LOL! I hope I can stick with doing a series because juicy fresh news is so much more fun to write about. But here goes….
I’m sure many of you wonder how the resettlement contractors, the nine*** I always mention, end up with millions and millions of taxpayer dollars when they are paid by the head to resettle refugees.
You have probably noticed that the per head payment doesn’t seem to match up with the millions each get from the US Treasury.
Well, let me tell you, that per head payment from the US State Department is only half of the story! The great variety of lucrative grants they are eligible for from the Office of Refugee Resettlement in the Department of Health and Human Services supply the rest!
(I sure hope the Trump Administration is squeezing them financially at HHS!)
It’s been years (in some cases) since I talked about the grants available to contractors for administering such things as special federally matched savings accounts, planting community gardens, educating refugees about how to have healthy marriages, or to promote ethnically appropriate daycare for Somalis and others.
Today I want to talk about the vaguely described grant program called “PREFERRED COMMUNITIES” which I see as just an excuse, with no legal basis, to send the big nine more of your money!
When you visit ORR’s website today you get this very cursory description of what it means to get a Preferred Community Grant:
Since the early 1990s, preferred communities have provided resettlement services to newly arriving refugees. Preferred communities allow ample opportunities for early employment and sustained economic independence. In addition, they support special needs populations.
Two types of preferred communities programs are available:
~Programs that receive a minimum of 100 new refugees annually.
~Programs that receive a proposed number of cases that will need intensive case management. These programs require a history of qualifications and experience in serving special needs cases.
By the way, only the usual gang of nine*** are eligible to apply.
To receive your millions through a Preferred Communities grant a contractor must say they are using the money to resettle challenging and needy cases in certain cities. We are no longer told which cities are PREFERRED.
Again, there is nothing in refugee law requiring a grant like this. The grant is simply an excuse to send more of your money to the contractors!
Go here to see how many millions were awarded for the Preferred Communities just as Obama was headed out the door in September 2016. (There are no newer grants posted? Has Trump cut them off or is the ORR not publishing them?).
Does anyone audit these grants?
Which cities?
But, here is the head-scratcher for me. Up until Fiscal Year 2013 we could learn a lot more about who was getting the extra millions and why.
Back in 2013, we were also told which cities were PREFERRED!
What follows are sections from the FY13 ORR Annual Report to Congress. That is the last year they published (in a report to Congress) a list of contractors identifying cities as PREFERRED.
See if your city is a PREFERRED city in which to place challenging cases requiring taxpayers to pony-up even more money for the contractors!
I sure hope the Trump Administration is getting these grants and contracts under control!
***Here below are the nine federal refugee resettlement contractors.
You might be sick of seeing this list almost every day, but a friend once told me that people need to see something seven times before it completely sinks in, so it seems to me that 70, or even 700 isn’t too much!
And, besides I have new readers every day.
The present US Refugee Admissions Program will never be reformed if the system of paying the contractors by the head stays in place and the contractors are permitted to act as Leftwing political agitation groups, community organizers and lobbyists paid on our dime!
And, to add insult to injury they pretend it is all about ‘humanitarianism.’
The number in parenthesis is the percentage of their income paid by you (the taxpayer) to place the refugees into your towns and cities and get them signed up for their services (aka welfare)! And, get them registered to vote eventually!
From my most recent accounting, here. However, please see that Nayla Rush at the Center for Immigration Studies has done an update of their income!
- 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%)