The ‘In the Loop’ column in the Washington Post predicted yesterday that Eric Schwartz is a likely choice to be Assistant Secretary for Refugees, Population and Migration (PRM for short). PRM is the US State Department branch that is responsible for admitting third world refugees into the US. No surprise that he is a Clintonista.
Also at Foggy Bottom, chatter is that Eric Schwartz, former Clinton administration National Security Council senior director for humanitarian aid and a top U.N. human rights official, is the leading candidate to be assistant secretary of state for population, refugees and migration.
PRM has been without a politically appointed leader since the term of our former Maryland politician, Ellen Sauerbrey’s expired. Sauerbrey had been chosen by that ‘bad’ Bush but soon got high praise for working right along with the volags to bring more refugees to the US. Sauerbrey was responsible for negotiating a deal that will bring 60,000 Bhutanese from camps in Nepal to the US over the next few years.
I asked this when I wrote, more than a year ago, about Sauerbrey’s “warm send-off” where she was praised by the refugee industry for increasing refugee numbers and helping them bypass security hurdles.
Kind of makes you shake your head, how did we get to the point of praising a conservative for bringing more refugees to America while lessening the security procedures?
So, back to Schwartz. I don’t know who he is except for some evidence readily available on the internet. You can read about his plans for a new administration way back in August here.
Schwartz heads up an organization called Connect US Fund, that appears to be a front for a bunch of leftwing funders, here. It’s the usual crowd—many of the same foundations that I learned long ago also called the shots in the environmental movement. I know for a fact that these are the very same moneybags that locked up Alaska lands and prohibited oil drilling back in the 1970’s (but that’s another story).
The Connect U.S. Fund was created in 2004 and is supported by a donors’ collaborative which presently includes the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, the Open Society Institute, the Ford Foundation, the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, the Atlantic Philanthropies and the Charles Stewart Mott Foundation. The Connect U.S. Fund is managed by the Tides Foundation. The Connect U.S. Council provides policy and program guidance for the Connect U.S. initiative, and is comprised of representatives from each of the five supporting foundations.
And, if you need more evidence about where this group and Schwartz are headed, see this substantively and logically weak article they have posted on their website entitled, “The Economic Crisis Should Not Weaken Commitment to Resettling Refugees in the U.S.” Bring more refugees it’s good for the economy, they say.
But the question remains. Can a new Administration and Congress make the case for increases in refugee resettlement assistance during an economic crisis? I would say that not only can the case be made, but that it can be made convincingly.
After making NO convincing case, the treatise ends with this.
An economic downturn, far from discouraging support for refugees, should encourage it.
Huh?
The theory here appears to be, that if you say something often enough and forcefully enough, it becomes true, at least in the minds of those who want to believe it.
Update a few hours later: See the end of this post for a possible explanation of the seemingly illogical thesis that an economic downturn is good for refugee resettlement.