Month: October 2018

Germany: On eve of important regional election, German Leftists of all stripes head to the streets

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Invasion of Europe news…..

There was a massive (by all accounts) demonstration in Berlin yesterday, just as Bavarians in the south headed to the polls for a critical election today.

First, on the election, a sampling of headlines says it all!

At CNN:

Bavarians vote in election that may spell doom for Merkel

At Reuters:

Merkel’s Bavarian allies brace for bruising in state election

At The Express:

German Bavaria election polls: Angela Merkel IN CHAOS as Chancellor holds on by a thread

 

Berlin demonstration 2018
We are the World? Therein lies the problem!

 

But meanwhile in Berlin tens of thousands rallied for, well, everything! 

A hodge podge of Leftwing interest groups took to the streets ostensibly under a banner of opposition to racism and populism.  They want unity in Germany.

Underlying it all, of course, is the disastrous decision by the Merkel government to welcome hundreds of thousands of migrants from the Middle East and Africa to the country beginning in 2014-2015.

Not much hope of unity now!

From Deutsche Welle:

Berlin protests against far-right politics draw thousands

Over 200,000 people have taken to the streets of Berlin to face down the rise of far-right populism in Germany and Europe. The protesters were demanding more solidarity with marginalized groups.

Berlin produced an absurdly hot and sunny fall day on Saturday to welcome an estimated 240,000 people demonstrating against racism and calling for solidarity against the rise of far-right populism across Germany.

Berlin demonstrator
Julia Naji joined Saturday’s protest to represent Cycling Friends, a Berlin initiative that, among other things, runs cycling classes for refugees. “Today, people will meet up and show that we should fight against racism and homophobia as loudly and with as many people as possible,” she told DW.

A 5-kilometer (3-mile) stretch of the capital city’s center, from Alexanderplatz through the Brandenburg Gate to the Victory Column, had to be closed down to accommodate the huge parade, which was united under the hashtag #unteilbar (“indivisible”).

The crowds were punctuated by 40 trucks mounted with loudspeakers, some delivering political messages, others pumping out music of all genres. They also included the traditional Berlin staple: the techno truck surrounded by semi-clothed dancers. The march was bookended by two concert events, the second of which was expected to stretch into the evening.

All kinds of organizations joined in, including trade unions, NGOs, political parties (both mainstream and fringe), gay rights groups, schools and theaters, all carrying a variety of banners, each with their own cause to promote (Ryanair workers were a conspicuous presence), but all united behind the slogan: “Solidarity not marginalization.”

[….]

Senior government figures lent their support to the demonstration, most notably Foreign Minister Heiko Maas, who tweeted: “It is a great signal that so many people are going on the streets and showing a clear position: We are indivisible. We won’t let ourselves be divided — certainly not by right-wing populists.”

More here.

See my ‘Invasion of Europe’ archive here. And, I have written dozens of posts on dear Deutschland, here.

‘We are the world’ reminded me of one of my favorite youtube spoofs—-We con the world.  See it here.

Missouri: Catholic refugee agency complains about cuts to their federal funding

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Here is my solution for those doing Christian ‘charitable’ work for refugees—find more VOLUNTEERS! 

Do Catholics have to be paid by taxpayers to do their religious charitable work, it sure sounds like it!

Everywhere I turn there is a new story about how that mean ol’ Donald Trump is cutting the funding to ‘non-profit’ ‘humanitarian’ groups who place refugees in your towns and cities.  There are so many now I don’t post most of them.

This story, however, from Columbia, Missouri had a few nuggets of information, one in particular was new to me.

Refugee and Immigration Services, operated by Catholic Charities of Central and Northern Missouri says it is being paid $4,000 a head per refugee it places.  Yikes! That is almost twice any number we have ever seen for the per head payment.

 

Screenshot (739)
Somali family welcomed to Columbia by Catholic Charities in wake of Trump 2017 ban.     https://www.columbiamissourian.com/news/local/somali-refugees-affected-by-the-travel-ban-arrive-in-columbia/article_f7645b92-f54b-11e6-a52c-ab441118728a.html

 

From the Missourian:

Cuts to refugee admissions hit Columbia resettlement agency

The staff at Refugee and Immigration Services has been under increasing pressure, given the caps President Donald Trump has placed on the number of refugees allowed to enter the country. Those diminishing caps result in less federal money for agencies that serve refugees.

[….]

The budget from fiscal 2017 to fiscal 2018 fell from $1 million to around $625,000, Dan Lester, director of Catholic Charities of Central and Northern Missouri, said. The local office also went from staff of 11 to seven, with only four being full-time. That means more duties for fewer people.

I just had a look at a recent Form 990 for this Catholic agency and yes they did receive a million dollars of taxpayer money and approximately $793,000 of it went to salaries, benefits, and pension plans for employees! 

The agency, which is funded by the Office of Refugee Resettlement under the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, has traditionally received about $4,000 per refugee to provide services during their first six to 12 months in the country, Lester said.

Agencies must help provide:

Payment for their first six months of rent.

Clothing, food and all daily household items.

Assistance in finding a job.

Access to English classes.

Access to social programs they may need, such as counseling or SNAP benefits. [Other welfare—ed]

Orientation into an entirely new culture.

It seems to me that most of that list could be handled by volunteers and private donations!

The Missourian continues…

While the agency still gets its $4,000 per refugee, that funding doesn’t factor in those who came to Columbia in previous years and still rely on local services, Finn said. [That is funny because we are told repeatedly that refugees are self-sufficient and on their own in under 6 months. Hmmm!—ed]

“We just don’t have the time and energy to give the refugees that we used to,” Finn said. “Everyone has a lot more families to work with.”

“Time and energy” sounds like something they could get for free from volunteers!

More here.

By the way, Catholic Charities are usually under the umbrella of their primary federal contractor—The US Conference of Catholic Bishops—for their refugee allotment each year.

We are still taking ‘refugees’ from safe countries

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Every so often I check out the Processing Country data at the Refugee Processing Center (Wrapsnet) maintained by the US State Department.

rpclogo

More frequently I report to you about the nationalities entering the US, but processing country data is very different.

From processing country data, we learn in which countries supposed ‘refugees’ are processed in to the US, but we don’t learn where they came from before they arrived in that country.

I first became aware of this about ten years ago when I noticed that illegal aliens, who arrived by boat at the tiny island nation of Malta in the Mediterranean, were being sent to the US as refugees. (See my explanation of refugees vs. asylum here yesterday.)

What!!!  Malta is a safe country in the EU, anyone arriving there claiming to be a refugee by seeking asylum must apply there, not be packed off to the US.

I have a huge file on Malta where this legally questionable movement of mostly Africans to your towns was put in place during the administration of George W. Bush and continues through today.

We are doing the same with Israel and South Africa where migrants get in to those countries from elsewhere (seeking asylum) and we help those governments out by taking some of their excess off their hands.

Heck, we have our own problem on our southern border where illegal aliens cross by the tens of thousands and then ask for asylum.

Are we going to ask Malta, South Africa and Israel to take a few of our excess asylum seekers?  (Don’t laugh!)

Here (below) is the end of the fiscal year data table for Processing Country.  I’m posting this now because it will disappear by the beginning of November.

Again, just so you know we are not taking Maltese people, South Africans or Israelis to America, the numbers represented here are people from elsewhere who got in to those three countries and are unwanted by those three countries.

 

Screenshot (1487)_LI

Screenshot (1488)_LI

 

Notice the numbers for Papua New Guinea and Nauru.  Those are the Australian rejected asylum seekers we are taking off Australia’s hands in the same possibly illegal manner.

There are probably other questionable processing countries above, but the three I have highlighted are countries which I have followed closely over the years.

The Trump Administration could stop this possibly illegal use of the refugee admissions process in a heartbeat if they wanted to!  Congress would not have to be involved!

If you haven’t noticed, I have a link in the right hand corner of RRW for the White House contact information.  Please take time to express your opinion to the President.

Denver: Former law enforcement officer accused of absconding with refugee charity funds

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

The refugee resettlement contractor has apparently, according to news reports, been shuttered for a couple of years, but now its former Board Chairman, a former deputy sheriff, has been indicted for taking money from the publicly-funded charity.

According to the Patch:

DENVER, CO — A fired former division head of the Denver Sheriff’s Office and a former president of the state Fraternal Order of Police was indicted by a grand jury in Denver earlier this month for allegedly pocking $50,000 from an Aurora refugee charity.

Franklin Gale, 55, of Denver was indicted by a Denver grand jury in connection with the alleged diversion for his own use of multiple checks paid to Ecumenical Refugee And Immigration Services, a non-active refugee resettlement agency that closed under a cloud in 2015 after another embezzlement scandal.

Gale is charged with money laundering, theft, attempting to influence a public servant forgery and vehicle theft. The indictment was handed down Oct. 3 and Gale turned himself in to the Longmont Police, a statement from the Denver District Attorney’s Office said.

[….]

Gale was serving as a non-compensated board member of ERIS in 2015 when the charity was closed down following a 2014 criminal investigation by the Aurora Police Department that resulted in embezzlement and theft charges against two staffers, Genevieve Marie Cruz and Adam Cole Shryock.

 

Charity navigator CO refugees
See that Charity Navigator has given ERIS its High Concern Advisory rating.

 

According to the indictment, Gale was a friend of Cruz, who was brought onto the board initially as a consultant. He ended up the president of the board as the organization closed down.

ERIS had received public funds to assist with refugee resettlement through the CARES branch of the Colorado Department of Law Human Services. Those funds were revoked after Cruz and her colleague were charged.

In May of 2015, Gale was elected president of the board of directors and the organization closed its doors.

When Cruz and Shyrock pleaded guilty in 2016, they were ordered by the court to pay $50,000 in restitution to the agency, the indictment said.

According to the grand jury indictment, about a dozen checks were sent to the defunct agency in care of Frank Gale at his Denver home address.

The indictment alleges that between November 2015 and April 2017, Gale wrote $48,668 in checks to himself from the ERIS account and deposited them into an account he established for his minor son. Gale would then make bank account cash withdrawals, ATM withdrawals, and/or transfer the funds from his son’s account to other accounts under his control, thus laundering the money, the indictment alleges. The actions ultimately added up to the theft of $50,000, the DA’s office said in a statement.

Gale is also accused of forging the name and signature of the former board director on a motor vehicle title for a truck owned by ERIS and then getting a new motor vehicle title in his own name.

More here.

Gale is expected to appear in court on Monday, see here.

I was surprised to find that the website is still up for ERIS here.

And, I learned from that site that it was a subcontractor working for two of the nine federal refugee resettlement contractors:

Ecumenical Refugee and Immigration Services (ERIS) helps to resettle refugees and asylees who are legally in Colorado (by Church World Service and Episcopal Migration Ministries), by providing them assistance with educational needs, family and social services, medical attention, employment, and cultural orientation.

There needs to be much more scrutiny than there is at the present time of non-profits benefiting from state and federal tax dollars.

More corrections needed: Asylum seeker vs. Refugee

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Let me say that I am glad to see that new readers arrive here daily, but long time readers, please accept my apologies for repeating information you already know.

Commenter ‘Kansasdudess‘ said this yesterday in a comment to my post on about Twin Falls, Idaho, here.

“id like to point out that in every country except the us refugees are not placed into actual communities..they are housed in refugee camps..geeze if they knew they were going to live in camps and not in sociey with full benefits they wouldnt come..who the hell decided they need to be placed in regular society???!!!! when did refugee status become perminant status? refugee means they go home too…”

 

Refugees

First, here at RRW we are mostly focused on the present US Refugee Admissions Program established by law in 1980—The Refugee Act of 1980.

Ted and Joe
“Who the hell decided?” asked our commenter.  Senators Ted Kennedy and Joe Biden with other Democrat Senators decided in 1979. The Refugee Act of 1980 was then signed in to law by President Jimmy Carter.  Congress and the President decided 38 years ago, and if you want to change it now, Congress and the President must decide.

Briefly, refugees, as defined by the Act’, are people we have located abroad (mostly with the help of the UN now) who claim they would be persecuted if returned to their home countries—persecuted for their race, religion, political views and so forth.

We fly them to the US and through US State Department resettlement contractors (nine non-profits) we place them in hundreds of US towns and cities.  They are here legally (permanently) and they are on a track to US citizenship.

You are not to be faulted for being confused about the word ‘refugee’ because the Leftists and No Borders activists around the world have done their best to make you think that anyone on the move around the world for any reason is a refugee deserving of special treatment. They are not. Most are economic migrants, some are getting away from civil wars at home, and some are criminals.

But, here the word refugee has a very specific meaning and is used for those who are legally here through the US Refugee Admissions Program.

As for Kansasdudess’s assertion that around the world “refugees” are in camps.  Yes, in some places they are, but the vast majority of migrant asylum seekers (they are NOT legal refugees yet) are free in many countries until their asylum claim has been processed—think Germany, Italy, France, the UK etc. etc.  There they live mostly in special housing and are free to move about in the community. (There is increasingly more talk in Europe about building detention centers.)

Asylum seekers and Asylees

So what is asylum?  That is when migrants of some sort go to another country on their  own initiative and then ask for asylum claiming they will be persecuted in their home country if they are returned.

The asylum process is being abused around the world.

All of those Africans and Middle Easterners flooding Europe are not refugees. Some may be able to prove (through an asylum process) that they should get the first class treatment afforded legitimate refugees, but most are economic migrants looking for a better life.  I repeat: they are NOT refugees until they are given asylum status.

Here in the US our immigration system is being scammed now as thousands cross our borders and ask for asylum.  If they get through the asylum process and are judged to be legitimate refugees, we call them asylees.  And, then, just like the refugees we flew in, they can stay and take advantage of the many benefits life in America will give them (including ultimately citizenship).

(I explained asylum here and here, just a few weeks ago!)

So in summary, the word ‘refugee’ used at this site refers to a class of LEGAL immigrant. They are flown here by our government. They are here to stay. They can work. They can get welfare. They will eventually become US citizens.

And, if an asylum seeker can make his or her case through a legal process, then that person can say they are a refugee as well.

Bottomline: words matter! 

Don’t fall for the Left’s broad definition of refugee. Everyone on the move around the world is NOT a refugee.