And, I think the refugee industry wants to keep it that way! (Think about the enormous stonewalling going on in St. Cloudfor instance!).
How many times over the years have I struggled to try to answer your questions about how much all of this is costing state and federal taxpayers? Now, I have a better understanding of why the facts are so elusive thanks to some researchers who sound like they do want to resettle refugees, but want answers too!
Frost and her fellow researchers are clearly not right-wingers. They are on to something, but will Trump’s ORR listen?
Before you read know that “service providers” is the polite word for resettlement “contractors.”
Resettling refugees has become harder to justify, but not for the reasons you may expect. Lost in the passionate rhetoric of lobbyists, politicians and humanitarian agencies are statistics and evidence.
Appeals to forestall resettlement efforts speak to fears of terrorists infiltrating refugee flows, notwithstanding evidence that suggests otherwise. Advocates of resettlement reference duty, morality and hospitality, but don’t provide compelling evidence to justify the financial and social strains resettlement places on host communities.
Proponents on both sides struggle to support their reasoning with evidence, and this is the real issue. The absence of consistent data collection and measurement by service providers and government agencies has impaired policy makers’ ability to craft effective policy. Furthermore, resettlement data is full of holes and redundancies because service delivery agencies do not coordinate their data collection efforts. Additionally, service providers are unable to answer basic questions about the effectiveness of their programs and current resettlement trends because their data are not structured in an analyzable format.
Standardizing refugee resettlement data collection could revolutionize the resettlement process. It would facilitate analysis, enabling service providers and those interested in refugee statistics to more easily understand what is happening in real time. This information would also enable service providers to better serve refugee communities and educate policymakers on current trends, potential issues and policy gaps.
[….]
Without meaningful data standards, agencies and organizations may struggle to evaluate their work and share information. Because funding is typically tied to defined performance or outcome measures, evaluation is a crucial element of program design. The absence of data standards makes evaluation problematic and makes comparisons across programs nearly impossible. The University of Utah’s Center for Research on Migration and Refugee Integration’s recently attempted to evaluate Catholic Community Services’ refugee case management program but was stymied before it even began because the case data were not collected in an analysis-friendly format; moreover, it is impossible to track refugee outcomes as individuals pass from one agency’s stewardship to another’s. Service providers and policymakers across the country face similar challenges.
[…..]
Data standardization can only happen if the United States’ Office of Refugee Resettlement takes the lead on this issue.Access to federal funding is already conditional on reporting to the office. The simple solution is this: tie federal funds to data standardization and formatting.
So why isn’t it being done?—surely reform doesn’t require the lazy lunks in Congress. ORR can require this before it throws more of your money at the US Refugee contractors. So why aren’t they doing it? I think I have a guess!
This was posted a couple of weeks ago, but I hadn’t seen it until today when the IRC (a resettlement contractor) was crowing about it on twitter.
Friends lobbyist Yasmine Taeb came to her job for the Quakers from the Center for American Progress (Podesta!). No surprise. https://www.fcnl.org/people/yasmine-taeb
If you didn’t know, the Friends (aka Quakers) are very pro-more-immigration. They are involved in defending the Palestinians in the Middle East as well (story for another day).
Newsfrom the Friends Committee on National Legislation. I’m sure you might have guessed if your member of Congress was on the letter, but we are grateful to the ‘Friends’ for listing them for us.
In response to the Trump administration’s announcement of a historically low refugee admissions goal for 2018, over 100 members of the House of Representatives sent a letter to the White House calling on the administration to increase the refugee admissions goal from 45,000 to 110,000. Additionally, this letter expresses concern over a proposed “assimilation standard” for refugees.
FCNL Legislative Director for Human Rights and Civil Liberties Yasmine Taeb made the following statement….
The letter to the president can be found below. [I did not count the signatures, they said 100.—ed]
Dear President Trump,
We write to express our deep disappointment in your decision to set the Presidential Determination (PD) for Refugee Admissions for Fiscal Year 2018 at 45,000. We strongly urge you to reconsider this decision and increase the refugee admission level to 110,000 for Fiscal Year 2018. Further, we are alarmed by proposed changes to the resettlement process to require refugees to meet an assimilation standard and ask you brief us at least 30 days before any such changes are made.
As you know, the world is in the midst of the largest refugee crisis in history. An unprecedented 65.6 million people across the globe have been forcibly displaced from their homes because of violence, persecution, and war. Approximately 22.5 million of those individuals are refugees, and more than half are children. The U.S. has a moral imperative to welcome refugees, who are the most thoroughly vetted people who enter our country. America taking a leadership role during this crisis bolsters our credibility as a nation of immigrants founded on the promise to welcome those seeking a better life.
As both Republican and Democratic administrations have confirmed, the United States screens refugees more stringently than any other traveler allowed to enter the United States. The U.S. Refugee Admissions Program (USRAP) has safely and successfully resettled more than three million refugees from around the world to American communities across the country since 1975. Refugee applicants must undergo a robust and thorough screening process that takes roughly two years and involves our nation’s top security and counter-terror experts. The exhaustive vetting process includes checking fingerprints and other biometric data against terrorist and criminal databases and multiple interviews through multiple Federal agencies.
Since the enactment of the 1980 Refugee Act, the average annual goal for refugee admissions has been 95,000. In Fiscal Year 2016, the U.S. resettled approximately 85,000 refugees, and the Presidential Determination for Fiscal Year 2017 was 110,000. During the worst refugee crisis in the world, these resettlement numbers pale in comparison to the support our allies are providing and our moral leadership commands. Since Executive Order 13769 was signed, the number of refugees coming to the United States each month has dropped precipitously. Australia, Norway, Canada, Sweden, and Finland all accept more refugees per capita than the United States, with Canada pledging to accept 300,000 refugees in 2017. Failing to do our part to alleviate this global crisis undermines our leadership, diplomacy, and national security.
In addition to the U.S.’s moral responsibility, supporting our allies and partners, whose resources are being strained by hosting large numbers of refugees, promotes security and stability at home and abroad. Twenty national security leaders, including Henry Kissinger, Michael Chertoff, Madeleine Albright, and Leon Panetta wrote a letter in 2015 noting that “resettlement initiatives help advance U.S. national security interests by supporting the stability of our allies and partners that are struggling to host large numbers of refugees.”[1] By doing more to host and assist refugees, the United States would help safeguard the stability of nations like Lebanon, Jordan, and Turkey, which are hosting the vast majority of Syrian refugees. This can help reduce regional instability and potential for conflict and terrorism. Additionally, severely limiting the number of refugees the U.S. admits perpetuates extremist organizations’ false narrative of a war between Islam and the West.
In order to make clear that the United States rejects this worldview, we must bolster our refugee program by supporting the world’s most vulnerable people, without discriminating based on religion or nationality. As a nation of immigrants, our country has a long history of welcoming newcomers of all different backgrounds. Any efforts to require refugees meet an assimilation standard misunderstands the purpose of our resettlement program which is to assist the most vulnerable. This is especially true if no additional assistance is provided to ensure refugees are successfully integrated into the fabric of our nation.
The 45,000 PD for Fiscal Year 2018 is woefully insufficient when compared to the millions of people who have been forced to flee their home countries. Establishing a PD of 45,000 is the lowest refugee admissions goal in our nation’s history. This would prevent tens of thousands of people from enriching American communities while seeking safety, protection, and an opportunity to provide a better future for themselves and their families in the United States.
The current global humanitarian crisis requires strong American leadership. To reflect that, we request that you reconsider and increase the PD for refugee admissions level to 110,000 for Fiscal Year 2018. Thank you for your attention to this matter. We look forward to working together with you and your Administration on this critical issue.
Sincerely,
Eddie Bernice Johnson
Donald S. Beyer, Jr.
Earl Blumenauer
Lisa Blunt Rochester
Suzanne Bonamici
Robert A. Brady
Anthony Brown
Michael Capuano
Salud Carbajal
Tony Cárdenas
André Carson
Judy Chu
David N. Cicilline
Katherine Clark
Yvette D. Clarke
Steve Cohen
John Conyers, Jr.
J. Luis Correa
Joe Courtney
Joe Crowley
Elijah E. Cummings
Danny K. Davis
Peter DeFazio
Diana DeGette
John K. Delaney (My rep who has announced he is running for Prez in 2020!)
Mark DeSaulnier
Ted Deutch
Debbie Dingell
Lloyd Doggett
Michael Doyle
Keith Ellison
Eliot L. Engel
Anna G. Eshoo
Adriano Espaillat
Elizabeth H. Esty
Dwight Evans
Bill Foster
Lois Frankel
Ruben Gallego
John Garamendi
Jimmy Gomez
Josh Gottheimer
Gene Green
Raúl Grijalva
Luis V. Gutiérrez
Colleen Hanabusa
Alcee L. Hastings
Brian Higgins
James Himes
Eleanor Holmes Norton
Pramila Jayapal
Hakeem Jeffries
Marcy Kaptur
William R. Keating
Robin L. Kelly
Joseph P. Kennedy
Ro Khanna
Daniel T. Kildee
James Langevin
Rick Larsen
John B. Larson
Brenda L. Lawrence
Barbara Lee
Sander Levin
Ted W. Lieu
Zoe Lofgren
Alan Lowenthal
Stephen Lynch
Carolyn B. Maloney
Doris Matsui
Betty McCollum
James P. McGovern
Gwen Moore
Seth Moulton
Jerrold Nadler
Grace Napolitano
Donald Norcross
Beto O’Rourke
Frank Pallone, Jr.
Jimmy Panetta
Bill Pascrell, Jr.
Donald Payne, Jr.
Ed Perlmutter
Scott Peters
Chellie Pingree
Mark Pocan
Jared Polis
David Price
Mike Quigley
Jamie Raskin
Ben Ray Lujan
Lucille Roybal-Allard
Bobby Rush
Tim Ryan
John Sarbanes
Jan Schakowsky
Adam Schiff
Bradley S. Schneider
Robert C. “Bobby” Scott
José E. Serrano
Carol Shea-Porter
Albio Sires
Louise Slaughter
Adam Smith
Darren Soto
Eric Swalwell
Mark Takano
Dina Titus
Paul Tonko
Norma J. Torres
Niki Tsongas
Juan Vargas
Marc Veasey
Filemon Vela
Nydia Velázquez
Peter J. Visclosky
Timothy Walz
Debbie Wasserman Schultz
Bonnie Watson Coleman
Peter Welch
John Yarmuth
Looking for something to do today? If your representative is on the list, tell him or her what you think of the 110,000 refugee wish list.
It doesn’t matter if they don’t listen to you, do it anyway. They need to know that signing a letter like this is not a political freebie!
If you have no rep. on the list, call or write to Delaney!
He’s baaaaack! Dr. Luke Tripp of St. Cloud State is once again accusing “white conservatives” of stirring up St. Cloud racial tensions as he does it himself! And, he clearly is fixated on former Rep. Michele Bachmannwho we first noticed he targeted in 2010 and reported on these pages.
This man is not a peacemaker!
Tripp went to Colorado in February. See what they said about him (taxpayers of MN pay his salary!): “In honor of Black History Month, Adams State University will host “Then and Now: The Revolutionary Workers League in Detroit and Black Lives Matter,” a lecture by Dr. Luke Trip [Tripp-ed] A longtime activist and educator, Trip is currently professor of African American Studies at St. Cloud State University. He holds degrees from St. Benedict College, Wayne State University, and the University of Michigan. He was among the founders of the League of Revolutionary Workers in Detroit and served as the first Minister of Education of the Detroit Chapter of the Black Panther Party. He was chair of UHURU (Freedom in Swahili), a black student lead organization active in the liberation movement of the 1960s. https://www.adams.edu/news/feb1705.phpBut, before I get to Dr. Tripp’s latest tirade…
I’ll remind readers of the chaos going on in St. Cloud as the next City Council meeting is to be held tomorrow evening and that Councilman Jeff Johnson, we hear, is planning to introduce his resolution seeking more transparency and economic analysis of the impact of Somali refugee resettlement on that community.
See my ever-expanding St. Cloud archive here(the city I call the canary in the coal mine!).
I first wrote about Tripp,the former Detroit revolutionary and Black Panther organizer,here in January 2010.
In that article we reported on his efforts to ‘get’ then Rep. Michele Bachmann. Frankly the African Muslim migrants require the leadership of, shall we say the communist/socialist, Leftwing community organizers like Tripp.
You should have heard about the concept either from James Simpson’s‘Red-Green Axis’writing or perhaps you have heard him speak! Tripp is the personification of the concept.
Editor: Knowledge is power! For all of you trying to understand what is going on in St. Cloud, it is important for you to know who the ‘community agitators’ are. Tripp is one. He may in fact be the leader. But, I haven’t the time or energy to summarize all of my previous writing on Tripp and his Somali legions. I expect you to do your homework! As the old saying goes—you must know your enemy. And, read! Read! Read!
Before I get to Dr. Tripp’s lastest blast (still focusing on the departed Michele Bachmann), here is another post on Tripp from April 2010. Go here for other mentions here at RRW. Don’t miss Tripp’s involvement with the Somalis who successfully sued a local meat plant. (Special accommodation for Islamic prayer times = shariah law!).
Now here is Tripp’s salvo from last Thursday at the Minnesota Spokesman-Recorderwhere he is wearing his “women’s studies” hat:
(Sounds pretty racist to me, what do you think?)
I witnessed and experienced how St. Cloud earned the dubious reputation of “White Cloud.”
[….]
Go here and see Tripp talking about his Marxist activities in Detroit. Did they destroy the auto industry? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3yyZz8k3k4E
I believe that Jeff Johnson’s resolution calling for a temporary ban on resettlement of refugees in St. Cloud is aimed at Somalis who are under attack in St. Cloud because of their race (they are Black), their religion (they are Muslims), and their immigration/refugee status (they are perceived to be untrustworthy aliens).
The City of St. Cloud, historically a very conservative White town, has only recently become home to a significant population of about 6,000 Somalis who represented about eight percent of St. Cloud’s population of 68,000 people in 2013. There has been a series of hateful attacks against the growing Somali community since they began arriving here in the 1990s.
[….]
The animosity against Somalisreflects the sentiments of a significant segment of conservative White residents in the city of St. Cloudwhose views were politically expressed by their right-wing extremist ex-congresswoman, Michele Bachmann,who represented Minnesota’s Sixth Congressional District from 2007 to 2015. Bachmann was a staunch advocate of barriers against immigrants and their culture. Her voting record on anti-immigration legislation is graded A+.
There is more. But, this is the funny part: I thought I recognized those words! Check out what he said in 2010. In addition to sounding racist he must be lazy! Throughout the above tirade he simply rehashed his many tired old charges from 2010! (I’ve highlighted one of those rehashed paragraphs in red—one from last week above and the other from 2010 below–this is hilarious!)
This is the same paragraph in a February 2010 rant (and why the fixation on Bachmann? Alinsky rule***):
The animosity against Somalis reflects the sentiments of a significant segment of conservative White residents in the city of St. Cloudwhose views are politically expressed by their right-wing extremist congresswoman, Michele Bachmann, who represents Minnesota’s Sixth Congressional District.Bachmann is a staunch advocate of barriers against immigrants and their culture. Her voting record on anti-immigration legislation is graded A+.
***This is Alinsky Rule 13: “Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it.” He is making Bachmann the face of the problem. He is sending a message to the Mayor and Council of St. Cloud—we (bullies) will do this to you too if you go against us!
Bottomline readers, please listen!
You will continue to lose if your elected officials are more afraid of trained agitators like Luke Tripp and his legions (which includes the Islamic supremacists) than they are of you—American citizens who want answers and demand a right to help decide the future of your communities!
I know it is uncomfortable, but get over it! You (conservatives of whatever color) need to fight the way they fight! Make your elected officials more uncomfortable than they do!
Start by picking a target and steal yourselves for the anger, the chaos and the controversy that is happening and will happen—saving western civilization isn’t for the faint-hearted!
The idea that in order for growth (why is that a good thing?) to continue, an aging population in western countries must be replaced by younger, mostly Muslim migrants, is what has destroyed France, Germany, Belgium etc.
Ahmed Hussen, Canada’s first Somali immigration minister with the boy wonder.
Now Canada is falling for it.
Does anyone really think that the migrants from the Middle East and Africa are going to work hard, pay taxes, and lovingly pay to care for us in nursing homes in the west in a couple of decades? I don’t.
You probably saw the news already. It is from last week.
Canada will welcome nearly one million immigrants over the next three years, according to the multi-year strategy tabled by the Liberal government today in what it calls “the most ambitious immigration levels in recent history.”
The number of economic migrants, family reunifications and refugees will climb to 310,000 in 2018, up from 300,000 this year. That number will rise to 330,000 in 2019 then 340,000 in 2020.
The targets for economic migrants, refugees and family members was tabled in the House of Commons Wednesday afternoon.
Hussen said the new targets will bring Canada’s immigration to nearly one per cent of the population by 2020, which will help offset an aging demographic. He called it a historic and responsible plan and “the most ambitious” in recent history.
“Our government believes that newcomers play a vital role in our society,” Hussen said. “Five million Canadians are set to retire by 2035 and we have fewer people working to support seniors and retirees.”
So they think that there will be enough workers to support Canadian citizen seniors and the new impoverished migrants on welfare too!
If they are looking for so many immigrants why has Trudeau been squawking about all those ‘refugees’ flooding in to Canada from the US. Don’t they count toward the 300,000 for 2017?
See my Canada category here. What happens when Canada is overloaded? You guessed it, there will be migration southward!
Michael Patrick Leahy at Breitbartdid some number crunching yesterday and the conclusion is that if the Trump Administration continues to admit refugees at this historically low level, our refugee admissions this year will be way below the CEILING Trump set in September for this fiscal year (45,000).
But….
Will President Donald Trump beat George W. Bush’s record?
The number of refugees admitted into the country during the first month of FY 2018 by the Trump administration plummeted to 1,242 – an 87 percent decline from the 9,945 admitted during the first month of FY 2017 by the Obama administration.
The percentage of refugees admitted who are Muslim declined dramatically as well, from 45 percent in October 2016 to 23 percent in October 2017, according to the State Department interactive website.
George W. Bush still holds the record for the two lowest admission years in 2002 and 2003. Why so low? Fear of terrorists getting in to the US in the wake of 9/11.
Of particular note is the precipitous drop in the number of refugees admitted from the seven countries whose citizens were temporarily banned from traveling to the United States under the first travel ban, Executive Order 13679, issued by President Trump on January 27, 2017.
In October 2017, the first month of FY 2018, only 275 refugees from these seven countries — Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudian, Syria, and Yemen — were admitted to the United States under the Refugee Admissions Program.
In contrast, in October 2016, the first month of FY 2017, a total of 4,581 refugees from these seven countries were admitted into the United States under the Refugee Admissions Program (1,352 from Somalia, 1,323 from Iraq, 1,297 from Syria, 414 from Iran, and none from either Libya or Yemen.)
This would beat the Bush record!
Should refugee admissions continue at this same pace for the remaining eleven months of FY 2018, the total number of refugees admitted for the entire fiscal year would be less than 15,000, which is 30,000 below the 45,000 cap for refugees set forward in the Trump administration’s presidential determination announced in September.
If it should be 15,000 that would be the lowest number admitted since the creation of the present system of admitting refugees. However, anything above George W. Bush’s two lowest yearsof 27,070 (2002) and 28,117 (2003) would not set any records. In both those years the CEILING was set at 70,000 (so much for ceilings having any meaning!).
Leahy continues:
The refugee resettlement industry — which receives almost all of its estimated $1 billion annual funding from the federal government — is already feeling the budget pinch resulting from the diminished number of new arrivals. [And, that is why you are seeing so many refugee ‘forums’ in various states seeking to gin-up negative media publicity against Trump—ed]
[….]
The harsh political reality now facing the refugee resettlement industry is that neither the Trump administration nor Congress have much inclination to meet that 45,000 annual refugee ceiling.
Want to see where the refugees went in the first month of FY18. Here is a map from Wrapsnet(October 1-31, 2017). Top ‘welcoming’ states were Texas, Ohio, California, New York and Washington.
Sorry to split the map. I couldn’t figure out how to get it on one page for the screenshot! Alaska welcomed 9 and Hawaii (the state begging for more diversity) again got zero!
For more on numbers, see my ‘refugee statistics’ category here.
