Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society lawyers "save" Somali from deportation

In a touching tale, HIAS (Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society), bragged on its blog yesterday that, in a Baltimore, MD court, it saved Somali illegal alien Yaasir from deportation back to Somalia.
 

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Only one retweet in 19 hours? You can see how much people like this story!

 
 
The tale goes from one touching scene to another, in Yaasir’s 22-years, all written (and told by Yaasir) to elicit sympathy from the reader, and is likely what they presented to the court in Baltimore.
Read it here, then let me take the story to its bare bones (stripping it of all the fluffy feel-good language):

~There were bombs and fighting, but Yaasir’s family was not directly targeted.

~His big problem was because he was in a lowly clan and the more powerful clans were always out to get them.  (Clans are central to Somali culture and we have admitted to the US most, if not all, of them. Somalis discriminate against each other by clan. Is this our problem?)

~He was warned by family members to not play with children from the more powerful clans, but he did it anyway.

~As a teen he got into (as HIAS describes it)—“a bit of a scuffle”—with kids from a more powerful clan. Dumb? They kidnapped him, he says, and beat him up for two days.

~Not able to interact with other teens (What? no teens in his clan liked him either?), he quit school.

~HIAS:  “Yaasir soon fell in love with a girl from a more powerful clan and impregnated her.”  Her brothers came to kill him. Our problem?

~Angry father told him to get out and go to South Africa.

~Problem is that South African blacks hate Somalis (see my entire archive on South Africa here.  BTW, we are taking black African refugees from the rainbow nation. Insanity!). HIAS: He “began to encounter severe discrimination and abuse by hostile South Africans.”  I have to laugh because HIAS wants you to believe that the discrimination was from white South Africans!

~After a few months in SA, he ‘married’ a Somali woman and got her pregnant (or was it the other way around?)

~He always had to run from the South African police because he had no documentation. So he sends pregnant wife back to ‘unsafe'(?) Somalia.

~He then “made his way” to the US border beginning after he flies to Brazil. (There is zero mention of how he found enough money for a global jaunt!). This is perhaps the biggest issue that is never discussed—where did this kind of money come from?

~His struggle northward is described as “treacherous” which HIAS uses to show what a determined young man he is and therefore worthy of becoming an American.

~HIAS doesn’t tell us how, or when, he was detained on America soil. Was he here for months/years before he came to the attention of authorities, or was he detained as he crossed our southern border?

hetfield at NY anti-Trump rally
HIAS CEO Hetfield speaking at their anti-President Trump rally last February!

But nevermind, the tale ends happily when Yaasir finds himself in the arms of HIAS lawyers who work hard to get him through the asylum process.
As a successful asylee he becomes eligible for all the welfare benefits a refugee gets—which is pretty much everything!  And…

He is free in America and getting ready to bring his ‘wife’ and child (and probably parents, brothers, sisters, etc) to live with him happily ever after in America. (As soon as HIAS lawyers can stop DJT from killing chain migration!)

Go here to read Yaasir’s “fight” at HIAS’s blog.
For our huge archive on HIAS click here.
They are one of the nine federal resettlement contractors (paid with taxpayer dollars) placing refugees in your towns and cities, but obviously they are busy on a whole host of fronts to help Muslims and others get in to the US.
Readers need to know that I am not picking on HIAS to the exclusion of other contractors, it is just that they send out such tantalizing material for me to write about compared to some others.

Refugees, which is it: Meatpacker laborers or helping the "oppressed?"

Ali Noorani of the National Immigration Forum tries both arguments in USA Today.

ali noorani twitter
Ali Noorani on twitter: @anoorani  https://twitter.com/anoorani?lang=en

I wasn’t planning to post on one more hysterical story about Trump refugee numbers being low and thus decimating the refugee contractor industry, but I can’t resist mentioning one little bit of the story entitled:

Refugee admissions to U.S. plummet in 2017

Before I get to Noorani, Mark Krikorian summed it up with this:

“Elections have consequences,” said Mark Krikorian, executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies, which advocates for lower levels of legal and illegal immigration. “This is what he said he’s going to do, and he’s doing it.”

Readers, for years and years, refugee advocates pretended they have nothing to do with the global meatpacking industry and its ‘need’ for cheap migrant labor, but now even savvy DC operatives like Noorani trot out the argument feigning concern for Midwestern economies.

Ali Noorani, executive director of the National Immigration Forum, which has advocated for a higher refugee cap, said many Midwestern cities depend on refugees to work in the meat-packing and poultry plants that sustain their struggling economies.

Okay and if that establishment Rightwing argument doesn’t float your boat, he moves on to moral duties, historic roles and oppressed people so he can hit the Leftwingers too:

As more migrants are fleeing their homelands, Noorani said now is the worst possible time for the U.S. to retreat from its historic role as a “moral beacon” for the oppressed.

“There are ways to help refugees get to places of safety and begin a new life that serves the American interest,” Noorani said. “Past administrations have been able to do that. This administration is not that so interested.”

American interest? Or global meatpackers’ interest (subsidized by US taxpayers)?

Dakota Provisions
Photo credit: Me

This “new life to serve American interests” was on full display in a Washington Post story (hat tip: Melanie) the other day about a South Dakota turkey plant and how it gets its migrant laborers (this time plane loads from Puerto Rico to join the refugee labor force, but they have to pay back their airfare out of their paychecks!).
It made me sick, especially because I traveled to Huron in the summer of 2016 to see how that plant, Dakota Provisions, was changing (forever) the city of Huron.
Is this what Noorani thinks “serves the American interest?”  Grover’s interests maybe?

If I ever stop writing this blog, I’m writing a modern day “The Jungle.”  It is long overdue!

I can happily skip eating turkey!

Pew: US Muslim population continues to grow for two reasons; what are they?

High birthrates and immigration of course!

But, get this, Pew Research says that the number isn’t growing due to conversions to Islam because for every convert to the ‘religion’ an equal number are leaving Islam!
The Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) disagrees with Pew as you will see below.
First Pew admits they have no reliable census data:

Recent political debates over Muslim immigration and related issues have prompted many people to ask how many Muslims actually live in the United States. But coming up with an answer is not easy, in part because the U.S. Census Bureau does not ask questions about religion, meaning there is no official government count of the U.S. Muslim population.

pew muslim graph

Still, based on our own survey and demographic research, as well as outside sources, Pew Research Center estimates that there were about 3.45 million Muslims of all ages living in the U.S. in 2017, and that Muslims made up about 1.1% of the total U.S. population.

Muslims in the U.S. are not as numerous as the number of Americans who identify as Jewish by religion, according to our estimate. At the same time, our projections suggest that the U.S. Muslim population will grow much faster than the country’s Jewish population. By 2040, Muslims will replace Jews as the nation’s second-largest religious group after Christians. And by 2050, the U.S. Muslim population is projected to reach 8.1 million, or 2.1% of the nation’s total population — nearly twice the share of today.

[….]

…. the Muslim population has continued to grow at a rate of roughly 100,000 per year, driven both by higher fertility rates among Muslim Americans as well as the continued migration of Muslims to the U.S.

Continue reading here to see what they say about conversions.

Pew says that the Muslim population won’t reach 8.1 million until 2050, but CAIR says we are there already. And, they are working on their own count!

Muslim advocacy groups such as the Council on American Islamic Relations routinely cite a span of 6 million to 8 million people in describing the size of Islam in America.

That would be between 2 percent and 3 percent of the U.S. population and make Muslims greater in number than Mormons or Jews.

That claim stands in sharp contrast to the results of a survey last year by the Pew Research Center, which found the population was 2.35 million, or 0.6 percent of the U.S. population, based on phone surveys. [Unclear what is meant by “last year” since it was in 2007 that Pew ‘guessed’ it was 2.35.—ed]

Notice that at both Pew Research and at CAIR they are interested in pinpointing when the Muslim population will surpass Jewish (and other) religious groups.
Time for a baby race!
Nothing drives a Leftwinger crazier than my next admonition:  Some of you better step up your game and have more babies!
I think Pew breaks down Muslim population numbers by state, go to the story, here, and see if there are links for other data.

Per (refugee) head payment to contractors took huge jump during Obama's tenure

I’m sure readers get sick of hearing me talk about the per head payment the US State Department pays the so-called VOLAGs (aka resettlement agencies, aka contractors)*** to place refugees into your towns and cities, but it is important because that is why you hear the contractors wailing now about the Trump Administration’s refugee slowdown.

LIRS welcome cover
Why is the “welcome” the responsibility of the beleaguered US taxpayer? 

Of course these agencies are on the Leftwing of the political spectrum and want to see diversity (and Democrat voters) planted in your towns. They have bought into the UN’s borderless world agenda, and some (maybe more than we know) work directly with global corporations to supply refugee labor, but because they can’t survive without government funding, they are hysterical now.
Thanks to collegue Jim, here is a document from ten years ago, produced by Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service (the one experiencing financial accounting questions) claiming that the $850 per head payment they received at the time (half went to the refugees and half was for overhead) was not sufficient and they wanted a per head raise to $1,500.

Public-Private partnership, my foot!

 
They actually made the claim repeatedly in their report that the PUBLIC-PRIVATE partnership was too heavily skewed in the direction of private funding responsibility and that the feds weren’t putting up their share.
That claim led me to a Form 990 for 2009 (I couldn’t find 2008) to see if they were indeed putting in more money than the feds.  The answer is NO!
In fact only 3% of their revenue from gifts, grants and loan collection fees was private funding. The remainder was GOVERNMENT funding of some sort.
Here is a screenshot of that portion of their Form 990 for 2009:

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Obviously government grants are taxpayer dollars as is the loan service fees.

 
That fact, that 97% of LIRS income that year was supplied by the US taxpayer, completely nullifies the argument they make in their 2008 18-page analysis: The Real Cost of Welcome where they say they are supplying the greater amount in the public-private partnership.
The purpose of the study was to ‘encourage’ an even larger share of the burden for the taxpayer.
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In 2008 they complained that $850 per refugee was inadequate and that they were putting in an unfair share of the public-private arrangement.

 
I thought you might like to see what ‘services’ they provide for refugees (that you pay for). Remember that they only take care of the refugees they place for 90 days.

Much of this could be done with volunteer help and donations. Isn’t this after all supposed to be a charitable humanitarian endeavor?

When did it happen that religious good works were to be paid for by the government?
 

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You can readily see why a refugee designation is the most desirable LEGAL immigration category one could want. American taxpayers give out a lot of goodies, plus the refugees get caseworkers to hold their hands through the welfare bureaucracy!  

 
Conclusion:  We want $1,500 per head!
 
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I can report that they got their wish and more! The present rate (climbed steadily over the Obama years) is now $2,125!  

$1,125 is to be spent on the refugee and the contractor pockets $1000 for ‘administrative’ expenses. (And the contractor decides how to spend the refugee’s share!).
And, let me be clear, this (State Department payment) is not the only money the contractors receive from the US Treasury, they receive literally millions more through other agencies and grants/contracts particularly from the Office of Refugee Resettlement in HHS.
***These are the nine federal contractors who pass money through to hundreds of subcontractors operating around the country.
Broken record alert!
It is my contention that the UN/US Refugee Admissions Program will never be reformed until these Leftwing community organizers are removed from the federal dole. You get the list twice today (earlier post here)!

 
 

Refugee numbers are low for first 3 months of fiscal year; Ohio is top receiving state

As promised, below are the stats for the first three months of fiscal year 2018 (it began on October 1, 2017).
Update January 3: More detailed numbers analysis by Michael Leahy at Breitbart, here.
President Trump set the CEILING for the year at 45,000 refugees. That is the lowest CEILING since the Refugee Act of 1980 (Kennedy/Biden) was signed in to law by Jimmy Carter.

Somalis in Columbus
Columbus, Ohio second only to Minneapolis for its number of Somalis. Columbus received 245 refugees from 11 different countries, including Somalia, in the first three months of the fiscal year. It was followed by Akron as the second most ‘welcoming’ city in the state with 139 ‘new Americans’ in the last 3 months.

I capitalize the word CEILING because I want to get it into the heads of reporters that a CEILING is not a target to be achieved. It is a cap that the President cannot exceed without consultation with Congress.
There is nothing in refugee law that says he can’t come in with half of the proposed CEILING.
And, if the present rate of resettlement were to continue for the year, that is about where we will come in.
According to Wrapsnet, as of today, we have admitted 5,323 refugees over 13 weeks.
Extending that same rate out for 52 weeks would put the number at just under 22,000 for the year. 
I know, to many readers, that 22,000 is too many, but you can be sure the low number of paying “clients” (refugees) will wreak havoc with the budgets of the nine federal contractors which could (optimistically) in turn force a complete review about why we have such a dysfunctional system where ‘non-profits’ are paid by the head to place refugees (in as much secrecy as they can muster) into towns and cities in 49 states.
There is never an incentive to slow the flow in overloaded communities with such a system where nine contractors*** are literally bidding for bodies.
Here is where the 5,323 have been placed as of today:
 
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Data available at the Refugee Processing Center (Wrapsnet) for October 1, 2017 to December 31, 2017.  I know the numbers are a little hard to read, but nothing I can do about it.

 
The top ten ‘welcoming’ states are: Ohio, Texas, New York, Pennsylvania, Washington, California, Georgia, Illinois, Michigan and North Carolina.  California is normally first or second so who knows what that is all about.
Top ten countries from which we admitted refugees since October 1, 2017:

Bhutan (1,535)

DR Congo (1,154)

Burma (655)

Ukraine (487)

Eritrea (428)

Russia (132)

Somalia (128)

El Salvador (113)

Ethiopia (102)

Afghanistan (81)

Iraq (77), which has been in the top three or so for years, didn’t make the top ten.
The percentage of Muslim refugees is way down. 
In the final Obama years we were admitting close to 50% Muslim refugees and now (all Muslim sects combined) we admitted 726 Muslims in the last 3 months which amounts to about 14%.
I am concerned to see that 199 of the 726 were Muslims from Burma (Rohingya).
*** These are the nine federal refugee contractors. I like to post this list once a day (if I remember!) so new readers can begin to get the list memorized! They have hundreds of subcontractors working for them.  If you visit their websites you can find out which, if any, are operating where you live.