And, the health care system there is begging the feds for more money to help relieve this latest fallout from Biden’s totally screwed-up Afghan evacuation.
Americans turned away from Virginia hospitals over Afghan evacuees
(Editor: Glad to see that the Afghans are not being referred to as ‘refugees.’ They are not legitimate refugees!)
A massive influx of Afghan evacuees strained Northern Virginia hospitals so much this week that American citizens were being turned away.
Every Virginian should be complaining to Virginia Democrat Senators Tim Kaine and Mark Warner. Let them know that Biden’s disastrous Afghan surrender will be hurting them and their party in the next election. Throwing more taxpayer dollars at the problem won’t get them off the hook.
A hospital near Dulles Expo Center has been running out of beds, forcing the facility to turn away non-Afghan patients who didn’t need critical care, according to The Washington Post.
The overwhelmed hospital system prompted a regional emergency response group to monitor the hospitals after one became so packed with patients that federal officials lost track of a number of Afghans receiving medical care, including a month-old child suffering from a possibly life-threatening condition.
Kristin Nickerson, executive director of the Northern Virginia Emergency Response System, said the child was later located in one of the hospitals. Nickerson, who also directs the Northern Virginia Hospital Alliance, confirmed that another hospital was forced to turn away American patients.
“Our hospitals are already almost at capacity,” she said, referring to patients with COVID-19. “It’s not like they have tons of free beds available. We are still in the middle of a pandemic.”
Nickerson said federal officials have not been responsive to requests for financial help. The Washington Post reported that a spokesperson for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services said questions should be presented to the Department of Homeland Security, which did not respond to several attempts seeking comment.
The offices of both Senators Tim Kaine and Mark Warner said they are aware of and monitoring the situation.
[….]
Nickerson further explained that a federal contractor which was supposed to retrieve Afghan evacuees after their hospital visits has left them in the facilities for up to six hours. Cherokee Federal, the contractor in question, did not respond to The Washington Post’s request for comment. [Oh, gee, another contractor for me to investigate!—ed]
Surprise (not!):
As Afghan evacuees continue to arrive, the cost to care for them continues to rise.
On Aug. 28, top local administrators, who make up the board of the Northern Virginia Emergency Response System group, sent a letter to Virginia’s secretary of health and human services, calling for federal and state dollars to be allocated for the ongoing effort.
“To meet the current need, we are leveraging what little resources we have to augment the existing team at the moment, but this is not sustainable with only a staff of 12,” the letter said.
J. Stephen Jones, chief executive of the Inova Health System, said the hospitals shouldn’t expect the impact of the Afghan crisis to end any time soon.
By the way, I have 390 posts in my health issues category. See what other health problems refugees and migrants of all sorts bring to America. Health problems, including mental health problems, that you ultimately pay for, one way or another.
If you missed it yesterday, I wrote a refugee-related story at ‘Frauds and Crooks.’
Of course I have been making the point for 14 years—these so-called religious charities that resettle refugees in the US (the Afghans are not legitimate refugees!) would quickly go belly-up if they had to find private money for their religious charitable work.
They can’t raise enough money to place thousands of refugees without the federal dole, so what does that tell you? It tells me that there isn’t popular support from average Americans for what they are doing!
I’m not picking on Massachusetts or this Jewish resettlement agency, it just happens that this story, of MANY stories that are coming to my attention, came to me as I sat down to write a post for today.
This complaint is everywhere—-too many evacuees, little payment for services for the contractors, no affordable housing and these Afghans, most of them, won’t be eligible for welfare including food stamps unless Congress changes the law.
Somehow the chosen towns and its citizens are going to have to cough up the financial support.
And, you can be sure they won’t be put up in Hyannis!
That would only be fair since it was ol’ Teddy himself who created the refugee admissions program and the Special Immigrant Visa program for Iraqis and Afghans.
You can be sure that no Afghans will be housed at Massachusetts’s Hyannis Harbor Hotel!
Before I give you the story, know that the contractors*** are knocking on doors that were previously slammed in their faces—like this one in Rutland, Vermont.
Nearly 1,000 Afghan refugees are set to arrive in Massachusetts – are we ready?
Roughly 1,000 Afghan evacuees are going to be rehoused in Massachusetts communities, Maxine Stein, president and CEO of the Jewish Family Service of Western Massachusetts (JFSWM), told MassLive on Thursday, although the specific date is yet to be confirmed.
The problem for non-profits like JFSWM is funding and permanent housing.
[….]
Republican Governor Baker: Welcome Afghans whoever you are!
Gov. Charlie Baker issued a public statement on Aug. 17, at the height of the crisis in Afghanistan that Massachusetts is ready to assist Afghan refugees seeking safety and peace in America, but little has been revealed on the state’s plan for the intake.
Where is the MONEY?
So far no money has been promised to aid the work the charities are doing to rehouse the refugees and Baker’s office has not laid out any guarantee of support.
“I think we’re getting to a point now where we’re being asked to do all of this work, and that’s wonderful, but we are given no resources to do it,” said Stein. “The state of Massachusetts is welcoming Afghan refugees, but we need to see some financial support.”
JFSWM is looking at three communities to house the 150 Afghan evacuees they can help: Framingham, Pittsfield and Springfield.
If you live in one of those Massachusetts towns and you aren’t happy with what you are hearing, you better speak up now or forever hold your peace!
Check out my archives to see that Springfield, Mass, a working class town, has been a real pocket of resistance over the years. Nevertheless, the State Department continued to shove refugees down the mayor’s throat.
***The primary contractors have around 100 subcontractors working for them….
Yesterday as I was happily putting up my vegetable harvest, I heard Glenn Beck in the background announcing that he soon would be talking to the leader of Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service (LIRS) about their efforts to care for arriving Afghan evacuees (most are NOT refugees).
Beck can be a doofus at times. He was just that as he effusively thanked KRISH O’MARA VIGNARAJAH CEO of LIRS for helping the poor souls (mostly Muslims of course) that Biden loaded on planes in Afghanistan last week to make it look like he was the king of humanitarians.
I’m too lazy to search for a transcript of the interview, but Beck seemed most interested in whether they were helping Afghans assimilate to American life and to learn English.
Oh, yes, they do help them learn English Vignarajah assured him.
She said they needed donations and volunteers to help them with that and their other good deeds.
But, neither she or Beck SAID A WORD ABOUT THE FACT THAT LIRS IS ALMOST COMPLETELY FUNDED BY TAXPAYERS—INVOLUTARILY BY YOU!
Now is Beck so ill prepared that he didn’t know that or did he not want to inform his listeners of that little fact? To the uninformed the message was that wow! look at this Christian organization doing their Christian good works!
Let’s get our facts straight!
I have done this many time over the years, but just so you know.
I repeat….
The Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service is funded by the federal government!
Heck, I won’t be able to retire unless the media (and even people like Beck who fancies himself a great investigator) make that fact known!
On page 9 we see that $52 million of their $60 million or so income came from the US government. They are a federal contractor!
And here, have a look at the salaries of Mrs. O’Maraand a few of her other co-workers. Although she does not make the salary her predecessor Linda Hartke made before leaving under questionable circumstances, a quarter of a million a year isn’t chump change.
Note that she makes more than a US Senator or Member of Congress. If LIRS was truly a private organization funded out of the charity of individuals, their salaries would be none of our business, but they are not!
And, now looking forward from 2019 here is some data from USA Spending. Looks like they are sucking up even more federal tax dollars!
I hate to think that a lot of uniformed Americans are sending their hard earned bucks to LIRS because of Beck’s plug yesterday when they are already contributing via the US Treasury.
The other day I mentioned that you could check this listof existng resettlement sites and have a good idea if your community was going to be ‘welcoming’ Afghan evacuees and Special Immigrant Visa holders that Biden flew out of Afghanistan in the last week.
Of course there are caveats. First, longtime readers know that new arrivals can be placed within 100 miles of the listed office, and secondly, they are permitted to move anywhere they wish and many will. That is because they will want to live with their own kind of people where existing enclaves of their particular ethnic group have settled.
But, just you try to say you want to live with your kind of people and watch the moral outrage! Funny how it isn’t considered racist or phobic in any way when the situation is reversed.
I also saidI would tell you another method to find out if you were going to be the lucky recipients of mystery (they loaded up many who had no discernable reason to be getting seats on planes to America) Afghans is to (duh!) check your local papers as one of my readers did for Kentucky. See here:
Kentucky prepares to resettle up to 775 Afghan evacuees amid challenges
To test it out for you, I simply searched for Maryland and Afghan refugees (although most are NOT legitimate refugees) and presto up popped many articles from the last week or so including some about how our Republican Governor Larry Hogan has his arms open to invite them in!
Within a few minutes I saw stories from Michigan, Utah, New York, Massachusetts and Tennessee.
Another suggestion I have had in the past is to find someone with gumption to infiltrate your local ‘Interfaith group’ because they will be the first to be in on the action and in the know about who is coming especially if the new arrivals will be Muslims (which the majority of Afghans will be).
Okay, so when you get that information (assuming you are unhappy about it), what do you plan to do?
Are you planning to yak on social media about how it isn’t fair, that you had no say in the matter? Are you going to mount your high horse and fume about the Constitution and State’s rights as one “Constitutional Republican” did in recent days. In a comment shared with me, he fumed about Arizona’s Governor Ducey and asked why Ducey couldn’t just tell Biden NO, no Afghans should be dropped in Arizona.
WTH!!! Do you really think that the Open Borders Left plays fair and gives a flying c*** about prissy high-minded notions like what is Constitutional and what isn’t? And, besides, where were you all when President Trump did try to give governors the opportunity to stop resettlement? I reported extensively on his efforts.
Arizona’s Ducey was one of the Republican governors who told Trump, no thanks, the feds could continue sending refugees to Arizona at will.
Obviously not enough Arizona voters have told Ducey they are unhappy with him.
Only Texas Governor Abbott said he supported Trump in a bid to get his state’s right back! (If you are wondering, DeSantis and Kemp remained silent, the contractors sued and stopped Trump, and that was the end of it).
So, back to my question: what are you going to do besides fume on social media?
Are you simply going to read more news at sites that agree with you, shake your head and fume some more? I’ve already told you what you have to do in my series on Fighting Back Locally.
Sorry I never finished it, but I saw little interest in it from my readers. Frankly I assume that was because it takes more work than reading news and yakking to like-minded people on Facebook, etc.
In my opinion, that is what is wrong with conservatives generally —we think our high-minded ideas are going to sway the debate. Fat chance!
If it is too hard for you to stick your necks out (and I understand that) even with the help of a few friends to speak up locally, or organize group of activists like the Left does, then at least now, more than ever, you must get to work on political campaigns for 2022!
And, let those who are in office now know what you think about the migrant invasion from all fronts. Pounce every time they make a move that you disagree with.
Find good pro-America candidates at all levels of government!
Then you better find candidates who put America First and work on those campaigns. Go to every campaign debate you can get to and ask the candidates in front of the audience and the media about immigration and where they stand!
You can choose to stay silent and watch them change America by changing the people, or speak up now, risk being labelled a racist (who cares!) and maybe, just maybe, pull America back from the brink!
Endnote: I have an extensive archive on Kentucky if you are interested,click here.
Afghan evacuees arrive at Dulles near Washington, DC.
CBS posteda handy outline of the massive mess the Biden Administration has created by scooping up tens of thousands of Afghans who have really no legitimately determined immigration status in the US.
So, of course, Congress might have to change immigration law so that medical care, housing assistance, food stamps and cash assistance can be made available to them.
In the meantime, the Biden Administration will be going outside the law to find money (your money) to care for them.
This article is a must read for all of you interested in the tangled mess and it serves as a harbinger of the troubles your community is going to have with large numbers of unhappy evacuees who are going to be wanting stuff—decent housing in crime-free communities and a social safety net for months or even years to come.
By the way, in my first year of writing this blog—2007—there was an Iraqi boy, in Arizona I think, who penned a letter to a local paper and asked why the US would admit so many Iraqis that were then having a miserable life in America because there were too many to be properly cared for. He asked, why not admit fewer so they could be happy instead of too many who were all subsequently unhappy?
I predict we are rapidly headed to a crisis we have never seen before because don’t forget we are also admitting hundreds of thousands across our southern border who have no approved reason to be here and who are expecting Americans to feed and clothe them.
All of those aliens combined with the Afghans and Biden’s promise for October 1 to begin admitting up to 125,000 refugees from other areas of the world is going to create the greatest drain on the American taxpayers we have likely ever seen, and the greatest chaos and tension in ‘welcoming’ communities as all of the competing migrants want stuff.
Here is the CBS story. If you are really interested in what is happening, you should read it yourself. I’m pulling out only a few nuggets of information I found most informative.
Once again, they are not legitimate REFUGEES, so try hard to simply call them evacuees, even as the mainstream media will try to firmly cement in your minds that they are legal refugees.
U.S. effort to resettle Afghan refugees faces major hurdles
The Biden administration’s plan to resettle tens of thousands of Afghan refugees is facing formidable operational and legal challenges, with issues ranging from the uncertain immigration status of many evacuees, to limited social resources and permanent housing for the new arrivals.
Thousands of at-risk Afghans are arriving in the U.S. without approved visas, placing them in legal limbo and rendering them ineligible for some federal social programs available to those admitted as refugees, including cash assistance and Medicaid.
The sharp increase in admissions of Afghan evacuees over the past few days has also strained the resources of the nine national U.S. refugee resettlement agencies***, prompting them to house some refugees in hotels and Airbnb rentals while affordable apartments are found, three resettlement officials told CBS News.
Since mid-August, the U.S. has admitted approximately 24,000 of the Afghans it evacuated from Kabul this summer ahead of the U.S. withdrawal. As of Thursday morning, more than 20,000 of them were being housed at eight military sites that have been chosen to temporarily host them, according to internal federal data reviewed by CBS News.
Another roughly 39,000 evacuees remained at military bases in Europe and the Middle East, including Afghans undergoing U.S. immigration processing and security vetting, the federal data showed.
Biden’s team is going “ad hoc” (a nice way of saying that they are going outside of existing law) to get the non-refugees their bennies.
To address these exclusions, the State Department is launching an “Afghan Parolee Support Program,” which will help Afghan parolees with housing, transportation, food, cash, clothing, legal counsel and other services, according to multiple resettlement officials involved in the effort.
And, those religious charities (six of nine are supposedly religious)*** that resettle refugees on a per head basis will be getting paid as usual even as the evacuees are NOT refugees! Sounds illegal to me!
Resettlement agencies are expected to receive $2,275 for each Afghan parolee that they serve.However, parolees will only have access to the makeshift program for up to 90 days, so refugee advocates are now urging lawmakers to enact a legislative fix.
Congressmen Seth Moulton and Don Bacon, a bipartisan pair of former military officers, are planning to introduce a bill known as the WELCOME Act on Friday that would make Afghan parolees eligible for the same government benefits that traditional refugees receive, two congressional officials told CBS News.
The Office of Refugee Resettlement at the Department of Health and Human Services is also considering creating an ad hoc program to temporarily cover medical services for parolees, two resettlement officials said.
There isso much information. You should read it and book mark it for future reference.
Don’t miss the part about how they will not be sent back to Afghanistan even if they don’t get a favorable decision with their asylum claim or their security screening!
More than 23,000 are already on US soil! See here.
*** These are the nine Leftwing federal resettlement contractors that are busy beavers right now as they juggle for position to be awarded their allotments of illegitimate ‘refugees’ (refugee industry watchers refer to the process as bidding for bodies).
Yesterday as I was happily putting up my vegetable harvest, I heard Glenn Beck in the background announcing that he soon would be talking to the leader of Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service (LIRS) about their efforts to care for arriving Afghan evacuees (most are NOT refugees).
To address these exclusions, the State Department is launching an “Afghan Parolee Support Program,” which will help Afghan parolees with housing, transportation, food, cash, clothing, legal counsel and other services, according to multiple resettlement officials involved in the effort.