Month: March 2020

Blowback Against Idaho Governor over Refugee Decision was Fierce

~ Ann Corcoran ~ 1 Comment

Rarely do we get any reports on how many citizens take time to contact elected officials about their unhappiness with the refugee admissions program.

Governor Little with Mr. Chobani Yogurt in Twin Falls. Twin Falls is number 10 in the top cities in the nation ‘welcoming’ refugees on a per capita basis.*** Any wonder why the governor jumped on the bandwagon for more refugees for Idaho.

So it was interesting to see that in Idaho citizens took action in a big way to criticize their Republican governor when he encouraged the US State Department to send Idaho more refugees and thus went against the President’s reform effort.

Unfortunately I can give you only a tiny snippet of this story as it is behind a paywall.  Surely some Idahoans will subscribe to the Idaho Press for the whole story.

Records show opposition to refugees, Gov. Little’s work to support resettlement program

Gov. Brad Little’s decision to continue to allow refugee resettlement in Idaho wasn’t out of step with his colleagues elsewhere, writes Post Register reporter Nathan Brown. Nineteen Republican governors told the Trump administration in December and January they wanted to keep taking refugees, with just Texas Gov. Greg Abbott asking to opt out.

Not everyone was happy with it. Facebook comments and Twitter replies on Little’s accounts quickly filled with people angry at his decision, and hundreds of people contacted his office to express their displeasure. Documents provided in response to a public records request show both the scale of the blowback and his administration’s work to present facts to justify the governor’s decision.

Go here for a link to the full story.

I’m excited to see that some publication used the state’s public information law to put some cleansing sunshine on the issue.

***To see if your city ranks in the Top 100 cities welcoming refugees, see my post yesterday.

And, go here for my Twin Falls archive.

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CIS: US Remains Top Refugee Resettlement Country in the World; See Top US Cities

~ Ann Corcoran ~ 6 Comments

You would never know that if all you ever read is the mainstream media eager to show that Donald Trump’s America is mean while other western countries are ‘welcoming.’

From the Center for Immigration Studies:

U.S. Was the Number-One Refugee Resettlement Country in the World in 2019

And most likely will be in 2020, as well

New data released by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) on its 2019 resettlement activities shows that the United States remains the top country for refugee resettlement. Furthermore, just like in previous years, the vast majority of refugees referred by UNHCR for resettlement in third countries in 2019 were not the most vulnerable or in urgent need of relocation. This contradicts the UN refugee agency’s constant claims that resettlement is a “life-saving tool”, a “critical lifeline” for refugees that needs strengthening. This also casts some doubt on UNHCR referral processes.

[….]

The statistical snapshot provided by UNHCR on its 2019 resettlement activities (figures are for the calendar year) has the United States as the top resettlement submission and destination country in 2019 (as it was in 2017 and 2018 under the Trump administration, see here and here):

Now see below which countries actually took in fewer by larger margins than the US.

Continue reading all of Nayla Rush’s detailed report.

How are your cities doing?

There is some very cool data on which US cities get the most refugees on a per capita basis here at American Public Media Research Lab.

I chose the data for the Top 25 US cities ‘welcoming’ 100 or more refugees each year between 2015 and 2019.  The maps are interactive so when you visit you can click on the city and learn more details.

That smashed together location in Georgia is Atlanta and Clarkston. Clarkston is the number one city in the country on a per capita basis.

 

Since it is such a muddle there in the Northeast, here is a blow-up of that section of the map:

You might want to go visit and see if your city is in the Top 100.

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Refugee Contractor Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society Grows During Trump Administration

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

“He (CEO Hetfield) expects HIAS to spend $80 million this year, its largest budget to date.”

 

I recently showed you, here, that indeed the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society (one of nine federal refugee resettlement contractors***) is doing better under the Trump administration than it did previously for most of the Obama years.

Now here is news where HIAS CEO Mark Hetfield tells us why that is.

They are expanding their offices into Central and South America, and elsewhere.

So why the wailing about the Trump administration’s reduction in numbers? HIAS can certainly do its ‘religious charitable work’ elsewhere and stop pushing more migrants to America, right?

From The Jewish Standard:

Refugee crisis continues to grow, HIAS director says

When we spoke earlier this week, Mark Hetfield, president and CEO of HIAS, was traveling through Central and South America, visiting some of the organization’s many offices in the region. The number of those offices continues to grow.

Hetfield (left) protesting with Church World Service against the Trump administration (and suing the Prez). https://um-insight.net/in-the-world/advocating-justice/faith-groups-sue-trump-administration-over-refugee-resettlem/

[….]

We’ve long had programs in Venezuela, Ecuador, and Panama for refugees from Colombia,” Mr. Hetfield said. But now, with the refugee crisis in Venezuela, the organization has had to create new centers to handle the situation. And while thousands of refugees are streaming out of Venezuela, others continue to come in.

Only one year ago, HIAS had 45 offices across the world; today it has 71.

Most are in Central and South America and Mexico. “Our office in Ecuador has 250 staff members, with 16 offices across the country,” Mr. Hetfield said. He noted that in the United States, Venezuelans comprise the number one asylum-seeking group, “but nobody seems to be noticing this crisis.”

HIAS also has offices in Africa, Israel, and the United States. “We aspire to be where there is a refugee crisis,” Mr. Hetfield said.

Here is my favorite bit of news from this story!

They don’t want to reform the US Refugee Admissions Program because they fear they would lose in a fight in Congress because they know the American people are not on their side!

Unfortunately, he noted, “All international and domestic law is basically responding to the problems of World War II. It hasn’t been updated to reflect realities. And people are afraid to revisit it because of the fear that if we reopen it, it will be contracted rather than expanded.”

More here.

See my post yesterday about a Catholic publication pushing the BIG LIE that the Refugee Act of 1980, which is 40 years old this month and needs to be repealed or reformed, was signed into law by Ronald Reagan.  It was not! Our peanut farmer President was responsible for creating the dysfunctional program that set up the taxpayer-funded money stream to these nine contractors.

***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.

A ‘religious’ message from CWS one of three federally funded contractors suing to stop the President’s effort to reform the UN-driven Refugee Admissions Program.

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.

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