Month: March 2020

Senate Passes Historic $2 Trillion Stimulus Bill; Includes Millions for Refugee Programs

~ Ann Corcoran ~ 11 Comments

Unless you have escaped to your bunkers, you know that the Senate passed the COVID-19 stimulus funding yesterday.  Here at USA Today:

Senate passes historic $2 trillion stimulus package to curb effects of coronavirus

WASHINGTON – The Senate approved its largest emergency aid package in modern history that will offer $2 trillion to help Americans, hospitals and businesses weather the effects of the coronavirus. The vote late Wednesday night was 96-0.

The bill will now go to the House for approval before it’s sent to President Donald Trump for his signature.

House Majority Leader, Rep. Steny Hoyer, D-Md., announced that the House will vote on the $2 trillion bill Friday, and that they will convene at 9 a.m.

“We expect the bill to pass by voice vote,” he said.

You have been hearing reports, like this one at Breitbart and here at RRW  (refugee contractors lobby for $$$) a couple of days ago that the package includes money for the Migration and Refugee Assistance account that is the pot of money we use either overseas for refugee assistance or to resettle refugees in American towns and cities.

Here is a recent description of MRA from a Leftwing Open Borders advocacy group. They lobby for over $3 Billion annually for the fund.

Now see that the Senate bill includes an additional $350 Million that will end up in the hands of the refugee contractors***, especially those working elsewhere in the world, like HIAS.

The UN has temporarily stopped the placement of refugees, but the US State Department expects to resume resettlement here after April 6. Normalcy by Palm Sunday?  I doubt it.

 

 

 

*** For new readers these (below) are the nine federally-funded refugee contractors that operate as a huge conveyor belt monopolizing all refugee placement and choosing which lucky towns and cities will be ‘welcoming’ refugees.

Church World Service one of the ‘religious charities’ responsible for changing America by changing the people with a ‘Christian message.’

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 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.

 

 

 

Special Afghan Refugees Still Arriving in US Says Resettlement Contractor

~ Ann Corcoran ~ 7 Comments

Although as you know by now the arrival of refugees has all but stopped due to travel restrictions put in place worldwide.

The UN halted refugee travel a few days ago and the US State Department has reported that no new refugees will arrive now before April 6th.

However, I have been on the hunt to find out if Special Immigrant Visas are still coming in and sure enough they are.

Thanks to a reader for spotting this e-mail from Lutheran Social Services National Capital Area:

Now check this out!  They want a piece of a House goody bag! You’ve been reading that Nancy and her Democrat pals are working on a massive giveaway that apparently the refugee contractors expect to benefit from!

 

I have been checking the data at Wrapsnet (Refugee Processing Center) and sure enough 211 Afghans (who receive all the benefits regular refugees are entitled to) arrived this week bringing the total for the month of March (3 weeks) to 660 from Afghanistan.

That brings the overall total to over 66,000 since FY2008 when this effort to bring Afghan ‘interpreters’ to American towns began.

Although there is no data readily available on where the 211 were placed in the last week, one might expect they were placed in the usual top sites—obviously in Virginia and Maryland as LSS reported in its e-mail.

In this fiscal year (FY2020) that began on October 1, 2019 these are the top five states that ‘welcomed’ Afghan interpreters and their relatives.

California (2,697)

Texas (1,280)

Virginia (730)

Maryland (510)

Washington (489)

So, as your travel is being restricted, planes are still in the air bringing Afghans here for American taxpayers to support!

And, btw, Afghanistan has COVID-19. Are the arriving special refugees being tested?

Former Rep. Elizabeth Holtzman Brags about Role in Creating Refugee Act 40 Years Ago

~ Ann Corcoran ~ 4 Comments

I’m posting this opinion piece by the former Democrat Representative from New York merely to continue to give ‘credit’ where credit is due to those who helped create the dysfunctional Refugee Admissions Program that turned forty last Tuesday.

Holtzman came out of the woodwork and used the occasion of the anniversary to pen yet another hit piece on the President with this, posted at CNN:

The Refugee Act reminds us to not forget our humanity — especially now

(CNN) As the global Covid-19 pandemic unfolds, it puts into sharp focus how the Trump administration’s harsh immigration policies may lead to (yet another) humanitarian crisis — this time along the US-Mexico border, where thousands of asylum seekers are living in overcrowded makeshift encampments, many without running water. If there were a coronavirus outbreak in one of these encampments — which are already short on medical supplies — the results could be catastrophic.

Elizabeth Holtzman says she and Teddy Kennedy created the Refugee Program 40 years ago.

Meanwhile, the President is describing Covid-19 as a “Chinese virus” on Twitter and in news conferences, stoking xenophobia and fear — and continuing to undermine the United States’ global leadership.

It wasn’t always this way. Forty years ago this week, when Sen. Ted Kennedy and I co-authored the Refugee Act of 1980, the United States was a different country. It largely welcomed asylum seekers and refugees, and the Refugee Act reflected that humane view. In the act, our country made a permanent commitment to admitting refugees, based on the international non-discriminatory standard of fleeing persecution, and established an asylum procedure inside the United States.

The Refugee Act was not controversial. It sailed through the Senate unanimously and won overwhelming approval in the House before President Jimmy Carter signed it into law on March 17, 1980.

Apparently it was controversial because here we learn that 62% of Americans did not want to welcome hundreds of thousands of refugees to America.

If Carter had a Twitter account at that time, I imagine he would have pointed to the United States’ proud tradition of welcoming the most vulnerable: the 360,000 people who fled Fidel Castro’s takeover in Cuba in the mid 1960s, the tens of thousands of Jewish refugees who fled the Soviet Union beginning in the 1970s, and the more than 400,000 refugees from Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos who arrived here by 1980.

Holtzman then describes how her family came to America as refugees escaping Communism with the help of the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society (aka HIAS).

I see now how they got their inside track to the federal treasury money spigot.***

From 1980 to January 2017 — for 37 years and under six presidents — the Refugee Act worked well. More than 3 million refugees were admitted and overwhelmingly became productive participants in our country, just as my family did.  [I can play that game too! For every successful refugee I can find you one who is a criminal, terrorist, murderer or just a plain old mooch!—ed]

Yet every year since Trump took office in 2017, he has slashed the number of refugees admitted under the Refugee Act. For this year, it is 18,000, a historic low, reflecting his ongoing battle against admitting new refugees, immigrants and asylum seekers.

More here.

The US State Department has said that refugee arrivals will resume on April 6th.  How many of you think the virus crisis will be abating by then.  Show of hands!

*** For fun I went back to the first Annual Report to Congress in 1980 to see which resettlement contractors were operational (being paid by taxpayers to place refugees in your towns and cities) and found this list.

I’ve marked those that are still, 40 years later, receiving millions of your tax dollars. Six of nine have been in on the deal for those 4 decades. No wonder they are furious at the President for breaking their rice bowls.

 

 

Go here to the Office of Refugee Resettlement and see all of the Annual Reports to Congress.  They are very informative and you might have a little extra time these days for reading ‘pleasure.’

COVID-19 News: Trudeau to Turn Back Asylum Seekers Trying to Cross into Canada

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

He will be sending them back to Donald Trump!

How ironic is this.

Just a little over three years ago, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau issued a now infamous in-your-face tweet to challenge the newly sworn-in President of the United States.

 

Now here comes the news about the border closures that all sensible countries are putting in place in an effort to slow the momentum of the virus crisis.

From The Conversation:

It is a long story, probably not worth reading, by a Canadian professor clearly unhappy with the turn of events. The Open Borders Lefties are generally treading lightly because citizens are in no mood to have their liberties restricted (and health threatened) while migrants have free movement around the world.

Coronavirus: Racism and the long-term impacts of emergency measures in Canada

The dangers to public health during the COVID-19 pandemic are terrifying, so it’s not surprising governments around the world are taking extraordinary measures to curb its spread, including closing borders to non-nationals.

Canada has become one of many countries to either partially or completely close their borders and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has also announced that Canada will no longer consider asylum claims.

[….]

One of many PR events when Trudeau welcomed Syrians to Canada by the thousands.

Canada has won international praise over the last few years for its commitment to refugee resettlement in particular, as evidenced by the arrival of 25,000 Syrian refugees in a few short months.

But Trudeau has announced that due to these “exceptional times,” a new agreement has been signed with the United States that would see asylum-seekers crossing the border on foot returned to the U.S.

This exceptional reaction goes against Canada’s commitments under the 1951 United Nations Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees and a 1985 Supreme Court ruling that says refugee claimants have a right to a fair hearing (the Singh decision).

More here.

I have archived over 200 posts in my Canada category you might wish to have a look at if you have time on your hands!

Lots of Stories Raising Alarm, but So Far No COVID-19 Outbreaks in Refugee Camps

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Hope all of you are doing well and taking this time to appreciate home and family during this challenging period.

I’ve been monitoring stories from around the world as alarm bells are being rung about a catastrophe (“carnage” seems to be the operative word) that has not yet materialized that refugees housed in crowded camps will be consumed with the virus and that someone (government?) has to do something.  Of course, what governments might do is not clear.

I told readers here that NGOs that should be expected to help are concerned with protecting their staff.

Here is one headline from the Washington Post on Friday:

As epidemic menaces refugee camps, the Middle East’s most vulnerable face a deepening nightmare

Many paragraphs in we learn this:

Egeland of the Norwegian Refugee Council is ringing alarm bells, but what is any country supposed to do. In his case, Norway is closed as cases rapidly mount there. https://www.lifeinnorway.net/coronavirus-in-norway/

“When the virus hits overcrowded settlements in places like Iran, Bangladesh, Afghanistan and Greece, the consequences will be devastating,” Jan Egeland, secretary general of the Norwegian Refugee Council, said this week. “There will also be carnage when the virus reaches parts of Syria, Yemen and Venezuela, where hospitals have been demolished and health systems have collapsed.”

Health experts hope that the relatively young average age of the displaced will help keep the death rate low. (In some centers, more than 60 percent are children.) And for now, no camp outbreaks have been reported. In some cases, the camps’ very isolation may be slowing the appearance of the virus within their fences and walls.

Access to Gaza, for example, is tightly controlled by Israel, which has largely sealed the enclave’s crossings to Israel and Egypt. Aid workers there are using the time to prepare for what they view as the virus’s inevitable arrival. [So can we say for a change that Israel is doing something good by sealing borders?—ed]

More here.

At NBC on Thursday, the answer is supposedly that governments should be testing in the camps.  Heck, governments are having enough trouble testing their own citizens.

Coronavirus could cause ‘carnage’ among the world’s refugees, aid groups say

WASHINGTON — The coronavirus outbreak threatens to inflict “carnage” on refugees around the world who often live in cramped conditions, lack access to clean water and are in countries with failing or stretched medical systems, humanitarian aid groups say.

Muhammad Zaman, a professor of bioengineering at Boston University wants testing in camps. That would be the UN’s job right?

From Syria to Bangladesh to Uganda, the risk posed to people who have fled war and persecution is potentially dire, and only urgent international action can avert a catastrophe, aid organizations told NBC News.

As of Tuesday, only 10 cases had been reported among refugees and displaced persons, and all of those were patients in Germany, according to the U.N. refugee agency.

But in the absence of extensive testing at refugee camps in the Middle East, Africa or Asia, it’s unclear whether the fast-moving virus has already reached them, medical experts and humanitarian workers said.

“We don’t know, and that’s largely because we haven’t done any testing,” said Muhammad Zaman, a professor of bioengineering at Boston University. “We need to know how acute the problem is before we come up with an intervention.”

Continue reading here.

See that I have a tag for COVID-19 posts.

I see this morning that the flow into the US has stopped for the regular refugee program, but am waiting to see data indicating we have shut off the Iraqi and Afghanistan special visa spigot as well.