Category: Community destabilization

Lutherans Report on their Refugee Consent Lobbying Efforts; Falling Short on Counties

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

I know I’ll hear from Lutherans who disavow everything that Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service (LIRS) is doing (and don’t like being lumped in with them), but indeed it is this faction (the Leftwing) of the Lutheran ‘faith’ making all the news.

When I saw this website this morning (thanks to a reader) where LIRS (one of nine federal refugee contractors that monopolize all refugee resettlement in America***) is running a tally of their successes in gaining consents for their placement of refugees, I am struck by a couple of things.

LIRS National Headquarters are in this building owned by the Lutherans and located in a prime Inner Harbor Baltimore neighborhood. Taxpayers fund LIRS about $50 million a year (90% of their budget is taxpayer funded). LIRS is one of three contractors suing Trump to stop the President’s refugee reform plan.

First, where the heck is the Department of State that promised a running tally would be publicly available.

As of this writing the DOS website is pathetic compared to LIRS.

Of course since LIRS is almost completely funded by the federal government (taxpayers like you and me!), funding based on the number of refugees they place, they have a lot to lose if they can’t get enough consents when applying for their contract with the State Department.

(From its most recent Form 990 (page 9) we see that LIRS is 90% funded from the US Treasury!)

Weak Governors are falling like dominoes as we have been reporting, see here yesterday, but where are the counties?

The US State Department’s Funding Guidance (the rules for the President’s reform initiative) specifically says that in addition to governors, the contractors must get consent from COUNTY governments.  There is no mention of Mayors of cities having any say!

By the way, the contractors hate Trump’s new reform plan because they have had free rein for decades to place refugees pretty much wherever they wanted with guidance from friendly and ideologically aligned bureaucrats in the State Department.

And, they certainly never had to solicit support from elected officials to get their MONEY for the year (actually now only a portion of the year from June to the end of September 2020).

Here is the pertinent section of the Funding Guidance:

Consistent with Section 412(a) of the INA and Executive Order 13888, Enhancing State and Local Involvement in Refugee Resettlement, PRM and the Department of Health and Human Services Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) seek to promote the involvement of states and localities in the selection of locations for initial resettlement. In addition, PRM and ORR seek strong environments to support resettlement and speedy integration, and regard state and local consent for resettlement activity as important evidence of such strength. For each state and locality where the applicant proposes to resettle refugees during the award period, the applicant should seek written consent for resettlement of refugees from the state governor’s office and the chief executive officer of the local government (county or county equivalent). PRM will take into account such consents to the maximum extent permitted by law, including Section 412(a) of the INA and antidiscrimination laws, in deciding where to place refugees.  [A little wiggle room here at the end, but still no mention that mayors must approve.—ed]

Now go here and check out LIRS lineup of support.

Notice that only a small number of counties have submitted consents (29 out of a list of 86 local consents), see if yours is on the list!  Also, see if your mayor has said sure send us more poverty we don’t have enough of our own!

So to my readers who have been asking if it’s too late to put pressure on your county to say NO, the answer is NO IT ISN’T TOO LATE!

P.S. Your federal representatives—US Senators and Congressmen—have nothing to do with this plan so don’t waste time on them right now! It is county elected officials and a few remaining governors that matter!

 

***For new readers these (below) are the nine federally-funded refugee contractors that operate as a huge conveyor belt monopolizing all refugee placement in America.

Church World Service poster girl!

For decades they have decided in secrecy where to place refugees and they don’t want to lose that power because even as they pontificate about their religious convictions and humanitarian zeal, they are Leftwing political activist groups working to change America by changing the people and using your money to do it!

And, they do not limit their advocacy toward only legal immigration programs, but are heavily involved in supporting the lawlessness at our borders.

The question isn’t as much about refugees per se, but about who is running federal immigration policy now and into the future?  

(I plan to say this once a day from now on!)

I continue to argue that these nine contractors are the heart of America’s Open Borders movement and thus there can never be long-lasting reform of US immigration policy when these nine un-elected phony non-profits are paid by the taxpayers to work as community organizers pushing an open borders agenda.

(If you are new and are confused because your local resettlement agency doesn’t have one of these names, just know that they are a subcontractor of one of the nine and you can usually find out which one by going to their website.)

 

Three More Republican Governors Turn on Trump, Cave to Leftists on Refugee Program Reform

~ Ann Corcoran ~ 8 Comments

Since I posted the dumb 15 REPUBLICAN governors who rushed to tell the President that they oppose his efforts to rein-in the dysfunctional Refugee Admissions Program designed by Senators Ted Kennedy, Joe Biden and Jimmy Carter in 1980, we have three more who are welcoming more third world poverty to their states:

Governor Brad Little of Idaho, Mike Parson of Missouri and (never-Trumper) Larry Hogan of my home state of Maryland.

Republican Governors tell the President that they don’t want to slow the flow of refugees from the Middle East, Africa and Asia into their states. In so doing they are saying NO to one of the President’s signature campaign promises of 2016, and are inviting more poverty for state and local taxpayers to support.

Why do I call them dumb—first they clearly know nothing about how the Refugee Admissions Program works, but secondly because they obviously didn’t read the Funding Guidance or they would have known that they didn’t need to jump into this—there is plenty of time to consent (or opt-out).

(We expected Dem governors to go against the President, after all they will ultimately be getting more voters for the Democrat party.)

One can only conclude that the Rs don’t mind going against the President to make Open Borders Inc. happy (not to mention the globalists who want the cheap labor!).

Here is the latest line-up of REPUBLICAN governors against Trump on immigration reform (originals are in orange, new fools are in hot pink):

 

They all had many weeks before they were expected to make their decisions.

And, don’t forget, the contractors*** have filed a lawsuit  seeking to enjoin the entire reform effort by the President that will be heard before a friendly-to-the-contractors judge next week.

Smart governors are waiting!

Clearly these RINO REPUBLICANS are dissing the President and sucking up to the Leftists who run the Refugee Admissions Program as a kind of shadow government agency that you pay for with your tax dollars while they then dictate which refugees go where in America.

 

***For new readers these (below) are the nine federally-funded refugee contractors that operate as a huge conveyor belt monopolizing all refugee placement in America.

Church World Service poster girl!

For decades they have decided in secrecy where to place refugees and they don’t want to lose that power because even as they pontificate about their religious convictions and humanitarian zeal, they are Leftwing political activist groups working to change America by changing the people and using your money to do it!

And, they do not limit their advocacy toward only legal immigration programs, but are heavily involved in supporting the lawlessness at our borders.

The question isn’t as much about refugees per se, but about who is running federal immigration policy now and into the future?  

(I plan to say this once a day from now on!)

I continue to argue that these nine contractors are the heart of America’s Open Borders movement and thus there can never be long-lasting reform of US immigration policy when these nine un-elected phony non-profits are paid by the taxpayers to work as community organizers pushing an open borders agenda.

 

Waiting for Abbott, while Idaho Governor Little Caves, Becomes 16th Republican to Rebuff the President

~ Ann Corcoran ~ 3 Comments
Jen Smyers of Church World Service: “The impact if Texas doesn’t allow refugee resettlement to continue will be really dismal.”

The Leftwing federal contractors *** are on pins and needles waiting to see if they can reel in their big fish—Texas Governor Greg Abbott.   

Texas is their most desired catch because although Abbott tried to get out of the program several years ago, the state remains the top refugee placement state in the nation (the Left is turning Texas blue!).

Smyers told reporters that many church groups on the ‘religious’ Left and advocates for Open Borders have met with Abbott’s staff.

Here is the Statesman headline from yesterday:

Abbott silent as refugee resettlement deadline approaches

The article suggests that the deadline is “looming.”  It isn’t! as I explained here when I told you about the dumb Republican governors who jumped on the consent bandwagon prematurely when they obviously hadn’t read the guidance from the US State Department.

Smart governors are keeping their powder dry.

But up in Idaho….

We can add another governor to our dumb governors list.

I wonder, did Governor Little get a call from Pompeo too? Did he get any suggestion from anyone in Washington that his MONEY depended on his consent?

Governor Brad Little joins the list of governors thumbing their noses at one of the the President’s major goals—reforming the dysfunctional UN-driven Refugee Admissions Program and reducing refugee admissions.

Although Idaho doesn’t receive the massive number of refugees that Texas does, it nevertheless has been one of the major controversial locations in the country where many citizens there do not want to see more diversity and more poverty moved from Africa, Asia and the Middle East to their rural state.

(See my extensive Idaho archive here.)

Here is a headline yesterday from The Neighbor:

County, Little offer support for refugee resettlement, but questions over jurisdiction remain

You can read the story yourself, but I want to be sure you see the Governor’s letter to Secretary of State Pompeo:

You should consider this a weasel letter. The Governor is saying (sigh) if Twin Falls County wants it, it’s okay with me.

 

Twin Falls County

Three cheers for a government body that actually read the rules.

More important than the governor’s weak letter is this letter that Twin Falls County sent to the Dept. of State.  In the opening paragraphs, commissioners criticize the Funding Guidance for its lack of clarity, but toward the end of the three-page letter, they penned an important few paragraphs.

Don’t forget, this whole exercise is about whether federal contractors will get MONEY (your tax dollars) later in 2020.

Shut out of so-called ‘stakeholder’ meetings!

They want to be included in consultations in the future (having been shut out so far) and if this exercise is to be repeated they want to hold “robust public hearings.”  That is exactly what should be happening across 49 states (Wyoming has never been in the program).

Don’t forget the 100-mile radius rule! 

When a contractor is ‘hired’ by the feds and approval is given by, in this case, Twin Falls County (and the governor), contractors may place certain refugees in a 100-mile radius of the resettlement office.

With its consent, Twin Falls County has granted permission for refugees to be placed in these locations within a hundred miles. See radius calculator.

This region includes 11 counties: Blaine, ID; Butte, ID; Camas, ID; Cassia, ID; Elmore, ID; Gooding, ID; Jerome, ID; Lincoln, ID; Minidoka, ID; Power, ID; Twin Falls, ID

 

***For new readers these (below) are the nine federally-funded refugee contractors that operate as a huge conveyor belt monopolizing all refugee placement in America.

Church World Service poster girl!

For decades they have decided in secrecy where to place refugees and they don’t want to lose that power because even as they pontificate about their religious convictions and humanitarian zeal, they are Leftwing political activist groups working to change America by changing the people and using your money to do it!

And, they do not limit their advocacy toward only legal immigration programs, but are heavily involved in supporting the lawlessness at our borders.

The question isn’t as much about refugees per se, but about who is running federal immigration policy now and into the future?  

(I plan to say this once a day from now on!)

I continue to argue that these nine contractors are the heart of America’s Open Borders movement and thus there can never be long-lasting reform of US immigration policy when these nine un-elected phony non-profits are paid by the taxpayers to work as community organizers pushing an open borders agenda.

 

 

 

Massachusetts Interfaith Council Attacks Mayor who Says NO to More Refugees

~ Ann Corcoran ~ 2 Comments

If you wonder why more local elected officials aren’t brave. See what the Leftists do to those who go against them—mayors like Springfield, Mass  Mayor Sarno!

Mayor Sarno has been trying tor years to get the State Department to stop the pipeline of refugees to Springfield.

The Open Borders Leftwingers are ruthless and this is the type of in-your-face agitation they have no fear of launching, but LOL! I think this one backfired.

The Interfaith Council of Springfield Mass placed a full-page ad in the Sunday edition of a local paper to shame the mayor—they don’t want Springfield to be the first city in America to say NO! to more refugees.

(If you are confused, according to the US State Department’s Funding Guidance it is county governments that must officially opt-in or opt-out of refugee resettlement under the President’s plan, but the Open Borders activists are going after cities probably because they think that mayors are an easier target.  For the record, the first county to say NO is Appomattox County, Virginia.)

Here is the news, and then I’ll get to why the resettlement contractors’ (in this case primarily HIAS***) aggressive action, via the local Interfaith group, is backfiring!  (I’ve warned you before about ‘Interfaith groups’  as primary promoters of refugee resettlement.)

From Masslive:

Interfaith Council challenges Springfield Mayor Domenic Sarno on refugee resettlement

SPRINGFIELD – A full page taken by the Interfaith Council of Greater Springfield in the Sunday Republican today is requesting that Mayor Domenic J. Sarno bring unity rather than refusal around the issue of refugee resettlement in the city, saying in what it calls an open letter “no human is a burden.”

“Springfield is now the first city in the country whose mayor has refused to issue a letter of consent to allow refugee resettlement to continue,” reads the council’s letter.

“This is not a distinction we bear lightly.”

The statement, whose dozen signatures include those of the Western Massachusetts Conference of the Evangelical Church of America, Sinai Temple and the Islamic Society of Western Massachusetts, adds, “Instead of assigning blame to a small and already marginalized group, what if we were to bring people together – across our divides – to create real solutions? If, as the Mayor suggests, neighboring communities need to do more, one wonders what can be done to bring people together around such a solution. Many or us are ready to step forward.”

Following a unanimous City Council vote Dec. 16 supporting local involvement in refugee resettlement, Sarno issued a statement of opposition and in a Dec. 18 letter to MassLive and The Republican outlined why he would not issue a letter of consent permitting refugees to be resettled in the city.

[….]

In his letter explaining his refusal to do so, Sarno said, “It’s time for other much more affluent communities to take on their fair share.”

“My position has been very clear on that this issue taxes our city and school services and calls into question the accountability and follow-through aspects of refugee agencies, who not too long ago, placed a number of refugees in condemned housing units,” Sarno wrote.

“We have a number of residents in Springfield who need assistance and that will continue to be the concentration of my efforts. Springfield has proudly done more than its fair share on this issue.”

In an Dec. 18 interview about its work with refugee resettlement, Maxine Stein, president and chief executive officer of Jewish Family Service of Western Massachusetts, the largest area agency doing such work, said, “Refugees are not taking services from our city.”

[…..]

JFS is the oldest and largest refugee resettlement agency in Western Massachusetts and works in partnership with the Hebrew Immigration Aid Society or HIAS and the State Department in what, prior to the Trump administration, had been resettling some 240 refugees annually in the area.

HIAS is among the organizations that have filed suit against the administration over Executive Order 13888. [We expect that case to be heard in a Maryland court in early January—ed]

There is much more, please read it all.

So why do I say their aggressive ad backfired?

See the comments!!! 

As of this writing there are 98 of them, and based on a quick look the vast majority are in support of Sarno.

And, this is the ‘peoples’ republic of Massachusetts.’

Here are some screenshots of just a few recent ones (there are many more, but I had to quit for the sake of time!)  Go read them yourself and maybe consider adding a few more.

 

If Allwornout is referring to refugees, they are here legally. Readers need to understand that our LEGAL immigration system is massively flawed and must be reformed. The UN/US Refugee Admissions Program in my view should be entirely repealed. We must not in the future turn over the power to place refugees where un-elected fake non-profits (funded by taxpayers) choose.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

***Don’t miss yesterday’s post where I explained that this exercise is all about MONEY for the contractors.

It is kind of funny, in the Bible Belt, the contractors are using Leftwing Evangelicals to carry their water.  In Minnesota it is Leftist Catholics and Lutherans, but in the more liberal north east they turn to extremely Leftwing Interfaith groups symbolizing multicultural mush—love and peace for one and all.

WV Governor Jim Justice Disses the President, Wants More Refugees

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment
Suck-up Jim Justice hugs the President, but follows the dictates of the ‘religious Left’ opposing the President on refugee resettlement for his poor state. Guess they have run out of poor Americans in WV, they will now import more from the Middle East, Africa and Asia.

Jim Justice the West Virginia governor who has been a Republican, then a Democrat and now a Republican again, not only joined the fab-15 dumb governors who came out of the chute long before they needed to and declared their support for more refugees, but also foolishly embraced (in writing) the leading activists in the West Virginia Open Borders Left with plans to include them in mapping out a future for the state “in the interest of all West Virginians.”

West Virginia has gotten only a tiny number of refugees over the years.

So I guess the governor plans to change that—so much for supporting one of Trump’s major campaign promises of 2016 to rein-in the dysfunctional UN-driven Refugee Resettlement Program.

WV won’t get its MONEY?

By the way, the word is that the governor thought he must consent ASAP in order to get his funding.  Funding for what—is there a rat in the administration telling governors that some funding will be cut off if they don’t agree to ‘welcome’ refugees.  What exactly is that funding?***

Here below is the text of the governor’s press release earlier this month:

Gov. Justice responds to presidential executive order concerning refugee resettlement

CHARLESTON, WV – Gov. Jim Justice today sent a letter of consent to Secretary of State Michael R. Pompeo in response to an executive order issued by President Donald J. Trump on Sept. 26, 2019, concerning enhanced state and local involvement in refugee resettlement.

“I am grateful for the Trump Administration’s consideration of states’ rights with this Executive Order and with other policies that impact what happens in West Virginia,” Gov. Justice said in the letter.

“Further, I understand that refugees who come to West Virginia will have been vetted and approved by the appropriate federal agencies, including the Department of State, and be granted legal entry to make a new home in America before settling here. [This is your usual refugee contractor lingo. He didn’t write this on his own!—ed]

“West Virginia has had great success with our refugee resettlement agency, which has been in operation since 1978. Refugees who have resettled here have become productive citizens and are welcomed into our West Virginia family. Therefore, as Governor of West Virginia, I consent to refugee resettlement in West Virginia, as per the terms of the Executive Order.”

Gov. Justice has reached out to Catholic Charities of West Virginia, The Diocese of Wheeling-Charleston, The Episcopal Diocese of West Virginia, The West Virginia Council of Churches, and Temple Israel and Congregation B’nai Jacob in Charleston to set up a meeting in the coming weeks to further determine the best way to move forward in the interest of all West Virginians.

Does the good Mr. Justice think it is in the “interest of all West Virginians” to invite third world poverty and cultural tensions to West Virginia?

I have an extensive archive on West Virginia, click here, to see how patriots there have held back the tide so far.

***On this issue of losing federal funds, if you live in a state where your Republican governor has caved, see those governors here, try to find out if they were threatened with the loss of some sort of funding.  Clearly WV gets a tiny number of refugees—none in the last year—so they surely weren’t being threatened with any loss of federal money for refugees.