Ignoring the governor, New Jersey refugee contractors vow to place them as fast as Obama admits them!

11/15/2016 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

In my previous post I said I had two stories today (so far) about reactions from within the refugee resettlement industry about the future of the program in a Trump administration. The second story comes from NJ.com which begins with the usual heart string-tugging story that has to be the first lesson of Journalism 101 classes at our colleges and universities. However this story has a little smell to it! (Emphasis below is mine)

chrischristie — Governor Chris Christie withdrew New Jersey from the Refugee Admissions Program, but it is meaningless if he doesn’t follow-up with a state’s rights lawsuit. Contractors admit at NJ.com that Syrians can’t be properly screened!

The woman, a Syrian refugee recently resettled in Middlesex County, had one question the morning after the election of Donald Trump:

“What does this mean for my sons?”

What kind of visa allowed the Syrian couple admission to the US, and it is certainly a red flag that their TEENAGE BOYS were not admitted!
Also, since the pair have not yet been approved for asylum, they are NOT REFUGEES (not until their asylum applications have been approved are they eligible for all the goodies refugees receive from taxpayers!).
NJ.com continues:

Her concern was recounted by the Rev. Seth Kaper-Dale, whose New Brunswick congregation has sponsored the resettlement of several refugee families. The woman and her husband had come to the United States on visas, and are seeking asylum***, but her teenage boys were denied visas and are waiting in a third country.

“I told her it doesn’t mean anything for her boys,” Kaper-Dale said. “I do not expect Donald Trump will be nearly as aggressive with his actions as he was with his mouth.” [Rather optimistic isn’t it?—ed]

Admitting it again! Trump does not need Congress to cut off the flow!

Trump campaigned on a promise to stop the flow of refugees from the Middle East, vowing to hit the pause button on the current administration’s acceptance of refugees from the brutal civil war in Syria. Since the refugee resettlement program is administered by the U.S. State Department, a president does not need congressional approval to make the change.

And, just as we predicted! Obama may be trying to front-end the resettlement of his 110,000 refugee plan for FY2017. However, contractors beware because if you get out ahead of your federal funding, you may actually have to find private money later in the year (or go belly-up!).

The New Jersey-based agencies that have federal contracts to help refugees find housing and jobs all vow to continue to welcome people who have come to New Jersey from at least 18 countries. [Progress when mainstream media mentions that the ‘religious’ groups have federal contracts!—ed]

If anything, some expect the pace of resettlement may pick up as the Obama administration tries to bring over as many families as possible before Trump takes office in January, one volunteer said.

[….]

Concerned about the impact the Trump election might have on the organization’s refugee resettlement program, Bertrand made inquiries a few days after the election and said he was told refugees would continue to arrive until the change of administration takes place in Washington.

“And after that, they have no idea what will happen,” he said.

Gov. Christie’s withdrawal of the state from the UN/US Refugee Admissions Program only means a non-profit federal contractor like Church World Service in this story will call the shots for NJ (maybe it already has become a Wilson-Fish state). If he was serious he would file a lawsuit as Tennessee is doing here.

Although Gov. Chris Christie came out against the state accepting any Syrian refugees – saying he would be opposed to accepting even orphans under the age of five – states cannot ban refugees from resettlement in their borders.

Will wonders never cease! Here they actually admit what we have been saying all along about screening Syrians!

Agencies that help with refugee settlement say the people arriving today have been in the vetting pipeline for years. But they concede that the chaotic conditions that triggered a mass exodus from Syria in 2015 makes it very difficult for refugees to prove anything about their backgrounds, as employers, relatives and even records are now scattered, unavailable, or destroyed.

Continue reading here.
***As I warned in my earlier post this morning, watch out for more extensive use of the asylum process if the refugee resettlement program is curtailed.
Go here for more on New Jersey.

Strong reactions (fear too!) from federal refugee resettlement contractors/supporters in wake of Trump win

11/15/2016 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

“I do believe that future flows will be affected significantly!”

(Doris Meissner reacting to Trump win)

Michael Patrick Leahy at Breitbart has a good piece yesterday, a compendium of views from the refugee contractors and immigration industry activists. Check it out here.
I’ve got a couple more stories I want to mention this morning. The first is one focusing on Rutland, VT which has just recently been chosen by the US State Department as a new site for Syrian Muslim refugee resettlement after months of strong opposition that roiled the political waters in the town.

I Love Rutland keck vpr 2016 — Will Rutland get its 100 Syrians, or not? http://digital.vpr.net/post/how-will-trump-presidency-impact-us-refugee-resettlement#stream/0

The article at Vermont Public Radio features quotes from Doris Meissner, a woman who is the doyenne of the Washington DC refugee/asylum/immigration circles.
Meissner was around for the passage of the original Refugee Act of 1980 and I’ve heard her speak a couple of times over the years. (Her bio is here)
The first time was at the ‘celebration’ for the 30th anniversary of the Refugee Act at Georgetown University in 2010. I was struck by one thing Ms. Meissner said at a conference that seemed heavily weighted toward a discussion of the asylum portion of the Act and the opportunities it afforded to get more people in to the US.
She told the audience that the original discussions about asylum were geared toward the odd ballet dancer (referencing Russians I presume) who would ask for asylum when performing in the US. But, she and the audience seemed to be pleased that asylum was now a process that was getting tens of thousands in to the US each year as they feared the normal channel for refugee resettlement was constricting and not fast enough for their purposes.
In 2011, I wrote this post about asylum-seeking-Somalis at our southern border and suggested a Congressional investigation (where are you Trey Gowdy?) to determine if non-profit groups were actually aiding and abetting illegal aliens coming across the world and who miraculously (who pays for the travel?) got the the US southern border and knew to ask for asylum. Meissner is quoted as saying that they have to wait too long in our normal process so they come here illegally. Congress should call Meissner to testify.

The specter of Donald Trump was haunting them already on October 29, 2015:

Again at Georgetown University, this time in October 2015, Meissner was the moderator of a panel on the upcoming 2016 Presidential election. Trump was on their minds and here is what I said in my post:

The “Trump phenomenon” has them obviously shaken and they are trying to figure out how to cope with it. The phrase “Trump phenomenon” was practically the first words out of Ms. Meissner’s mouth when she opened the session. They expected immigration to be an important issue in 2016, but with a different tone to the discussion, not Trump’s outright “anti-immigrant tone.” The whole presentation that followed was based on the understanding that this audience was all pro-Democrat/pro-Hillary.

The refugee resettlement industry needs your money (less money=fewer refugees)!

Back to the article at Vermont Public Radio and what Ms. Meissner told them…

Doris Meissner is the former commissioner of the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service, and is currently a Senior Fellow at the Migration Policy Institute*** in Washington. She says given the strong language Trump used about refugees in the campaign, she expects big changes.

“It will not be business as usual where refugee resettlement is concerned once he’s in office, and that might in particular affect the Syrian program,” Meissner says.

[….]

Meissner says that while it’s possible Trump would send back refugees now living in the United States, she thinks that would be a very costly and difficult. And given the deplorable conditions in Syria, she believes it’s unlikely.

“But I do believe that future flows will be affected significantly,” she says.

[….]

Meissner says U.S. immigration law sets a benchmark of allowing 50,000 refugees a year into the country. But she says the president has the power to come to Congress on an annual basis to propose boosting or cutting that number, and she expects Trump to call for reductions.

Funds for the coming year’s refugee resettlement programs are currently included in the federal budget. But that budget is part of continuing resolution, which means it needs to be renewed by Congress on Dec. 9.

Meissner says she expects those funds will remain, but admits nothing is certain.

Meissner gets it, they can’t function without the money Congress appropriates so once again I am pleading with you to call your member of Congress and your two US Senators and tell them to DEFUND the RAP in the lame duck session that is now upon us!

And, beware!

Look for larger numbers of border crashers to be asking for asylum. I’ll bet a buck that massive numbers of immigration lawyers are on standby waiting to process asylum claims especially if the RAP is slowed or stopped.
*** See what I said about the Migration Policy Institute here in 2011.

Budget battles begin (or maybe not so much), you must still demand DEFUND of RAP

11/14/2016 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

They are back, or just getting back as Congress is in full swing at least for a few days starting tomorrow! See a schedule here for the next few days.
BTW, I see no mention of the legally required hearing that Rep. Trey Gowdy (Chairman of the House Subcommittee on Immigration) is supposed to have had in advance of the fiscal year (before October 1st!) on the US Refugee Admissions Program (RAP) for FY2017.

First, listen to Rep. Brian Babin speaking on a FAIR (Federation for American Immigration Reform) podcast. (Hat tip: Richard at Blue Ridge Forum)
It is almost 13 minutes long and well worth listening to, but be sure to listen starting around the 1:50 mark where the Congressman says he plans to work hard and diligently to attach his DEFUND the RAP measure on the Continuing Resolution (or final budget plan) which ever they address in the lame duck session.
Readers will remember that he sought to attach language to the CR that is operative at the moment and had 37 members of Congress, including himself, behind the effort. Letter here.

So what is happening now that Donald Trump has shocked the country with his victory and the House and Senate remain in Republican hands?

The Hill is reporting that there may be another CR that would continue funding the government at FY2016 levels into February of next year. This would give the incoming Trump team an opportunity to shape the budget for the remaining months of the year to their liking.
It would also have the benefit of cutting out Obama and the likes of Harry Reid from presiding over a contentious December budget fight.
Unless the Department of State, the Office of Refugee Resettlement, or the VOLAGs have money left over from last year, I am making the assumption that the FY2016 level is not adequate to get Obama’s 110,000 refugees in to the US by September 30th. They could try to do a rush job and bring them in at high levels now, but they will be gambling on whether they will have money in the second half of the year.
[An aside: I hope this is the last year of this shameful inattention to the federal budget and that Congress gets on the stick and completes the Appropriations bills BEFORE the fiscal year begins on October 1. Not finishing the bills is a sign of shoddy leadership in my opinion! See here.]
See the story in The Hill here (note some Republicans are on Obama’s team and want the budget finished in December):

GOP groups are seizing on Donald Trump’s victory in an attempt to avert the long-dreaded spending deal with President Obama in the upcoming lame-duck session of Congress.

Members of the Republican Study Committee are renewing their calls for leadership to hold off on negotiating this year’s spending bill process until after Obama leaves office.

bill-flores-getty-640x480 — RSC chairman Rep Bill Flores of Texas says extending the Continuing Budget Resolution in to February will give the Trump team time to put a mark on the federal budget for the remainder of the 2017 fiscal year.

RSC Chairman Bill Flores of Texas said in an interview that his members are backing a short-term spending bill that goes through Feb. 28. That would give the next Congress and the incoming president about five weeks to approve the budget for 2017, which was initially due in September.

It’s an idea that conservatives, led by groups such as Heritage Action and FreedomWorks, had first floated this summer, long before Trump’s surprise victory on Tuesday.

Calls to kick the appropriations process into next year received a lukewarm reception on Capitol Hill earlier this year, with the prospect of a Democratic-controlled White House and Senate looming.

That calculation has now drastically changed.

[….]

Much of the outcome will depend on Trump, who must quickly decide whether GOP leaders should clear the decks or let him get involved during the precious first 100 days of his presidency.

Your job remains, no matter when they finish the budget, to demand DEFUNDING of the RAP.

Appropriations are policy!

Tell them to defund it until Congress can seriously look at either reforming it or trashing it altogether! See my thoughts on what Trump should do on January 21st.
For all of our many posts on Congress and the budget process see our tag ‘Where is Congress.’

Trump transition needs to weigh-in on Obama's Australian 'refugee' deal

11/14/2016 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

What is to be gained by admitting over 1,000 rejected Australian asylum seekers—-mostly Muslims?

Why are they our problem?

We have been writing about this stunning revelation for a couple of days, but it looks like it is going forward as Obama sends officials to the island of Nauru to start processing Australia’s rejected asylum seekers.
Update thanks to a reader: ‘Refugees’ from Nauru wouldn’t arrive until after January 20th. I don’t see this as necessarily a good piece of news because as I read it, the processing will proceed which puts Trump in an even worse position and that is denying entry to ‘refugees’ that the Obama Admin. has screened and given promises to. See the story here, what do you think?
See our previous posts here and here.

bannon-trump-priebus — Can they do anything to stop the DEAL? Remember the so-called ‘refugees’ failed Australia’s asylum application process.

Another news story from AP gives us more details.
Apparently we asked Australia to take some illegal migrants that were parked in Costa Rica. WTH! Why are those migrants in Costa Rica our problem? I will bet a million bucks these aren’t even legitimate refugees but economic migrants:

Turnbull announced at Obama’s Leaders’ Summit on Refugees in September that Australia would participate in the U.S.-led program to resettle Central American refugees from a camp in Costa Rica.

It makes me wonder if Australia is trying to save itself from too many Muslims so is willing to take the Central Americans instead.
This deal smells and is emblematic of an issue I haven’t written about since 2015 when I last posted my Ten Reasons for a Moratorium on Refugee Resettlement, see that post by clicking here.

I was making the point that there is ample evidence that the UN/US State Department Refugee Admissions Program is being used for extracurricular activities of the State Department, not (as advertised!) to help poor downtrodden people who are pawns in these deals.
Why did we admit thousands of Meskhetian Turks to America when Russia didn’t want the Sunni Muslims in their midst (those who came to my county had to sell homes in Russia when they resettled here)? They could hardly be ‘refugees.’
Why did we airlift Uzbek Muslim extremists to America in the Bush Administration and call them ‘refugees?’
What national interest was involved in helping the UN close camps in Nepal to move nearly 100,000 Bhutanese (Nepali!) people here over the last 9 years (many did not want to come here)? I suspect we were sucking up to the UN.

Now, what is to be gained by admitting over 1,000 rejected Australian asylum seekers—-mostly Muslims. Why are they our problem?

Here is what I said in my Ten Reasons for a Moratorium….
This is number 7. Only legitimate refugees should even be considered. Moving people around the world for other reasons should be specifically prohibited.

Congress needs to specifically disallow the use of the refugee program for other purposes of the US Government,especially using certain refugee populations to address unrelated foreign policy objectives—Uzbeks, Kosovars, Meshketians and Bhutanese (Nepalese) people come to mind.

I don’t know if Trump and his team have any power to halt this DEAL before the 20th of January, but I sure hope he tries!

Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society lectures Trump; never mentions its pecuniary interest in refugees

11/13/2016 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

This is one more in my continuing update and review of the financial positions of the nine major federal refugee resettlement contractors.
Here we have HIAS CEO Mark Hetfield admonishing Donald Trump on the day after his big win last Tuesday. I might respect the resettlement contractors a bit if they would make it clear somewhere, sometime, that they have a vested financial interest in the resettlement of refugees rather than this usual holier-than-thou pontification. LOL! maybe there should be a little disclaimer at the end of all media references to them—“This organization is paid by the taxpayers of America to place refugees in towns and cities in 49 states.”

mark-hetfield — CEO Mark Hetfield is pulling down a salary package worth $336,323 running this ‘charity.’ http://www.give.org/charity-reviews/national/human-services/hias-in-silver-spring-md-19163

So far I’ve updated our older financial information on USCRI, LIRS, World Relief, and Church World Service.
USCRI is here (97% funded by taxpayers).
LIRS here (95% funded by taxpayers).
World Relief here (73% funded by taxpayers).
Church World Service here (64% funded by taxpayers).
The Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society is up next.
And, btw, HIAS was given a huge grant a few years ago to study the growing opposition to the UN/US Refugee Admissions Program and mentioned RRW as a site that should be investigated by the Southern Poverty Law Center which did just that, see here.
Headquartered in Silver Spring,MD, HIAS had an income in 2014 of $36,161,323 according to this Charity Report. Their website is here.
This is how their income breaks down. The way I see it, they are 56% funded by you, the taxpayer, which is the best of the contractors so far as some are above the 90% taxpayer funded level. (The service fee and operating grants below might be tax dollars too, but will give them the benefit of the doubt. The Migrant loan fee is definitely your money).

screenshot-65 — From full report here: http://www.give.org/charity-reviews/national/human-services/hias-in-silver-spring-md-19163

You can check out their Form 990 for that year as well by clicking here.

riva-silverman — Riva Silverman ($250,000)

You will see on page 9 that in addition to CEO Hetfield, they have 9 other staffers making in excess of $100,000 at the top of a paid staff of 76! Why does Riva make so much $$$? And, where is Melanie? As I have said many times before. If these were truly private charitable non-profits and not quasi-government organizations I wouldn’t care what they chose to pay their staff, but since we fund them, we have every right to publish and question their salaries.
Here are some of the places HIAS works:

Affiliates

Carolina Refugee Resettlement Agency
Gulf Coast Jewish Family and Community Services
HIAS New York
HIAS Pennsylvania
Jewish Child and Family Services (Chicago)
Jewish Community Services (Baltimore)
Jewish Family and Children’s Services of Pittsburgh
Jewish Family and Children’s Services of San Francisco –
Jewish Family and Children’s Services of the East Bay
Jewish Family Service of Buffalo and Erie County
Jewish Family Service of Greater Seattle
Jewish Family Service of Los Angeles
Jewish Family Service of Metrowest
Jewish Family Service of San Diego
Jewish Family Service of Washtenaw County
Jewish Family Service of Western Massachusetts
Jewish Family Services of the Silicon Valley
Jewish Vocational Service of MetroWest New Jersey
US Together

HIAS was very involved in lobbying for the ‘Gang of Eight’ amnesty bill a few years ago in the Senate. Still don’t understand why a group resettling legal refugees in search of jobs would want to make it even harder for their refugee clients when they must compete with mostly Hispanic laborers for low skilled jobs.
And, one final thing. It was HIAS that went crazy going after Donald Trump Jr. about likening a decision to take in not properly screened refugees to being told that one skittles candy in a handful was poisoned and asked if you would thus eat any. See what I mean—google HIAS and Skittles.
Our complete archive on the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society is here.