Panic button as refugee contracting agencies begin to downsize as they lose federal $$$

I have a lot of catching up to do today….
Update: More here on the subject of World Relief downsizing (Nashville).
Here is Leo Hohmann at World Net Daily with a report from yesterday (I spent all day yesterday in Washington) on more news from the federal refugee contractors crying about their federal funding drying up in the wake of the Trump Administration’s slowdown on refugee arrivals.
(We also mentioned some of this news on Tuesday, here), and it is still a mystery as to why “arrivals” would begin to dry up on March 3rd (is it the money flowing to contractors that will dry up?).
Hohmann:

Refugee-resettlement agencies are scrambling to cut staff and, in some cases, close entire offices as they prepare for a reduction in refugee arrivals to the U.S. under President Donald Trump’s unfolding policy.

A pro-refugee group leaked an “official guidance” from the U.S. State Department to NPR Wednesday that said refugee arrivals will begin to dry up after March 3.

As WND reported last week, the one part of Trump’s embattled executive order that was not blocked by the Ninth Circuit Court, was his reduction of the fiscal-2017 cap on refugees from 110,000 set by Barack Obama to 50,000. The fiscal year ends Oct. 1.

Since 35,000 refugees have already arrived, that would mean another 15,000 would be allowed in by Oct. 1. The fact that the State Department is now saying new arrivals will end by March 3 means Trump could be planning to lower the ceiling further since it would be nearly impossible to hit the 50,000 cap in a little over two weeks.

Continue here.  Hohmann goes on to report on the ‘plight’ of World Relief, one of the nine major federal government refugee contractors***.
And, then here is Katherine Rodriguez at Breitbart on World Relief:

An evangelical relief and development agency that works with the United Nations’ refugee program announced Wednesday that it will lay off 140 staff members and close five offices.

World Relief, which is one of the nine U.S. organizations that works with the UN, called the decision “a direct result of the recent decision by the Trump Administration,” citing President Trump’s executive order that capped the number of refugees allowed into the United States, the Washington Post reported.

[….]

The organization will close its offices in Boise, Idaho; Columbus, Ohio; Miami; Nashville; and Glen Burnie, Md. and lay off 20 percent of its 650 U.S.-based employees. It has 2,500 employees around the world.

Several of the nine resettlement agencies including World Relief have launched fundraisers to cover the unexpected losses they anticipate from the number of refugees admitted.

“It will impact all nine resettlement agencies, so the infrastructure for refugee resettlement in our country — built over decades, at least since the Refugee Act of 1980 — could be decimated,” Matthew Soerens of World Relief said.

Maybe Mr. Soerens doesn’t remember how low the refugee flow was in the wake of 9/11—-lower than what Trump has so far determined it will be.

World Relief received about $42 million in government grants, which amounts to almost three-fourths of the ministry’s total revenue of $62 million, according to the latest IRS filings from the ministry.

Most federal funding for World Relief comes in a one-time, per-refugee grant of $2,025, most of which gets used for expenses such as rent for an apartment and a caseworker for newly arrived refugees during their first 90 days in the country, Soerens said.

Now, the organization has to use nongovernmental funding to make up the difference.

Boo hoo!

More here.
The organization should have been raising private money for decades! In my opinion they got fat and lazy on easy-to-get taxpayer money!  And, adding insult to injury, as ‘non-profit’ groups they are arrogant and unaccountable, while using our money to build their bureaucracies.

If there isn’t enough private money for their “humanitarian” work then it means there aren’t enough people in America supporting the movement of tens of thousands of impoverished people to their towns and cities!

I have some ideas on how this program could be reformed, and first and foremost, I would eliminate completely the VOLAG system.
‘Evangelists’ like Soerens (below) have never been able to adequately explain why it is the taxpayers’ Christian duty to welcome the stranger when they obviously can’t convince enough private evangelists to pony up (out of their own pockets!) for refugees coming in from the third world!
 

 
***The nine major federal contractors that prefer to be called VOLAGs (that is short for Voluntary agencies, ha! ha!):