietro said.
[….]
Lancaster Mayor Danene Sorace was elected to office in November 2017
Matt Johnson, chief of staff to Lancaster Mayor Danene Sorace, said the city is trying to build on its reputation as the place where more refugees are resettled per capita than anywhere else in the country.
“We can and we must do more,” Johnson said. “Our reputation as the refugee capital of the United States needs to be backed by redoubled efforts and even more commitment to immigrants and refugees.”
That includes creating a “language access plan” that ensures everyone can communicate with the government and certifying Lancaster as an official “welcoming city,” Johnson said. It also includes reasserting that city police will not do the work of Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers, he said.
That is from a recent Center for Immigration Studiesreport by Jason Richwine who analyzed the most recent Office of Refugee Resettlement Annual Report to Congress.
The news comes at a time when the President is deciding how many refugees could be admittedto the US in FY19 which begins on October first.
John Binder at Breitbart penned a short piece on the CIS study entitled:
More Than Half of Foreign Refugees Are on Taxpayer-Funded Food Stamps
More than half of the annual inflow of foreign refugees arriving in the United States are on food stamps, a government report reveals.
Since 2008, as Breitbart News reported, the U.S. has permanently resettled more than 1.7 million foreign nationals and refugees through a variety of humanitarian programs like the Special Immigrant Juveniles and the Nicaraguan Adjustment and Central American Relief Act. This is a foreign population larger than Philadelphia, Pennsylvania — a city with more than 1.5 million residents.
An annual report by the Office of Refugee Resettlement was analyzed by the Center for Immigration Studies’ Jason Richwine, in which the analyst revealed that about 56 percent of households headed by foreign refugees who arrived in the U.S. between 2011 and 2015 are using taxpayer-funded food stamps.
Nearly 30 percent of refugees received cash welfare of some sort, while 34 percent of refugees 18-years-old or older said they had no health insurance. Of the refugees who said they did have health insurance, about 50 percent said they were either on Medicaid or Refugee Medical Assistance, both of which are taxpayer-funded.
The sampling used by the Office of Refugee Resettlement is tiny and dependent on how many of the refugees they can find via phone calls and how many will even participate by answering questions if they are found.
A large number are not even participating in the survey because of language barriers.
We have told you about the Annual Reports for years. Here is just one post in 2013 where we reported that food stamp use was 70% in Obama’s first year in office—2009!
Even in spite of the possible under counting in the welfare use sections, the reports are treasure troves of information for those of you trying to better understand how the refugee program works and what it might be doing to your towns and cities.
One of the things you will see in the reports is information on how many other grants and goodies the contractors receive over and above their per refugee head payment.
The US is no doubt importing poverty, something that the designers of the original Refugee Act of 1980 promised would not happen.
And, if you are saying to yourselves that new immigrants aren’t supposed to be eligible for welfare, remember that prohibition does not apply to refugees!
SNAP is of course food stamps. Note that nearly 20% receive Social Security disability benefits—yikes!Next after food stamps, taxpayers fund medical care for a very large percentage of refugees.
Just so you know we admitted 69,933 refugees to the US in FY2015 and for the whole accounting period above (FY11 through FY15) the total was 324,508 according to data at Wrapsnet.
Cutting numbers is a good start and we applaud the President, but the whole program must be reformed.
Do it now!
Contact the White House and tell the President what you think! See contact link in right hand sidebarhere at RRW.
This is an update of the story from Colorado Springs—a story getting almost no media attention—where an Iraqi refugee is charged with critically wounding a local police officer.
AG Sessions: Al Khammasi should not have been in the country!
Breitbartis reporting that Attorney General Jeff Sessions used the near fatal shooting of Duzel as something that would not have happened if earlier courts had not blocked the Iraqi refugee’s deportation in the wake of other crimes he had previously committed.
But that isn’t the important bit of news I want to focus on…..
Buried in the Breitbartstoryhere, is perhaps the first time in ten years that I have seen any reporter make a direct connection between a refugee’s violent crime and the resettlement agency responsible for his placement in the state—Lutheran Family Services is specifically mentioned in news reports.
They have monopolized working the system for decades!
How dare a 32-year-old Trump adviser mess with their finely tuned system that has kept the public in the dark for decades about how the refugee resettlement program works in America!
Remember this:
“Elections have consequences, and at the end of the day, I won.” – President Obama to House Republican Whip Eric Cantor, January 23, 2009.
Yup!
Reporter Tracy @abigailtracy
Vanity Fair writer Abigail Tracy (20-something) swallowed all of the propaganda from the usual gang of long-time Open Borders refugee industry advocates like Anne Richard and Eric Schwartz (both affiliated with George Soros in their careers) and other deep-staters who won’t be named with no flicker of understanding that Stephen Miller isn’t using his vast knowledge of the Washington game because of a personal animus toward refugees.
He is reflecting a public sentiment on immigration that got Donald Trump elected President of the United States and when it comes to refugees, the public was getting sick of the secrecy and underhandedness of those surrounding the then victorious Obama.
Not to mention sick of paying for a refugee program that NEVER took in to consideration the views of the citizens living in communities secretly chosen to ‘welcome’ refugees.
[See Judicial Watch sues to get Obama-era records on choosing resettlement sites!]
It is way past time to scrap the entire US Refugee Admissions Program and then see if there is the political will to reform it.
So now the shoe is on the other foot, someone who has concerns with the Refugee Program and how it has operated since the early 1980s and who also understands how government works (placing the President’s people in key positions) has these shameless Leftwing Open Borders agitators flummoxed and furious!
So, federal refugee contractor Church World Service is beefing up its political activist activities with new hires and holding events like this one on Sunday in the heart of Amish country. (And they are not just protesting for more refugees, they want open borders for all!).
