Trump has not yet signed refugee determination, therefore zero refugees being admitted to the US right now

10/04/2018 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

“Whatever that number is, it will absolutely be driven principally by the capacity of my agency and the law enforcement, security, and vetting practices.”

(Francis Cissna, director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS))

Granted we are only 4 days into the month of October so things could change tomorrow or the next day, but so far zero refugees have been placed since the new fiscal year began on Monday (October 1).

Here we hear from Voice of America and a distressed resettlement lobbyist about the disappointment in the refugee industry.

Trump Administration Misses Refugee Admissions Deadline

The Trump administration has missed the end-of-fiscal-year deadline to set the maximum number of refugees that will be allowed in the United States in the next 12 months.

Mary Giovagnoli1 — An “extraordinarily disappointed” Mary Giovagnoli of the Refugee Council USA, the lobbying arm for the refugee contractors.

“Consultations and the subsequent Presidential Determination (PD) normally take place by Oct. 1. However, on some occasions, the consultations and subsequent PD have been completed later,” a U.S. State Department spokesperson said in an emailed statement to VOA. “We do not expect this will have any operational impact on the Refugee Admissions Program.”

The agency declined a request from VOA to provide a timeline for the consultations.

[….]

Last month, the administration proposed a record-low refugee ceiling for the 2019 fiscal year of 30,000 refugees. By law, Congress must be consulted about the cap before a final number can be issued.

“We are extraordinarily disappointed that the administration has failed to honor the spirit and the letter of the law when it comes to consultations,” said Mary Giovagnoli. executive director of Refugee Council USA. “For two years in a row now, the administration has just failed to take it seriously.”

President Donald Trump has dramatically cut refugee arrivals to the United States since taking office.

[….]

Francis Cissna, director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), said at a conference Monday that new vetting measures have increased processing times for refugee admissions.

He added that the suggested ceiling of 30,000 for FY2019 takes into account the “operational realities” of those measures for “national security and public safety.”

“The number is not final yet. The president has not signed the proclamation. Whatever that number is, it will absolutely be driven principally by the capacity of my agency and the law enforcement, security, and vetting practices,” Cissna said.

More here.

Click here for my complete file on RCUSA (Refugee Council USA).

State Department finally posts map where refugees are resettled in US

10/04/2018 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

rpclogo Admittedly I haven’t checked for a few months, so I’m not sure when this map was made public, but here it is!

In order to fit it on these pages, I opted for the smaller version, but if you go here you can see it in an easier-to-read size.

See the legend which tells you which of the nine contractors*** are working in each ‘welcoming’ city. The sites with more than one contractor operating (often in competition!) are sites that obviously get much larger numbers of refugees.

And, notice that some sites that existed in 2016 (see that map) are now gone! I’m not seeing Huron, SD or Charleston, WV on the new map, others?

Screenshot (714)

Go here and see that Wrapsnet has maps back to FY11. You might find it as interesting as I did to see what sites were primary resettlement sites in your state then compared to the FY18 map above.

***Here below are the nine federal refugee resettlement contractors.

Faithful readers are probably 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!

(By the way, see my earlier post today on the Libertarian think tank—CATO—why on earth do they support this system of millions of federal taxpayer dollars being given out annually to non-profit groups for charity work?)

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, as has James Simpson at the Capital Research Center!

Libertarian think tank continues criticism of Trump refugee policy

10/04/2018 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

I really don’t get it—why a Libertarian think tank, the CATO Institute is so hot for more refugees for America. I can only assume it has to do with a pro-business orientation (the LEGAL worker issue again). I’m not going to try to figure it out today.

david-bier-cropped — CATO immigration policy analyst David Bier

However, they had a handy graph in a story yesterday criticizing Trump for reducing the overall number of refugees entering the US and pointing out that the number of Christians entering has declined (which is actually a function of the overall decline in numbers). Muslim entrants have declined at an even greater percentage.

This is the latest talking point from the refugee industry—that Trump isn’t admitting enough Christians—and CATO is carrying their public relations water.

Let’s have the debate!

I would really like to see a serious and honest public debate about the economic need for refugee workers, rather than the continued appeals to Americans’ emotions as CATO does here.

This is one of Bier’s wrap-up sentences:

By cutting the refugee program across the board, the Trump administration has not just violated a campaign promise to resettle more Christian refugees—it has condemned many more to desperate poverty, persecution, or death.

Have a debate about labor needs, but leave out the ‘humanitarian’ appeal because we know that isn’t was this is all about.

Here is Bier at CATO: