Category: Colonization

Tennessee Senator Corker wants refugee program back to 'normal' ASAP

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

The Republican Senator from Tennessee might be called out-of-step with his constituents in his home state where the Tennessee legislature voted to sue the federal government over refugee resettlement and filed suit in March. (Waiting now for the Trump administration response to the lawsuit.)

Besides “normalizing” the refugee admissions process, Senator Corker wants the US to send more foreign aid to Africa. http://africa-online.com/2017/04/18/us-senator-pushes-back-against-trumps-proposed-foreign-aid-cuts/

Over the Easter recess Corker went to Africa and declared that he wants Trump to “normalize” refugee resettlement which means he has zero interest in taking on the contentious issue of reforming the over 35-year-old flawed system where nine non-profit groups, funded by the federal government, determine how many refugees and from where are seeded in to a state (including his!).
BTW, we were relieved that Trump did not pick Corker for the top job at the US State Department, but we didn’t do any better (at least so far) with Rex Tillerson who is obviously continuing to rely on entrenched bureaucrats to make refugee resettlement decisions. (See Trump admits over 12,000 refugees, including Syrians and Somalis, since Inauguration Day, here)
Here is what Pajama’s Media told us last week about the Corker/Coons trip to Africa (hat tip: ‘Seneca the Elder’):

WASHINGTON – Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) said he hopes the Trump administration begins to “move back to a regular process” and “normalize” the admission of refugees into the United States.

Over the Easter recess, Corker and Sen. Chris Coons (D-Del.) visited the Bidi Bidi refugee camp in Uganda, which houses about 270,000 people who fled the civil war in South Sudan. Corker was asked if he has recommendations for the Trump administration on refugees after his experience on the trip.

“It’s my hope that what they’re going to do is go through a process of, as they’ve already stated, of understanding how people are being vetted, do the things they feel are necessary to ensure that when people are coming here they are coming in a way that continues to make sure our whole nation is safe – and then we’ll move on and move back to the regular process that we’ve been in for some time, or hopefully an improved process if there are issues that need to be dealt with,” Corker said on a Monday conference call.

Corker praised the Trump administration decision to remove Iraq from its list of countries covered by the revised executive order that restricted travel and the admission of refugees from some Muslim-majority nations. A federal court blocked the executive order.

“I was thankful they decided Iraq would not be a part of that. I hope they are actually, right now, going through a process of looking at this whole issue of travel. Hopefully, they are stiffening their resolve to make sure it’s done in an appropriate way, and then, hopefully, when that is done we can move on and more normalize what we have been doing in this regard for many years,” Corker said.

Coons said he respected and appreciated Corker’s comments about refugees.

More here.
Sure looks like no hope in Corker’s case for reform by Congress of the whole UN/US Refugee Admissions Program.
And, if the US Refugee Admissions Program (as designed by the 1980 Act), is not reformed now, in the coming months (with leadership from Trump), it never will be.  By early 2018, members of Congress and many Senators will be focused on only one thing—getting re-elected!
Just a reminder, in September the Trump Administration will send its ‘determination’ (the ceiling!) to Congress for how many refugees (and from which regions of the world) could be admitted to the US in FY18.  What they send to the Hill for “consultation” (Congress does not have to approve, just consult) will tell us everything we need to know about whether Trump will have the guts to stick with campaign promises and get the program under control, or not!

(Only) 237 Somalis have been removed from US since last October; not thousands!

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

I was pretty excited to report here that we were stepping up deportations of illegal alien/criminal Somalis, that thousands would be removed. But, now I see that even that administration effort is really not much to write home about!
The news here, if it is accurate, is that ICE won’t arrest illegal Somalis (who are not in detention) at their homes or work places.  Already, “sensitive places” such as schools, places of worship and hospitals are off limits.

Trump’s ambassador to Somalia (Stephen Schwartz) gives Somalia’s new Prez a special gift. A better gift might be to give Somalia back its people instead of hauling them by the thousands to the US! We will see how many of their illegal aliens they will repatriate as well! Photo: http://tribunist.com/news/american-ambassador-gives-make-somalia-great-again-hat-to-somalian-president/

So are we expected to believe that federal agents are going to wait on the streets to nab them coming and going from home to mosque? Only, if we hire a lot more agents!
Over the many years I’ve written RRW there would be flurries of pronouncements that Somalis in the country illegally would be sent back to Somalia and each time there would follow squishy, mealy-mouthed discussions about how can we do such a thing (send people back) because Somalia is still a hellhole!
Is Somalia ever NOT going to be a hellhole? Is this administration headed that way (to weakness and squishy talk) again?
In case you missed it, Trump has admitted 1,359 supposedly persecuted (by whom?) Somalis since inauguration day.
According to Wrapsnet (as of today) the US ‘welcomed’ 5,167 Somalis in FY17 (so far).  And, we are supposed to be excited by the removal of 237 of them in that same time frame?  Net gain is 4,930 since October of 2016!

Here is the latest at Voice of America:

Somalia’s ambassador to the U.S., Ahmed Isse Awad, says U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has informed his embassy the agency will no longer arrest illegal Somali immigrants in their homes or at their workplaces. However, federal authorities have not confirmed that there has been any shift in policy.

Awad said the agency reached the decision after his embassy expressed concern to immigration authorities regarding the recent arrests of 11 Somalis in Virginia, Minnesota and Georgia.

“Once we found out that 11 Somalis were arrested from their homes for removal, we thought the arrests looked [like] profiling and targeting Somalis. Then we submitted our concern to ICE and asked clarification,” Awad told VOA’s Somali service. “Fortunately, they came back to us tell us that they would no longer arrest Somalis from their homes or at their workplaces.”

[….]

However officials have previously said that ICE does not have specific exemptions in place for certain groups of people. The agency policy currently directs that anyone in violation of immigration laws may be subject to arrest, detention and removal from the United States.

Authorities say the agency’s policy directs personnel to avoid conducting enforcement activists at “sensitive places” such as schools, places of worship and hospitals, unless they have prior approval from a supervisor.

The U.S. government said almost 5,000 Somali nationals in the United States face deportation orders.

“As of April 1, 2017, there were 4,801 Somali nationals with final orders of removal,” ICE spokesman Brendan Raedy said last week. “As of that same date, 237 Somali nationals have been removed to Somalia in fiscal year 2017.”

[….]

Most of the Somalis facing final orders of removal are not in detention centers and are unlikely to be removed in the near term because their cases are making their way through the system. [I thought they said most had failed their asylum bids?—ed]

Since Somalia’s embassy in Washington reopened in November 2015, the ambassador said, about 170 Somali immigrants who either ran afoul of U.S. law or had their asylum applications rejected have been deported to Mogadishu, the Somali capital.

Most of those previously deported had applied for, but been denied, political asylum in the United States, he added. Another group of Somali applicants whose requests for asylum have been denied are now in detention centers or prisons, awaiting deportation.

Big Whoop!

Fewer than 300 Somalis are scheduled to be moved out in the next couple of months, Awad told VOA, adding that his embassy was awaiting information from U.S. authorities on who the deportees were and when they would depart.

And, as soon as they get that information, they will tell those Somalis to head to Canada ASAP!
See our category ‘Trump Watch’ for more on what Trump has changed and what he hasn’t changed regarding refugees.

Trump has admitted 12,218 refugees since Inauguration Day: 1,472 Syrians, 1,359 Somalis

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Since we are coming up on 100 days I was anxious to see how Trump was doing with his campaign promise to (at least) put a moratorium on the UN/US Refugee Admissions Program for 120 days to review how refugees are vetted and look to assure “extreme vetting” was put in place.

My guess about the flip-flop: His friends in the hotel and food production industries told him they needed this steady supply of low wage refugee laborers whose wages you supplement with welfare payments. Great business model!

Ho hum! Isn’t happening! And, I don’t want to hear of one defender who says he was stymied by judges. He never had to place a refugee slowdown in an Executive Order!  The Refugee Act of 1980 gives the President enormous powers.
Here (below) is a screenshot map of where the 12,218 were placed since Inauguration Day up until this morning’s data at Wrapsnet.
This puts the number for the fiscal year, as of today, at 42,235.
Trump also said he was capping the number for the year at 50,000, but at the present rate of admission, he will surpass 60,000 (an average number since 9/11).
Top resettlement countries included:

Burma (1,497) 401 of these are Rohingya Muslims who, like Syrians, cannot be vetted.

DR Congo (1,866) We are well on our way to reach 50,000 we promised the UN we would scatter across America.

Iraq (1,503) Over 122,000 have been admitted since 2009.

Somalia (1,359) We have admitted well over 100,000 over past 20 years, will it ever end?

Syria (1,472) Remember Trump said he would stop them completely, even said he would send some back, ha! ha!

How many Trump refugees did you get?


 
 

Alaska got 23 while the diversity-lovers in Hawaii got a big fat zero (again!). LOL! Of course, DC got none. And, for new readers wondering about Wyoming, it is the only state in the nation to have never joined the program.

Biggest tests for Trump come in September. 

If he throws billions of taxpayer dollars to the refugee industry in the 2018 budget and doesn’t drastically cut refugee admissions for the upcoming year, then we will know for sure that the United Nations/US Refugee Admissions Program will never be reformed.
Endnote:  I was just reminded of the story from yesterday about Ivanka Trump’s views on Syrians, here.  Sure hope Daddy isn’t listening to Ivanka (again!).

Somali refugees resettled in Arizona headed to Minnesota in large numbers

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Why would they leave a climate more like home to move to the frigid north in droves?  All sorts of reasons are given in this article from the Phoenix New Times —-supposedly for jobs, to be with family members, Somali “community,” better welfare, but not mentioned is to build political power through numbers.  Minnesota will be the first state to push for aspects of Shariah Law to be put in place, in my opinion.
Here is how the report begins (there is always a sad individual or family that is the star of the story! J-school 101!):

Bilad Yusuf and her seven kids were on their way to Minnesota, less than two months after they arrived in Phoenix.

“We didn’t know how to get jobs here, and even if we did, we didn’t know how we’d get to them,” she explained through an interpreter who translated from Somali to English.

We learned in this article that Amazon warehouses in Minnesota and Kentucky are looking for Somali refugee laborers.

After waiting for six years in a refugee camp, Yusuf and her family arrived in the United States this winter amidst the chaos surrounding the Trump administration’s attempt to block Somali immigrants like them from entering the country.

Following a brief stop in Houston, they were transferred to Phoenix. There, stranded in the urban sprawl without a car, they found themselves lost: Where were they supposed to get groceries? How did they go about setting up long-overdue doctor’s appointments? How would they pay rent after their initial stipend from the U.S. government ran out?

My first question is, where is their resettlement agency that we (taxpayers) pay to get them set up in the first three months? But, my next, and more important question is this:
WHY THE HECK IS TRUMP CONTINUING TO ADMIT FAMILIES LIKE THESE THAT ARE DROPPED UNATTENDED IN ANYTOWN USA, AND WILL HAVE NO WAY TO FIND WORK FOR YEARS TO COME?
You need to read the whole article, it is chock-full of very informative bits of information.
And, folks in Minnesota need to be reading it especially carefully.  LOL! There is even a mention of your Catholic Charities and Lutheran Social Services as the spearheads of the original Somali migration to the state.  It is all about your generous welfare we learned here in 2011!
And, don’t miss the news on BIG CHICKEN hiring them (not news to us), or Amazon warehouses in Minnesota and Kentucky! That is new news! (I’m convinced that the reason Senator Mitch McConnell is mum on refugees is because he is backed by big businesses in the state that want cheap legal immigrant laborers.)

The article implies that the feds do not track “secondary migrants” like this family, but they do to some degree because we reported here in 2014 that Minnesota gets (by far) the most as they move there to be WITH THEIR KIND OF PEOPLE (why isn’t that called racist and xenophobic?).

Roving Somalis!

And, while on the subject of roving Somalis, don’t miss Leo Hohmann’s update (from Monday) of a story almost a year old where a Somali woman entered the yard of an Atlanta area family, ripped down their flag pole and attempted to beat the mother and daughter with it.
She was supposed to be in court this week, but wasn’t.

Promises, promises: As we approach 100 days, Trump has dropped ball on refugee program reform

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Here is a detailed story at Breitbart yesterday in which reporter Michael Patrick Leahy reminds us of what Donald Trump promised, especially in Minnesota, days before his victory in the 2016 Presidential contest.

With about a week to go until his administration reaches the 100-day mark, President Trump’s campaign promises to halt Syrian refugee resettlement and tighten up the refugee vetting process remain largely unfulfilled.

Trump has reduced the overall number of refugees resettled, something that he implied but did not specifically promise on the campaign trail, but the level of reduction falls far short of the virtual halt many of his supporters had hoped to see.

President Trump’s most explicit statements about the refugee resettlement program during the campaign came at a November 6 rally in Minneapolis, Minnesota, two days before the election.

“A Trump administration will not admit any refugees without the support of the local community where they are being placed,” he told a “crowd of more than 5,000 who greeted him at the Sun Country Airlines hangar of the Minneapolis St. Paul International Airport” (emphasis added):

“Hillary wants a 550 percent increase in Syrian refugees pouring into our country. And she wants virtually unlimited immigration and refugee admissions, from the most dangerous regions of the world, to come into our country and to come into Minnesota, and you know it better than anybody,” Trump said.

“Her plan will import generations of terrorism, extremism, and radicalism into your schools and throughout your communities,” he continued.

“When I’m elected president, we will suspend the Syrian refugee program and we will keep radical Islamic terrorists the hell out of our country,” Trump announced.

“Here in Minnesota you’ve seen first hand the problems caused with faulty refugee vetting, with large numbers of Somali refugees coming into your state without your knowledge, without your support or approval, and with some of them then joining ISIS and spreading their extremist views all over our country, and all over the world,” Trump told the crowd.

“Everybody’s reading about the disaster taking place in Minnesota, everybody’s reading about it. You don’t even have the right to talk about it, you don’t even know who’s coming in, you have no idea. You’ll find out. You’ll find out,” he promised.

“And we will pause admissions from terror-prone regions until a full security assessment has been performed, and until a proven vetting mechanism has been established,” Trump added.

Continue reading here as Leahy lays out in great detail where Trump has dropped the ball.
We have extensive reporting in our ‘Trump Watch’ category on the many fumbles (if they are fumbles!) and the numbers the Trump Dept. of State is admitting with no sign of any “extreme vetting” having been put in place.
As of last Friday we have admitted 41,553 refugees in FY17, and, at the 900 a week rate, we could reach 60,000 (an average number since 9/11).
If I had to guess what caused the Trump big talk to fizzle, I bet it was the Chamber of Commerce Republicans who have convinced him that US companies need the cheap LEGAL refugee laborers now that the flow of illegals is slowing.
BIG MEAT needs workers willing to work for low wages, see here.  (So does BIG POULTRY, and the dairy industry, and Marriott hotels, and airport support services, etc. etc.). What a business model—pay low wages and the refugee family is subsidized through taxpayer-funded welfare programs!
Never forget! Refugee resettlement is not first and foremost about humanitarianism!