Republican Senator Marco Rubio “honored” to Receive Award from Church World Service

Church World Service , as I reminded everyone just last week, is one of nine federally-funded refugee contractors.  Its most recent political agitation stunt was to join with the Council on American Islamic Relations on the steps of the Capitol and see its CEO arrested.

Now we hear they have given awards to their great defenders in the House and Senate—Marco Rubio among them!

Just so you know, CWS has received nearly half a billion of your tax dollars over the last ten years, see here.

And, in addition to placing refugees throughout small-city America they oppose the President by promoting open borders, and supporting the continued entry of illegal aliens into the US!  Does “little Marco” know that?

From Florida Daily:

Marco Rubio, Mario Diaz-Balart Honored by Church World Service for International Aid Efforts

On Wednesday night, two members of the Florida delegation were honored for their work on international humanitarian issues.

Church World Service honored U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., U.S. Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart, R-Fla., and eight other members of Congress for “their leadership on humanitarian and poverty-focused international aid and protecting the U.S. refugee resettlement program.”

Diaz-Balart was one of 16 members of the House to tell the President they wanted more than 18,000 refugee admitted this year.

Other honorees included U.S. Sens. Chris Coons, D-Del., Dick Durbin, D-Ill., and James Lankford, R-Okla., and U.S. Reps. Jim Clyburn, D-SC, Kay Granger, R-Tex., Zoe Lofgren, D-Calif., Nita Lowey, D-NY, and Chris Smith, R-NJ. Church World Service President and CEO Reverend John McCullough and Board of Directors Chairwoman Reverend Patricia de Jong presented the awards.

[….]

“I am honored to receive this award from Church World Service. I will continue to work to support and uplift communities across the globe, ensuring that all people have the opportunity to fulfill their God-given potential,” said Rubio who sits on the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

More here.

LOL! We should be glad that government contractors give awards like this because it helps us identify who exactly is working against the principle of America First!

For new readers, thank Church World Service for this blog since they were the federal contractor which was quietly placing refugees into my county in 2007.  So frustrated by the local paper which refused to give the citizens in our rural Maryland county any information about CWS or its subcontractor, the Virginia Council of Churches, I decided to investigate myself and publish what I learned.

CWS is a hard Left (taxpayer-funded) political organization (masquerading as a ‘religious charity’) that is changing America by changing the people.

Does Church World Service represent your church, go here and find out! If your church is doing a “crop walk” then you are sending money to CWS.

By the way, surely Senator Rubio sees this award as a political freebie!  If you live in Florida take a minute and tell him that you don’t agree with him on refugee resettlement (by taking this award he signals where he stands!).

Trump’s Executive Order on Refugee Resettlement Won’t Stop Refugee Arrivals to Your State or Community

Editor’s note:  Concerned about growing assumptions that the recent Trump Executive Order will solve the problem of no local or state say about refugee admissions, a long-time observer of the program with legal expertise, David James, has explained for us that the EO does not do what it purports to do. 

Although grateful that the President has signaled his concern for a major flaw in the program, we must set the record straight.

For new readers, VOLAGs (short for Voluntary Agencies), is the refugee industry title by which the federal refugee contractors refer to themselves.

(Emphasis below is mine)

Decisions made by federal agencies and the VOLAGs (voluntary agencies) they pay, about where to place arriving refugees, along with secondary migration, have created Minneapolis’ “Little Mogadishu”, Nashville’s “Little Kurdistan” and Ft. Wayne’s “Little Burma” to name just a few of the refugee ethnocentric enclaves.

No executive order, including the President’s recent Executive Order on Enhancing State and Local Involvement in Refugee Resettlement (EO) can stop refugee migration, either initial or secondary, from changing the demographics of your town and/or state.

While the EO suggests that the federal government will not resettle refugees in communities unless both the state and local governments consent, that may not be what happens at the end of the day.

Putting secondary migration aside, Section 2(b) of the EO specifically preserves the authority of the three agencies which administer the refugee resettlement program (State, HHS and DHS), to override any non-consent to refugee placement by either the state and/or local government.

With the exception of the lowered cap of 18,000, the EO is more a restatement of consultation requirements with state and local governments which are already in statute and regulation. Not only is the concept of “consultation” nowhere defined, but the outcomes of any consultation are not binding on federal agency decisions on refugee placement. And the EO doesn’t make any non-consent binding either.

The U.S. Code sections referenced in the EO mean that non-consent for resettlement won’t stop family reunification or the participation by the VOLAG federal contractors in deciding where refugees are placed.

VOLAGs whose operations are almost wholly dependent on the flow of federal dollars, are paid for each refugee they resettle. As noted in a 2012 GAO report, local VOLAG “affiliate funding is based on the number of refugees they serve, so affiliates have an incentive to maintain or increase the number of refugees they resettle each year rather than allowing the number to decrease.”

Last fiscal year when the refugee admission cap was lowered to 30,000, the State Department managed to fund all nine national resettlement contractors. Admittedly, the lowered ceiling of 18,000 for FY20 may prove challenging for some in the resettlement contractor industry to remain viable.

However, as Ann Corcoran reminds us, the refugee cap has not included other categories of entrants such as the Special Immigrant Visa holders from Iraq and Afghanistan who receive the same access to public benefits, such as state Medicaid programs, as refugees. The same goes for any successful asylum petition.

And once on the ground, refugees can and do go anywhere they want, nullifying any state and local non-consent per the EO.

Seeing one more opportunity (the announcement of the EO) to take a whack at the President, PA Gov. Tom Wolf (D) says Pennsylvania welcomes refugees. Was there any consultation?  Did concerned citizens of PA get to weigh-in before the Governor shot off a letter? NO!  PA borders West Virginia (a state that gets few refugees). Anything to stop refugees from arriving in PA and immediately moving to WV? NO! https://thehill.com/homenews/state-watch/466091-pennsylvania-governor-tells-trump-his-state-will-keep-welcoming-refugees

Governors in Oregon and Pennsylvania have already issued consent to receive refugees and New Jersey’s governor has announced the state’s intention to get back into the resettlement program.

While some refugee arrivals may stay put at their initial resettlement site, for others, consenting states will be nothing more than ports of entry for movement to non-consenting states and local communities.

The EO does not directly address the status of states which previously withdrew from the  resettlement program for purposes of non-consent. It’s possible that this question will be answered by the “process” to be developed by the State Department and HHS as required by the EO.

States like Tennessee which withdrew from the refugee program over 10 years ago, have since had their state refugee program administered by an ORR (U.S. Office of Refugee Resettlement) selected NGO which just happens to have its own federally contracted refugee resettlement program.

When the Refugee Act was passed in 1980, Congress authorized reimbursing states 100% for three full years of the state cost of providing Medicaid for each refugee brought to a state by a federal contractor. Sen. Ted Kennedy, the chief sponsor of the Refugee Act was pushing for four years of refugee support as opposed to the House proposed two years of support:

“[i]n my judgment, it is essential that we continue to receive the full support of State governments for our refugee programs; I believe that we would jeopardize that support and cooperation if we were to transfer the resettlement burden to the States after the refugees have been in this country for only 2 short years.”

The House and Senate subsequently agreed to three years of reimbursement to states.

Feds shift cost to the states

Five years into the program, due to cuts in federal spending for refugee assistance, ORR began to reduce the three years of authorized reimbursement to states and by 1991, eliminated it altogether. Three years later in 1994, the federal regulation permitting a state to withdraw from the program and be replaced by an ORR state replacement designee, was added.

Beginning in 1990, various federal reports have admitted to shifting costs associated with the refugee program to state and local governments. State governments continue to incur these costs, even after withdrawing from the federal refugee program because federal contractors are enabled by ORR to continue initial resettlement in these states.

It remains to be seen whether these ORR designated state replacements which operate independently of the state government, will also have authority to consent for the state per the consent process required by the EO.

Tennessee has sued the federal government because of its Constitutionally impermissible taking of state funds for the federal refugee program by virtue of the cost shifting. The admissions to shifting federal program costs to states stand in stark contrast to the claims of the federally funded and financially dependent contractors that the program is “100% paid for by the federal government.”

President Trump’s EO fails to address the multiple layers of dysfunction in the resettlement program and Constitutionally suspect policies. Nor is there any reason to think that Congress will find its way to straightening out the mess they helped to create and continue to foster.

 

Endnote: It is vitally important that you send this detailed analysis to everyone you know.  We can support this President while at the same time pointing out where he might be going wrong on an issue that many of us believe is paramount to putting America First!

Mark Krikorian at the Center for Immigration Studies addressed many of our concerns about the EO in his piece at National Review yesterday, see it here.

How Many Millions of Tax Dollars do the Refugee Contractors Suck Out of Your Wallets Annually?

I’ve been writing here for so long (12 years) that I forget that new readers come along all the time who have never heard that there are nine federally-funded refugee resettlement contractors with a few hundred subcontractors*** working under them.

Here are the nine (we thought we might be down to seven by now, but the Trump Administration funded them all for another year even as the number of arriving refugees is dropping):

 

A reader asked me just the other day to post about how much money each gets to change our US towns and cities.

The best resource for that information is James Simpson’s lengthy 3-part investigation published at the Capital Research Center in September of 2018 entitled:

Resettling Refugees: Social and Economic Costs

I wrote about it here.

Bookmark this post and keep this chart handy!

DFMS is Episcopal Migration Ministries. They have two names. Note the drop in revenue after Obama was gone!

 

RRW builds on itself, so I recommend that if you really want to know what is happening, either visit every day or subscribe, because it is hard (and boring!) for me to continuously repeat old news. Reporting on juicy new news is much more fun!

You might want to check my category ‘Where to find information where I post most stories about, you guessed it, where to find information!  However, there are at the moment 665 post archived there!

See all categories located in a drop-down in right hand side bar on my home page. (If you just read posts in e-mails or on your phone, you are missing important information.)

*** If you have an agency resettling refugees where you live and its name doesn’t match any of the nine major contractors, then know that you have a subcontractor of one of the nine because your taxpayer dollars flow through the nine and down to a local subcontractor.  If you search that local agency’s website you will most likely find out who its mothership is!

The nine contractors work with the US State Department to decide where to place (with which subcontractor) the incoming refugee cases.

Sixteen Republican Representatives Tell President they Want More than 18,000 Refugees

The letter to the President was spearheaded by Michigan Rep. Bill Huizenga and was clearly written with the aid of refugee industry lobbyists*** because it contains the language I see everywhere coming out of places like the Refugee Council USA and the federal resettlement contractors who depend on federal dollars for their supposed charitable work.

Republican Rep Bill Huizenga’s letter is boilerplate refugee industry lingo!

Claiming they fear we aren’t protecting enough people experiencing religious persecution they list wholly Muslim countries like Somalia and Afghanistan whose nationals they say we must admit.

But, there is not one word about persecuted Christians, which might have made their appeal to the President understandable at least.

Any day now the President will decide if the number for FY2020 will be 18,000, see here.

Below is Huizenga’s press release and the letter in its entirety.

Is your Republican member of Congress pressing the President for MORE third worlders for your Congressional District?

Huizenga: The Trump Administration Should Reconsider its Position on Refugee Resettlement

On Friday, Congressman Bill Huizenga (MI-02) sent a letter, with 16 of his Republican colleagues, to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo regarding the need for the United States to continue to open its doors to refugees displaced by conflict and facing religious persecution. The letter is in response to the Trump Administration recently announcing its plan to reduce the number of refugees admitted to the United States to a record-low level of 18,000 people.

“America cannot lead from behind on the issue of religious persecution and refugee resettlement,” said Congressman Bill Huizenga. “West Michigan has a long standing tradition of opening its doors to those facing persecution as well as welcoming individuals who have been displaced because of armed conflict. Whether it is our faith-based institutions, non-profit organizations, or individuals within the community, West Michigan continues to set an example Washington could learn from. The Trump Administration should reconsider its position.”

The letter is available below.

Dear Secretary Pompeo:

Since our nation’s founding, the United States has served as a beacon of hope to those suffering from oppression and conflict across the globe. The Statute of Liberty perfectly encapsulates our outstretched hand, accepting the world’s huddled masses who yearn to be free. As the world continues to face an overwhelming refugee crisis, we respectfully urge you to uphold our nation’s commitment to assist individuals who have been displaced by violence and strife.

According to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, there are approximately 20 million refugees worldwide with more than 50 percent being children. Among those, roughly eight million refugees are from Afghanistan, South Sudan, Myanmar, Somalia, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.Additionally, another 37,000 people are forced to flee their homes every day due to conflict and persecution in their home countries.

Continued U.S. leadership is critical in addressing ongoing humanitarian crises caused by civil war and persecution and in assisting displaced persons. One area where America can lead is by creating and protecting de-escalation zones near war-torn countries and providing humanitarian assistance to people in need. We must also continue to accept and care for refugees here in America.

In our communities throughout the country, there is a long history of opening doors to assist refugees. Local leaders, faith groups, and businesses have come together to create an environment where refugees are welcomed and receive the services necessary to learn English, find employment, and become part of the fabric of their new communities.

As such, we urge you to maintain the United States’ longstanding commitment to assist refugees with a special focus on assisting individuals hailing from nations facing the worst conditions possible. Thank you in advance for your time and consideration.

Representatives who signed the letter led by Ken Buck (CO) include: Fred Upton (MI), Susan W. Brooks (IN), John Curtis (UT), Scott Tipton (CO), Doug Lamborn (CO), Cathy McMorris Rodgers (WA), Brian Fitzpatrick (PA), Steve Stivers (OH), Jaime Herrera Beutler (WA), John Katko (NY), Dan Newhouse (WA), Rob Woodall (GA), Chris Stewart (UT), and Mario Diaz-Balart (FL).

In July, Congressman Huizenga spoke out against eliminating the refugee resettlement program when reports circulated that the Trump Administration was considering such a proposal.

If you live in the district of one of those members and disagree with their pressuring the President, you need to let your representative know.

When they sign letters like this they assume it is a freebie for them.  They will get brownie points from Open Borders Inc. and suffer no down side.

It is your job to be sure they know there is a downside.  You could write a letter to your local paper critical of their stance on refugees.  Be sure to attend town halls when they are home campaigning so you can ask them in public to defend their position on refugees.

Maybe ask them why you, the taxpayers, are paying for it all but have no say in where they will be placed, and most importantly ask why we aren’t taking care of our own vulnerable Americans first!

*** A final comment on the subject of lobbyists.  The refugee industry has lobbyists galore.  Not just the Refugee Council USA but every one of the nine contractors has either formal lobbyists (Catholic Bishops and Lutherans for example) and informal lobbyists who help identify soft touches on the refugee program.

Some one, or several, draft a letter like this, and it is the lobbyist working with their principle author, in this case Huzienga staffers, who run around Capitol Hill with the draft letter to get co-signers.  It might require reaching back to the district to get some influential church group, interfaith group, Chamber of Commerce types who then also call the member to encourage their support for the letter.

Those of us who want to see the US Refugee Admissions program slowed, reformed or dumped outright have no lobbyist on the Hill!

 

 

Longtime Federal Bureaucrat who Created Refugee Program Swipes at Trump

Well, I should say he is claiming credit for creating the present-day US Refugee Admissions Program in 1979.

Editor:  By the way, I’ve been away at a conference to talk about how RRW was “deplatformed” by WordPressdotcom and am now back at my computer with news about why the US Refugee Admissions Program Mr. Purcell says he created must be dumped (and reformed if there is a will for some sort of program). 

I know this might be getting too wonky, but it’s important to know how the program began and how it has gone wrong (or was wrong all along!)—something the speech police have been trying to stop me from telling you!

James N. Purcell, in an opinion piece in the Dallas News, says the refugee program was designed to leave out local and state government approval of refugee placement claiming it was “fairer” to leave them out of what he says is a federal decision.

I set up the U.S. refugee resettlement program that Trump is attacking

At a campaign rally last week in Minneapolis, the president trumpeted a recently issued executive order that would prohibit refugee resettlements unless states and cities expressly consented to them. He went on to say, “no other president would be doing that.”

https://www.sanangelosunriserotary.org/stories/our-guest-speaker-nbsp-mr-james-n-purcell-jr

[….]

There is a better way for state and local officials to make their views known that’s worked in the past.

This issue was a concern when I set up the U.S. refugee resettlement program in 1980 under President Jimmy Carter and when I was later named the official director of the program by President Ronald Reagan. We went out of our way to avoid the Damocles sword that President Donald Trump is now swinging.

Rather than force national decisions on state and local governments (which they were unable to make and has the effect of politicizing these decisions), we came up with a fairer and more humane approach that respected their unique roles. [So whatever happened to the Tenth Amendment?—ed]

The Refugee Act of 1980 recognized the essential contributions expected of state and local governments and made achievement of them possible.

What is he talking about!  Were the “essential contributions expected” of the state and local governments the enormous costs associated with welfare, education, health care, housing and so forth—costs now borne by state and local taxpayers with little financial help from Washington?

And, get this, the role of state coordinator was created to help identify and resolve problems.  How many of you reading this even knew you had state coordinators***?

 

The act required the federal government to coordinate and consult regularly with state refugee coordinators about proposed resettlements. Many potential problems were identified and resolved through monitoring and oversight, and record resettlement was achieved without serious incidents.

Now, without apparently knowing what he has revealed he tells us how the NGOs (the federally-funded refugee contractors, Leftwing phony ‘religious’ groups) really run the show he claims they tried not to “politicize.”

Perhaps that was why I was so perplexed in 1986 to receive a scathing letter from one of Minnesota’s leading politicians demanding that I cease resettlement of Hmong in Minnesota forthwith. This demand was so out of character for Minnesota that I immediately informed NGOs working on Hmong resettlement. By the end of the next week, Minnesotans were so outraged that I received letters reversing earlier criticisms and asking for more Hmong refugees.

Unbelievable!  He was the US State Department’s director of the Refugee Admissions Program and he tipped off his contractors that an elected official in Minnesota was having a problem with the refugee program and they in turn ginned-up letters from their flocks (Catholics and Lutherans mostly) to send him asking for more Hmong refugees.  (This was of course a few years before the major influx of Somalis to Minnesota began.)

So why wasn’t this all handled as he said they designed the program, through the State Refugee Coordinator?  Why? Because the program is run by the contractors who are paid out of the US Treasury to place refugees wherever they choose!  (See my recent post with a list of the present-day contractors, here.)

There will be no real reform of the US Refugee Program as long as the contractors are paid by us while acting as Leftwing political agitation groups.

*** Go here to see who your state refugee coordinator is.  If you know anything about the program in your state you will notice that many of them are affiliated with a federal contractor.

Got a problem in your state, or just want to know more about the program there?  Call your coordinator.  You can start by asking for your state’s most recent Refugee Plan on file with the federal Office of Refugee Resettlement.  Be polite and you will get some information (maybe not much!) but something.

Don’t miss my post on the major drug bust of Hmong in Wisconsin recently.