Month: December 2019

Tennessee Counties Feeling Betrayed by ‘Biblical Bill’ Planning Rebuke

~ Ann Corcoran ~ 5 Comments

When Tennessee Governor Lee foolishly caved to pressure from Leftwingers and asserted that Yup! Tennessee would welcome a fresh batch of refugees in the coming year, many Republicans who elected him felt betrayed.

TN Gov Bill Lee joins ‘religious Left’ in opposition to the President on refugee resettlement!

In other states where your Republican governor has turned against the President on refugees, you might feel betrayed too, but in Tennessee passions are apparently much higher.

During the term of Tennessee’s previous governor, the state filed a Tenth Amendment lawsuit against the feds over the refugee program there and Lee said, while campaigning for his new job, that he supported that case still winding its way through the courts.

Now, Lee (dubbed ‘Biblical Bill’  by a Tennessee-based website), conservatives feel has double-crossed the people who put him in office.

Breitbart  reporter John Binder reported late last night that action against the governor is underway.

Exclusive: Tennessee Counties Consider Rebuking Gov. Bill Lee’s Approval of More Refugee Resettlement

About a third of Tennessee’s 95 counties, thus far, are considering rebuking Republican Gov. Bill Lee’s approval for the State Department to resettle more refugees in the state next year, Breitbart News has exclusively learned.

[….]

Last week, Lee gave official approval to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to resettle more refugees in the state of Tennessee next year despite a high-profile Tenth Amendment lawsuit that questions the constitutionality of the refugee resettlement program.

Now, at least 31 counties in Tennessee are considering adopting a resolution that rebukes Lee’s approval for more refugees and demands that refugees not be resettled in non-consenting counties. The resolution contends that even if some counties do not consent to refugee resettlement, neighboring consenting counties will be allowed to resettle refugees in those non-consenting counties’ borders.

That reference to non-consenting counties potentially receiving refugees refers to the US State Department rule that contractors may place refugees within a one-hundred-mile radius of their local subcontractor’s office.

The Dailyrollcall.com published this map to show how the 4 federally contracted resettlement offices operating in the state in fact are allowed (according to the feds!) to spread refugees in almost the entire state!

I reported on the map here.

Breitbart continues….

Breitbart News exclusively obtained the resolution, which reads:

BE IT RESOLVED that [County Name] does not want to be forced into participating in the federal refugee resettlement program due to either Governor Lee’s consent and/or being within the permissible placement radius of a resettlement agency office. [Emphasis added]

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that [County Name] requests that Governor Lee retract his consent for initial resettlement in Tennessee for both the one year period of time as stated in his letter and/or the actual consent period required by the Funding Notice. [Emphasis added]

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that [County Name] requests that in the event Governor Lee does not retract his consent for initial refugee resettlement, that [Lee] submit a revised letter of consent to U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and to Lt. Governor Randy McNally and House Speaker Cameron Sexton exempting non-consenting counties from forced participation in the initial resettlement of refugees in Tennessee. [Emphasis added]

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that [County Name] requests that Governor Lee by written notice inform the resettlement agencies which maintain offices and operations in Tennessee that they may not place arriving refugees in non-consenting counties. [Emphasis added]

Read it all.  

Whether you live in a Democrat run state or in one of the 15 states where the Republicans have turned on the President, you too could use this resolution model where you live. Obviously change the names and some of the facts.

I wasn’t going to list the states where Republican governors have gone against the President until they appeared on the US State Department’s official list, but since the DOS is dragging its feet getting its list up-to-date, below is the list of Rs who are welcoming more poverty to your state.

You might well characterize these Republicans as particularly dumb for consenting long before they have to according to the Funding Guidance, but I suspect they thought they might get brownie points from the Open Borders agitators led by the refugee resettlement contractors in their states.

I’m hoping that you won’t hold back in telling them what you think!

BTW, I should have made it clear above that according to the Funding Guidance, counties must opt-in as well as the governor.  If the governor is out, than that settles it for a small portion of FY2020 (from June to end of September), no refugees would be permitted placement (with a few exceptions).

From Daniel Horowitz here yesterday:

There could be more weak Republicans this morning turning on the President on a key 2016 campaign promise.  I haven’t looked yet.

Suck-up Letters from Republican Governors Causing me to Start Swearing

~ Ann Corcoran ~ 2 Comments

And, if governors like Arkansas’s Asa Hutchinson are an example, their Leftwing Refugee contractors aren’t even very appreciative of the caving that one Republican governor after the other is doing—-I suspect at the behest of Secretary of State Pompeo who is (I believe) attempting to undermine his nemesis in the White House Stephen Miller (more on that later).

Hutchinson abandons the President on refugee program! Caves to the Religious Left! (Or was it to Tyson Foods?). He could have kept his letter simple, but oh no, he had to demonstrate his ignorance and suck-up to the ‘religious’ Leftwingers in his state.

As the Republicans are lining up to oppose the President (yes, that is what they are doing!), I said I wasn’t going to write about each capitulation, but a few might be worth it to demonstrate the governors’ ignorance of the refugee program that Trump wants to seriously bring under control.

This just in: 15 Republican Governors have turned against the President so far!  See if yours is one of them!

 

Check out Hutchinson’s ‘kiss-ass’ comments at Arkansas Online:

At least he could have been honest and mentioned that he has to keep Tyson Foods happy (See Lutherans in Arkansas get a $50,000 grant from Tyson Foods!) just like ol’Bill Clinton did when he supplied Big Meat with refugee labor.

Refugee order appreciated, state advocates say

FAYETTEVILLE — A leader with Canopy Northwest Arkansas on Tuesday welcomed Gov. Asa Hutchinson’s executive order that Arkansas will continue to accept legally immigrating refugee families.

Faint praise for the governor who capitulated:

“I don’t want to make it more than it is, which is that we will continue to do what we are doing, but we appreciate the governor’s support,” said Clint Schnekloth, chairman of the board of Canopy, a refugee assistance nonprofit group.

Clint Schnekloth

An executive order from President Donald Trump allows states to refuse further refugees. The U.S. Department of State coordinates refugee relocation with nine charitable organizations [federal contractors—ed]*** through agreements [aka federal contracts—ed] with the government.

The Northwest Arkansas group worked with two of those nine groups — Catholic Charities Immigration Services and Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service — to get the region accepted in 2016 as a refugee resettlement site. [This was the period at the end of the Obama Administration when his State Department was rapidly expanding resettlement sites—ed].

“Previously, there was no coordination with the state and little awareness,” Hutchinson said in a statement Tuesday. “Under the new executive order, the state will have more visibility. The approval will need to be each year, and the state will be able to assure the refugees are assimilating into the community and have access to jobs, education and job training. I have confidence that local communities will provide the support necessary, but we will be able to monitor.”

WTH the state will be able to assure the refugees are assimilating. Really? Monitor how? And, if you, governor, somehow figure out that they are not assimilating will you have the backbone to say NO next year?

States have until Jan. 21 to declare whether they will allow placement of refugee families through the federal admissions program under the executive order. More than 30 governors have agreed to accept refugees, according to The Associated Press.  [Only a tiny fraction of the consent letters have been received by the State Department as of this writing.  What! bureaucrats on vacation?—ed]

[….]

Schnekloth said the Canopy group appreciates the degree of support and clarity in Hutchinson’s decision to beat the deadline by a month and to reiterate the importance of helping legal refugees. The governor announced his decision Monday in a letter to U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.

Dumb Asa didn’t have to send any consent for at least another month and the squishy language of the funding guidance allows even more foot-dragging by governors beyond January 21, 2020.

The Contractors wanted quick consents so they can prepare their requests for YOUR money by January 21st.

“While we fully support control of our borders and oppose illegal immigration, we also value the contribution of immigrants and understand the importance of America continuing to be a welcoming nation for those truly seeking refuge and following the legal path to our land,” reads Hutchinson’s letter to the secretary. [Contractor boiler-plate language!—ed]

“To that end, I have received confirmation from local municipalities, members of the faith-based community, as well as members of the nonprofit community, confirming they will coordinate support and facilitate employment opportunities for refugees that are approved for relocation to Arkansas,” the letter says. [More contractor boiler-plate language—ed]  

How does Hutchinson plan to monitor the “faith-based community” to make sure they will support and find jobs for refugees?

And, in reference to his earlier opposition to the Obama plan for a mass movement of Syrians to America, he says this:

The family-by-family relocation by the admissions program is not the same, and recent efforts by the administration “enhancing security checks to ensure proper screenings are carried out” in the program are appreciated, the governor’s letter says.

It is the same program Obama used! 

There is nothing new because the UN/US Refugee Admissions Program HAS NOT BEEN REFORMED.  And, in this, one small effort by Trump to rein-in the dysfunctional program, we have spineless governors kissing-up to ungrateful (anti-Trump) Lefties.

 

***For new readers these (below) are the nine federally-funded refugee contractors that operate as a huge conveyor belt monopolizing all refugee placement in America.  For decades they have decided in secrecy where to place refugees and they don’t want to lose that power because even as they pontificate about their religious convictions and humanitarian zeal, they are Leftwing political activist groups working to change America by changing the people and using your money to do it!

And, they do not limit their advocacy toward only legal immigration programs, but are heavily involved in supporting the lawlessness at our borders.

The question isn’t as much about refugees per se, but about who is running federal immigration policy now and into the future?  

(I plan to say this once a day from now on!)

I continue to argue that these nine contractors are the heart of America’s Open Borders movement and thus there can never be long-lasting reform of US immigration policy when these nine un-elected phony non-profits are paid by the taxpayers to work as community organizers pushing an open borders agenda.

Uzbek Refugees were Bargaining Chips, but for what?

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

I’ve been saying it for years—that we, taxpaying American citizens, are subjected to unnecessary expense, societal upheaval, and not to mention danger, when the US State Department uses the Refugee Admissions Program for leverage when it wants to pressure (or reward) some other country by ‘welcoming’ the unwanted.

Nezer: “It’s a bargaining tool: We’ll take a certain number of refugees. These are the things you will do for us.”

Earlier this month, I reported confirmation of refugees as bargaining chips—a stunning admission out of the mouth of a refugee contractor.

One such case during the Bush era involved trouble-making Uzbeks.

No one has ever explained why the Bush Administration flew in planeloads of Uzbeks claiming they were refugees—-Muslim ‘refugees’ from a Muslim country (yeah right!).

When Tennessee Governor Bill Lee listened to the religious Left (using carefully parsed words) claiming refugees hadn’t killed Americans on our soil in terrorist attacks, it wasn’t for lack of trying.

I told readers at ‘Frauds and Crooks’ about the Somali Christmas Tree bomber here, and now I’m going to re-post below the story of Uzbek Islamic terrorist wannabe, Fazliddin Kurbanov, and how he attempted to kill the prison warden where he was incarcerated after being found guilty of planning to bomb West Point (among other places on American soil!).

My mission is to show you what a bunch of liars these Leftwing  ‘Evangelicals’ are!  Christians my foot!

And again…..

What deal were we striking with Uzbekistan that saw hundreds of that country’s extremist Muslims shipped to America as refugees?

Editor:  Before I get to the re-post  (Ann’s memory lane!) I want to emphasize again how glad I am that the speech police were not able to completely destroy my 9,000 posts when they persuaded wordpress.com to remove RRW from the internet.  To those who pressured wordpress, you were dumb!  I hadn’t been writing at RRW for months and as the expression goes you would have benefited from letting sleeping dogs lie.

From my recovered archives!  (March 16,2018)

 

Uzbek refugee admits he wanted to kill California prison warden by slitting his throat

 

This is one of those stories I’m sick of writing about.  I’ve followed Fazliddin Kurbanov’s ‘career’ since his arrest in Idaho in 2013.

He is one of those Uzbeks that we have admitted to the US since the Bush Administration who were already radical Islamists back home, and why we took hundreds is still a mystery. Rumor is that the CIA and State Department teamed up to get them here.

This is the latest at The Sun (San Bernardino):

By the way, some stories just list him as an “Uzbek national” but others, like ABC here have it right.  He was a refugee, now he will cost US taxpayers a fortune as we care for him in prison!

An Uzbek national already serving a 25-year terrorism-related sentence has entered a guilty plea for trying to slit the throat of the warden of the Victorville federal prison in a 2016 attack.

Fazliddin Kurbanov, 34, faces sentencing on June 4 before United States District Judge Virginia A. Phillips in Los Angeles after he entered a guilty plea Tuesday, March 13, to one count of attempted murder of a federal officer. 

Kurbanov attacked then-Warden Calvin Johnson of the Victorville Federal Correctional Institute on May 31, 2016 in a dining facility, where Johnson was standing “near the serving line to be accessible to inmates during the lunch service” court papers said.

Kurbanov, armed with an approximately 4-inch prison-made shank, grabbed Johnson from behind and tried to cut the warden’s throat; when Johnson raised his hands to protect his throat, Kubanov instead slashed the warden on his left side, the document said.

Kurbanov admitted in an interview with authorities that he had made the shank, found a way to conceal it, and intended to kill Johnson with it, the court papers said. The attack took place five months after Kurbanov was sentenced in the terrorism case in Idaho.

Johnson was seriously injured in the attack, but has recovered and is now working at another prison in the federal system, the U.S. Attorney’s office in Los Angeles said in a statement.

Obama’s US Attorney for Idaho, Wendy Olson, was concerned with American rabble that might act up during Kurbanov’s 2015 trial!   https://refugeeresettlementwatch.org/2015/07/14/as-trial-opens-for-idaho-refugee-alleged-terrorist-idaho-statesman-reports-on-refugee-program/

In January 2016, Kurbanov was sentenced to 25 years in prison for for conspiring and attempting to provide material support to a designated foreign terrorist organization and possessing an unregistered destructive device. He was convicted after a trial.

Prosecutors in that case said Kurbanov made contact with a website for the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan and discussed with the website administrator “his animosity toward Americans, particularly the military; his desire to build a bomb; possible targets in the United States, including military bases in Idaho and Texas; and his need for instruction on how to construct and remotely detonate a bomb,” according to a statement by the U.S. Attorney’s office for the District of Idaho.

He also discussed possible targets with an FBI confidential source, including the United States Military Academy at West Point, the prosecutor’s office said.

Go here for my complete file on Fazliddin Kurbanov.

His Idaho trial came at a time when tensions began to rise in that state about the UN/US Refugee Admissions Program. The US attorney and others went to great lengths to minimize the news about the trial.

See my Idaho archive here.

What Was Secretary of State Pompeo Doing in Tennessee?

~ Ann Corcoran ~ 10 Comments

As you know Republican governors*** are turning against the President on the issue of refugee admissions and the President’s Executive Order that permits governors and county commissioners to say no thanks to refugee resettlement later in 2020.

‘Send us more poverty we have run out of poor people for the churches (and taxpayers!) to care for,’ said Tennessee Governor Bill Lee when he said his Christian faith led him to decide to reach out with open arms to the third world in order to move more poverty closer to home.

Or, was he persuaded for ‘foreign’ policy reasons to cave because of Little Kurdistan in his midst.

“Bill and Pompeo working on the refugee resettlement issues.”

 

Thanks to the ever-watchful dailyrollcall.com, a website in Nashville, we learned that Secretary of State Pompeo visited the governor (dubbed ‘Biblical Bill’) in October to “canoodle” about the refugee program.  That was only a few weeks after the release of the President’s EO.

Because Tennesseans are better organized to resist refugees and have maintained strong and vocal support for a state’s rights lawsuit the state filed against the federal government, citizens are alert and learned of Pompeo’s visit to the governor.

Is Secretary of State Pompeo undermining the Prez?

Frankly I smell a rat! Was Pompeo looking for a key governor (some might argue the most important governor because of the lawsuit) to lead other Republican governors to consent to refugee placement in their states?

Or, is it possible that Pompeo was out having additional chit-chats with governors that we don’t know about.

By the way, any Republican governor who jumps on the consent bandwagon this early is dumb, because according to the Funding rules that are the guidance for the President’s concept to allow governors to opt-in or opt-out, they have well into 2020 to decide because of the leeway granted by the loose language of the guidance.

The big lie!  

Could the Secretary of State be telling Lee and his ‘evangelicals’ that they will be admitting mostly the persecuted Christians of the Middle East to your towns and cities?

Does the President know what Pompeo is doing?

Because I’m sick of hearing that we need refugee resettlement to save Christians, I had a look at the numbers this morning.

If you thought the Trump State Department was saving Christians in the Middle East, you are wrong!

I checked the Refugee Processing Center data and learned this about the three major Middle Eastern Islamic countries from which we admit refugees.  I went back to Trump’s inauguration day to today, Christmas eve 2019, and learned this:

 

Afghanistan

We admitted 2,831 refugees.  2,714 of those are Muslims (96%)

In addition to the regular refugees we admitted 37,570 Special Immigrant Visas (get the same benefits as refugees) for those who supposedly helped us there since Trump came into office.  They would naturally all be Muslims, but there is no data on those (that I know of).

Iraq

We admitted 2,944 refugees. 1,891 of those are Muslims  (64%)

In addition we admitted 3,341 SIVs from Iraq.

Syria

We admitted 2,674 refugees. 2,549 are Muslims (95%)

If Gov. Lee thinks we are saving Syrian Christians, we are not!  And, I sure hope that Pompeo wasn’t telling him that we are!

And, by the way, there is a bipartisan effort in the Senate that includes Senator Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) to expand the SIV program to Syrians and Kurds (Muslims), see here.

Over the years, Blackburn has talked big about slowing the flow of refugees, so why has she now done a 180?

A story for another day!  At least the State Department is putting on a show of opposing it!

*** So far besides Lee, that we know of, REPUBLICAN governors of Utah, New Hampshire, Arizona, North Dakota, South Dakota, West Virginia and Nebraska have abandoned Trump.  The official list of governors who have consented is here.  Clearly many governors have not gotten their consent letters into the State Department.

Refugee Resettlement Used as a [Expletive] Bargaining Chip! Do I Smell a Quid Pro Quo?

~ Ann Corcoran ~ 6 Comments

“It’s a bargaining tool: We’ll take a certain number of refugees. These are the things you will do for us.”

(Melanie Nezer, Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society)

This is just a quick post as I am researching WTH Secretary of State Pompeo was doing when he had a little chit-chat about refugees with the now under- fire Tennessee Governor Bill Lee in October.

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo

Before I get to the little nugget I discovered in a 2018 Politico article about Pompeo, I want to remind long time readers, and inform new readers, that way back seven years ago (and long before that) the US State Department annually invited comment on the coming years refugee plans.

However, when those so-called scoping meetings began to be dominated by those of us who want the refugee program dumped or reformed, they stopped having the annual (albeit phony) ‘hearings.’

The Trump State Department has had no such opportunity for public input.

I regularly sent in testimony demanding a moratorium on the program and listed ten reasons, most are still applicable today.  See them here.

Here is my Number 7:

7)   Congress needs to specifically disallow the use of the refugee program for other purposes of the US Government,especially using certain refugee populations to address unrelated foreign policy objectives—Uzbeks, Kosovars, Meshketians and Bhutanese (Nepalese) people come to mind.

Now check this out at Politico in August of 2018.

Refugees as pawns and your community be damned!

“Pompeo is the critical stakeholder,” one refugee advocate said.

Melanie Nezer of the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society. (One of nine federal refugee resettlement contractors.)

Now that he’s served both as CIA director and secretary of state, activists hope that Pompeo has earned an appreciation for the diplomatic leverage having a robust refugee program can give the U.S. in negotiations with other countries.

“It’s a bargaining tool: We’ll take a certain number of refugees. These are the things you will do for us,” explained Melanie Nezer, a top official with HIAS, one of several organizations that helps refugees.

It is time to shut up about the humanitarian BS!  A refugee should be someone who is in legitimate need of protection, not a chip in a foreign policy poker game.

Think about that!  Your community will be changed forever (while you pay for it with your tax dollars) because refugees being admitted to the US are pawns in US foreign policy wheeling and dealing!