There could not be a more perfect time for you to attend the annual ACT for America Conference scheduled for September 6th and 7th in Washington, DC.
Brigitte Gabriel: The time is now as Congress returns from a long summer break and addresses the funding for Obama’s last refugee wish list.
Hear from Brigitte Gabriel and a host of important speakers on the topic of immigration, refugee resettlement and the security threats we face from both. ACT is the only national grassroots organization that puts reform of the Refugee Program as a top priority!
A very special guest will be Phil Haney, Department of Homeland Security whistleblower and author, who will speak on ‘Refugee Vetting: Is our security at risk?’
And, this is what Ms. Gabriel said in a recent e-mail recognizing the critical need to let Congress know now how you feel about the ever-expanding UN/US State Department Refugee Admissions Program and how it will impact you and your town.
This is an “all hands on deck” moment. Congress can decide to not fund those numbers or not. Congress can stop him.
[….]
Our counter voice needs to be heard. We need to show up in force and send a clear message to Congress. Not only NO but Hell NO to more unvetted refugees in America.
Due to this impending event [lobbying push by the advocates for 200,000 refugees for next year—ed] , we have dramatically slashed our national conference rate to our rock bottom cost of only $229/registration. We are doing all we can to have you with us. This is a crucial showdown between the patriots who love this country, and those who are trying to destroy it.
[….]
If you are not there, Congress will assume Americans don’t care. They will only hear the loud voices of our rivals and will assume we are perfectly OK with more refugees. This is why it is critical that we have you with us at ACTCON 2016 so we can tell Congress “NO” to Obama’s proposal.
Silence from those who oppose refugee resettlement is the same as support for them. This is the time when patriotic Americans must speak up.
I want to say that some of the hardest working, patriotic and most dedicated citizen activists I met on my 30-day tour of American communities facing refugee overload problems were the ACT for America members.
You have until tomorrow, September 2nd, midnight, to meet some of those great people in Washington!
Editor: As regular readers know, Rutland, VT citizens are not taking kindly to a plan to resettle 100 Syrians in their town—a plan the mayor made in secrecy with a federal resettlement contractor. For background, please click here for our Rutland archive. And, for future reference, this post is filed in our ‘Comments worth noting/Guest posts‘ category.
With grateful appreciation to Ann Corcoran and Refugee Resettlement Watch, it is with pride and pleasure that I attempt, here, to provide you all with the saga of RUTLAND VERMONT, a struggling, proud community facing the importation of even more needy refugees when our welfare overload is choking us even now.
STRAIGHT TALK—–with Don Chioffi
VERMONT’S AREA 51—THE SECRET RESETTLEMENT PROJECT
The proud, struggling city of Rutland, Vermont has been fighting against seemingly insurmountable odds to even get public information about the secret Refugee Resettlement Program since late April. Here it is now in late August and we have no more information than in April, despite numerous FOIA requests. The arrogance, impudence, and outright defiance by the USCRI, the secular agency responsible for this Refugee resettlement Program, with the compliant secret help of Mayor Chris Louras and his crony President of the Board of Aldermen, William Notte, would be more appropriately associated with some third world country, in fact it is headed by a woman that is, in fact, from one of those countries. Amila Merdzandovic, one of Lavinia Limon’s dutiful henchman, has stonewalled, lied outright, and threatened even those in our own state government for releasing even the most pitiful of information to the citizens of our state and of Rutland, and our mayor vowed to reject a lawful petition submitted by his own citizens requesting a moratorium on this program until facts were forthcoming.
Our three state senators from Rutland county, Peg Flory, Kevin Mullin, and Brian Collamore (all Republicans) have even tried to gain information from the State Health and Human Services department and were met with the response that even HHS was not provided with the complete Application and Abstract, a document that is supposed to have the coordination and cooperation of state and local government bodies and the public prior to even being sent to the US State Department. Our state senators were not even informed that this program was being instituted at the state level by our ultra liberal governor, Peter (lame duck) Shumlin. They were also rebuffed by US Sen. Patrick Leahy, who, to date, has also refused to produce the documents. It sure looks like all the Democrats at every level are closing ranks to protect the secrecy of these documents.
The Application has all the back-up information concerning Rutland’s ability to sustain the number of refugees intended for resettlement during 2016 and forward. Information on housing availability, law enforcement, medical capacity, social service capacity, the burgeoning drug problem in our community, the availability or lack of jobs in our community, and the severe drop in population over the last 15 years are all supposed to be in that document—-yet no one, I repeat, no one, has been able to see what has been put into that document as justification for hundreds and hundreds of refugees from a war torn country infested with terrorists being planted like seeds in our community.
Rutland City Treasurer, Wendy Wilton, shocks Rutland with a 35% tax increase prediction in 5 years if USCRI gets its way.
Indeed, USCRI (US Committee for Refugees and immigrants) AND VRRP (Vermont Refugee Resettlement Program) have treated the refugees like a commodity, at around $4,000 each, that will sustain their own taxpayer funded VOLAG (90% government funding), while adamantly refusing to release Rutland’s own application data, which we the people cannot even therefore verify as being accurate and appropriate as justification for the settlement of hundreds of needy individuals into an already impoverished region with a staggering welfare load and severe unemployment or under employment problem.
We, the people, constituted as RUTLAND FIRST, have been struggling on our own to do the research necessary to answer questions and develop information relative to this invasion of our community in the guise of “welcoming humanitarianism”. We have been battling for four months now against the “welcome wagon” which has literally shut its eyes to the costs, the security challenges, and the lack of quality jobs in our region, while at the same time labeling us as racists, islamophobes, or any other vile descriptive adjective in their lexicon of “Global Worldspeak” that they can conjure up, including un-American. This, in spite of the fact that our group boasts several retired and active service personnel who have fought for their country, professional leaders in the community, and active government personnel in both elective and appointed office in our community.
So, yesterday, August 29th, RUTLAND FIRST conducted a forum to attempt to inform our local legislators, state senators, candidates for higher office, and also the general public. Attended by well over a hundred people, the dynamic presentation was riveting in its focus on facts. That alone put it in great contrast to the so called forums presented by the Mayor and the settlement agencies, which characteristically were devoid of anything but emotional statements of support. Today the Rutland Herald had not one word on the dramatic presentation—but managed yet another full column welcoming editorial.
Rutland City Treasurer, Wendy Wilton presented some pretty startling financial impact data, including the most shocking prediction based on present and future costs associated with these programs. When she told the crowd there that based on her calculations, within five years City property taxpayers would be facing an increase of 35%, there were visible signs of multiple jaw dropping in the audience. With a steadily declining population base in the City, the remaining property taxpayers have been facing the high tax burden with no signs of a break and an ever increasing unmet Pension Benefit obligation. Recent comparative studies done by the city have shown that based on its population the number of city employees far exceeds other cities in Vermont. The very dramatic decrease in population has not, however, been met with anywhere near such a proportional drop in personnel.
Gary Shattuck, a local lawyer and a former prosecutor and investigator who worked for the US Department of Justice in Kosovo and Iraq as a legal advisor, presented a pretty bleak picture of any prospect that Syrian Refugees could be properly vetted, citing many qualified opinions by high level US officials specifically stating that there is no empirical data base left in Syria with which to compare any biometric, historical, or verifiable sociometric information. In other words, no matter what name they give the fact checkers, there is no data left in Syria to even check that name, let alone relatives, friends, operatives, or terrorists who may or may not have been associated with the applicant. Shattuck spent substantial time and expertise setting up a system for vetting Iraq’s 850 judges and prosecutors following the breakdown of order in that country to determine if they were, in fact, friend or foe.
David O’Brien, former VT Public Service Commissioner former director of the Rutland Economic Development Corporation (REDC) and presently a consultant in the Energy industry, presented some economic data relevant to the job prospects for refugees, and it was not a pretty picture. Dave cited the dramatic loss of manufacturing jobs in the entire Rutland Region and the tremendous shift from quality long term employment to a model featuring under-employment and service oriented jobs exclusively.
There were letters at the event to be signed by citizens and presented to the State Department, and a local attorney, Judy Barone, Esq. and Don Chioffi, as Rutland First committee members, presented a stinging letter*** to the local and state legislators demanding that they get answers to all the questions posed at the forum. Those present left with plenty of finally answered questions and the clear impression, if not a mandate, that this program should be stopped right now, in its tracks, until and as when the cloak of secrecy is removed and Rutland’s ability to assimilate hundreds of refugees is fully justified.
RUTLAND FIRST—-is—-RUTLAND STRONG!
For those of you in ‘pockets of resistance,’ Rutland citizens’ work should serve as a model for you to use to craft strategies where you live. If you have questions, you can reach Mr. Chioffi at this e-mail address: donsreelsports@comcast.net
***Here is the letter sent today to local and state lawmakers demanding they get answers and express their opposition to a plan created in secrecy! Your local and state elected officials may be telling you they can’t stop the federal government and its NGO contractor, but they sure can add their voices in demanding their constituents be given all the facts and that the federal government follows the law!
Mr. Don Chioffi of Rutland Town has worked with me to compose this letter and address you as our State Legislators, understanding your responsibility for representing the people of Rutland City and surrounding communities on matters affecting State Government.
We herein seek your attention and ask for your help to ensure that the Application for Resettlement of Refugees in Rutland is opposed by the State of Vermont for the reason that the Application is flawed.
Mayor Louras’ ‘letter of support’ submitted with the Application was without legal authority from the Rutland Board of Alderman, the governing entity. The Mayor misrepresented himself as having authority to act for the City as the City’s governing entity when nothing was further from the truth. The planning, information about Rutland and ‘letter of support’ signed by the Mayor alone, was done behind the backs of the City’s governing entity (the Board of Aldermen), secretively. The Mayor was not authorized to provide his ‘letter of support’ misrepresenting that the ‘City’ had a cooperative relationship with the Resettlement applicants, which relationship did not exist.
It is important that each of you act quickly on your oath to uphold the law and insure the Mayor’s unauthorized misrepresentations are not relied upon by the State due to lack of your complaint.
A collaborative effort between federal, state and local authorities is required for successful refugee resettlement and the governing entity’s cooperation is required to insure ongoing support. It is the responsibility of the Vermont Agency of Human Services (AHS) (Ms. Lamoureux), to ensure coordination of public and private resources in refugee resettlement in the State of Vermont. (See; U.S. Code, Title 8 and State Plan forVermont Refugee Resettlement, AHS Refugee Office, AHS Refugee Office, AUGUST 12, 2017). You may not be aware, but access to Ms. Lamoureax has not been possible on this issue and it needs to be made clear that the State of Vermont will not support the flawed application, and the secretive process under which it was orchestrated, planned and submitted.
We ask that each of you make clear to the Governor and Ms. Lamoureax and the State’s Agency of Human Services (AHS) AND our U.S. Senators that no resettlement can or should be approved for Rutland on the pending flawed Application being there is no support or cooperation of the Rutland City’s governing entity. The Board of Aldermen has been denied information it has sought including a copy of the FULL Application to examine and vet the facts represented about Rutland (apparently provided by some people in Dorset Vermont) upon which the Application will be judged.
Failing your intervention under the power of your offices, the Application, as flawed as it is, could be funded anytime in September even where it fundamentally fails to meet the requirements of Federal law and the Vermont Plan for Refugee Resettlement. Your surveillance and intervention is urgent and important to assure nothing is funded and the State is not called upon if the Application has not met the required standards in the law.
Failure on your part to intervene could well be interpreted as your support for the flawed Application and the secretive process that has left Rutland City and the City’s government in disorder and confusion. There is division, fear and mistrust in the City’s government and in our community concerning how government has acted.
Should you have information different than we herein represent, we ask that each of you please contact me or Don Chioffi and explain. On behalf of the people we write soliciting each of you to help us protect our government under the rule of law and afford the cities in our state the process instrumental to good governance .
Kindly copy me with any correspondence you have with AHS and the Governor, U.S. Senators, and others on this request made of you.
Thank you for your anticipated quick attention to this matter as it is urgent before the Application is decided on facts not vetted for accuracy about Rutland. If you can obtain the full Application, we ask that you send that to us, too.
We anxiously await your work, your questions and your replies.
It is with the deepest gratitude to the citizen activists in Rutland, VT that we are bringing you a broader understanding of the process by which your town is ‘chosen’ to become a new ‘welcoming’ resettlement site.
Many of you have gotten your R & P Abstracts for FY2017 and we dissected one herelast week. After having seen one for Reno that is 16 pages long and knowing most of you were getting 3-pagers, I figured they were keeping more information secret from you. Lavinia Limon is the Director of the US Committee for Refugees and Immigrants, a non-profit group over 95% funded by you which wants to determine the future of Rutland. Learn more about her here at Breitbart: http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2016/08/02/revolving-door-sends-millions-refugee-resettlement-agency-run-former-clinton-obama-appointees/
But, I did not know that they are keeping documents that are over a hundred pages from you—a document that serves as the supporting rationale that the US State Department is using to decide if your town is worthy. Holy cow!
Think about this! If you live in Missoula, MT, Charleston, WV, Ithaca, NY, Aberdeen, SD or any one of a number of new sites, there is a massive document prepared SECRETLY about your town! So, when they throw a 3-page document at you, they are throwing you only a bone to shut you up!
These documents are prepared with your tax dollars and they propose the spending of millions (billions!) of tax dollars and you aren’t allowed to see them!
RUTLAND — Some residents and elected officials in Rutland County say they’re frustrated they’ve been unable to obtain the full 126-page application for local refugee resettlement that the U.S. State Department is weighing.
Rutland County Sens. Kevin Mullin, Peg Flory and Brian Collamore will participate in a meeting Monday at the Rutland Free Library to discuss issues related to refugee resettlement, including the application.
The group hosting the meeting, Rutland First, has challenged the plan to bring refugees to Rutland and the process by which the decision was made. In a news release announcing Monday’s event, it said residents and members of the Board of Aldermen have made Freedom of Information Act requests for a copy of the application from the State Department and other agencies involved but have been rebuffed.
[….]
Mullin said he’s not opposed to refugee resettlement and doesn’t want Rutland to be perceived as unwelcoming but thinks the application should be a public document.
“It’s hard for us to get answers too,” he said. “That’s what’s frustrating.”
The application is written and submitted by the U.S. Committee for Refugees and Immigrants, a nongovernmental organization. The committee’s Vermont affiliate is the Vermont Refugee Resettlement Program.
The committee has made public a three-page section of the application known as the abstract, which provides some information on housing, employment and other resources specific to Rutland.
There is much more and every one of you working on digging out information in your states must read this! Bidding for bodies!
Remember I told you that the nine federal contractors*** are bidding for bodies (they are paid by the head to resettle refugees), well that is what USCRI is basically admitting. The contractors say they don’t want to let out their trade secrets and new locations to the other federal contractors. This is outrageous! So who gets s******? You, the taxpaying citizen. This is a federal program, no matter how awful your US Senators and your Congressman are, complain to them that this secrecy must stop! Tell them you want all funding stopped until Congress reviews this entire program!
***The nine federal resettlement contractors (participating in the rally Sunday) which are almost completely funded with your tax dollars:
Putting a proposal for the resettlement of hundreds of thousands of third worlders, including large numbers who come from countries that hate us, squarely in front of the voters in the weeks before the November election could make or break a 2016 presidential candidate.
Obama’s September UN gambit comes as a huge political risk for the Hillary camp and her friends at the Refugee Council USA*** because by placing the hot topic so clearly before the public it could be like waving a red cape before a bull. Hillary has already said she wants 65,000 Syrians admittedin one year and the public is overwhelmingly against ‘welcoming’ any more! Early pollingalready indicates that the vast majority of Americans do not want more Syrian refugees brought to their towns. Will the Obama UN propaganda stunt serve to wake up even more Americans to the nature of this program? We think so. Melanie Nezer (left) of the Hebrew Aid Society is the present chairman of the Refugee Council USA which is a consortium of open border groups including the nine major federal resettlement contractors. RCUSA lobbies Congress and the Administration for more money for their goal of changing America by changing the people. RCUSA will be busy on the Hill reaching out to Republicans who hold the purse strings. Politico (a progressive leaning news outlet aimed at putting news in Congressional office waiting rooms) has published a story that is worth mentioning here, not so much for what it says, but for what it implies.
Reporter Nahal Toosi tells us much we already know, but what interested me most is the mention (a hint really) of the fact that by pushing for more than a doubling of refugees to be admitted to the US in 2017, the resettlement industry will be front and center in Election 2016.
By advocating so strongly with a rallynext weekend and then the Obama UN shindig in September, will the industry become fully exposed to an attack from Trump as Americans increasingly begin to understand how secretive this program has been and how much they are shelling out to bring poverty and possible insecurity to their hometowns, not to mention the maddening fact that most refugees immediately receive all welfare available to Americans including SSI for the elderly and disabled?
It is remarkable to me that the more than 3-decades-old refugee program could make or break an American presidential candidate—and it could if Trump makes the most of Obama’s UN stunt and Hillary’s on-the-record support for 65,000 Syrians to be admitted to the US in one year!
Here (below) are some snips from Politicothat interested me. The refugee industry wants to nearly triple the number of refugees admitted to the US to 200,000. They are urging Obama to make that determination in September, the month when presidents by law send their refugee wish list to Congress.
The average number of refugees admitted throughout most of Obama’s presidency has been 70,000 per year.
[Editor note: there is a lot of confusion about numbers. We are discussing only those refugees admitted through this one program and not considering the tens of thousands of successful asylum seekers and another 100,000 or so unaccompanied alien children the administration refers to as “humanitarian arrivals.” This 200,000 also does not include the hundreds of thousands entering through myriad visa programs.] Politico (emphasis is mine):
Some are calling on Obama to admit at least 200,000 refugees from around the world, including tens of thousands of Syrians, through the U.S. refugee resettlement program and other routes. That’s effectively twice as many total refugees as the Obama administration has planned to accept in the fiscal year that starts Oct. 1.
[….]
Obama also is preparing to host a Sept. 20 international summit on the world’s migration crisis, a meeting in which he is expected to urge other countries to double their intake of refugees. The gathering will be held on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly in New York City, just weeks before the end of a U.S. presidential campaign in which Republican nominee Donald Trump has made refugees an incendiary topic.
[….]
Shannon Scribner, a top official with Oxfam America, said her sense is that, despite pressure from activists, Obama is unlikely to go beyond 100,000 total refugees. One reason is that Congress controls the funding for the refugee resettlement program, and Republicans could kill any request for more money, she noted.
[….]
Trump has embraced the backlash against refugees in Europe, too — openly rooting for the British exit from the EU and comparing Clinton to Angela Merkel, the German chancellor who has emerged as the symbol of the continent’s initially welcoming stance toward the Syrian influx.
[….]
Obama likely will use the daylong summit in September, which will come on the heels of a similar U.N. summit, to push for more out-of-the-box efforts to help the world’s refugees.
[….]
“This could be one of the great Trojan horses,” Trump said of the refugee program. He has also accused Clinton of wanting to spend “hundreds of billions of dollars to settle Middle Eastern refugees in the United States” — a claim that independent fact checkers have debunked — and dinged her repeatedly for calling last September for the U.S. to admit 65,000 properly screened Syrian refugees, a 550 percent increase over Obama’s figure. [The only error in Trump’s comment is the word ‘hundreds,’ leave that out and Trump is correct—this will cost US taxpayer BILLIONS!—ed]
[….]
The September summit gives refugee advocates another chance to boost momentum for their cause. Some groups are hoping in particular to rebuild trust in the refugee program among Republicans, with outreach efforts on Capitol Hill.
At the same time, the summit could re-ignite the partisan debate, especially on the presidential campaign trail.
Help re-ignite the partisan debate!
Here is what you need to remember: in the next 10 weeks, you have to make as much political noise as you can about the UN/US State Department Refugee Admissions Program where you live!
You must work hard to get your concerns and the controversy out to the media in whatever way you can! That means all media! If you can’t get to your local Leftwing controlled newspaper, find other avenues to reach your fellow citizens even if you have to hand out fliers at the county fair! And, then this is key! Get your ‘noise’ to your Senators and Members of Congress. Your House members are all up for election and THEY CONTROL THE PURSE STRINGS. I know you are saying to me that your Member is a chicken or worse. That doesn’t matter, make their lives miserable! They are home now until right after Labor Day. Find them! Go to their offices, picket the office if necessary, meet them at the local county fair, attend any townhall they hold and hammer them on this one issue!
Afterall, Politico is telling us that the Open Borders Refugee Industry is going to be hitting Republican offices on Capitol Hill because they know that the only way they can win is to get Congress (Speaker Paul Ryan!) to fund 200,000 or more refugee arrivals!
You must out maneuver them! Remember:
They need your money to change America!
*** Here are the members of the Refugee Council USA (federal resettlement contractors being paid by the head to place refugees in your towns are in red, they have a vested financial interest in bringing in ever larger numbers of refugees):
…But, those pushing the no-borders agenda are still hopeful that the special Obama-led Pow-Wow in New York in September will result in commitments for numbers of migrants individual countries will pledge to permanently admit.
I’m emphasizing the word ‘permanently’ because I still run into people who think we admit refugees on a temporary basis and that we send them home when the turmoil in their home country is over. That is not so—refugees, asylees and even those here on Temporary Protected Status rarely go home (except to visit! which begs the question about their supposed persecution at home!). Get ready for massive PR campaign around UN in September when Obama hosts refugee resettlement pow-wow. A time for people with our concerns to counter their propaganda?
Here is the latest on efforts to try to get commitments out of countries either roiled by the migration invasion or deep in election-year politics. We aren’t agreeing to anything say world leaders!
World leaders are set to reject a concrete target for the number of refugees that should be resettled within developed countries, dashing hopes of a solution to the world’s unprecedented displacement crisis.
Before a landmark conference in September, negotiators from every UN member country have failed to agree on a promise to share responsibility for 10% of the world’s refugee population, and postponed the completion of a new global refugee deal for another two years.
With the number of refugees and displaced people around the world at an all-time high, campaigners had hoped that an international conference on refugees and migrants in New York would enable world leaders to agree a new mechanism for sharing refugees.
O-man to the rescue. I sure hope the Trump campaign is paying attention and getting ready for the propaganda onslaught the Obama UN event will be generating.
But others still see September’s UN summit as a missed opportunity, with a decision on changes to the global refugee regime postponed to 2018. Attention now turns to another refugee-themed summit in New York scheduled for the same week in September, when leaders invited by Barack Obama will be invited to make individual resettlement pledges – as opposed to making collective ones.
There is also a mention in this article about how the International Organization for Migration (a huge NGO that prepares refugees for their trip to America, among other things) is now going to be moved in to the United Nations. I don’t know what that means other than to assume it means even more control of the US refugee program from within the United Nations.
Be ready!
Note to concerned citizens: the UN General Assembly convenes on September 13th. I could not quickly find the date for Obama’s special refugee confab, but assume it will be in the first part of September.
This would be a good time to generate media campaigns in your states to counter what surely will be a mainstream media effort to support Obama and Hillary’s lust for more third worlders to be resettled in small town America!
Notably, also in September, Obama is required to send his final determination letter to Congress with the number of refugees he proposes for FY2017 (yes, he has one more opportunity to open the flood gates).
