And, we are told that Lansing has been very “welcoming” to refugees in the past.
The Office of Refugee Resettlement continues its site shopping…..
The children are mostly teenaged boys. Photos: http://www.breitbart.com/Breitbart-Texas/2014/06/05/Leaked-Images-Reveal-Children-Warehoused-in-Crowded-US-Cells-Border-Patrol-Overwhelmed
Note it’s the Lutherans again here! (Remember they are contracted by the feds to serve the kids!).
So long as they are not Mexican or Canadian, unaccompanied children who enter the U.S. illegally can be held in custody by the federal government for up to 72 hours. After that, they are transferred to the Office of Refugee Resettlement, where they are then placed in temporary shelters where they await foster care, a family member or a relative who can “claim” them or deportation.
Michigan houses two of the nation’s 22 shelter programs for unaccompanied refugee minors: Lutheran Social Services in Lansing and Bethany Christian Services in Grand Rapids. [Bethany is the agency that got lucky and had the convicted murderer as a client, here.—ed]
Bates said that because Michigan plays a large role in offering shelter programs, the influx of children at the nation’s southwest border will be felt here as well.
“A crisis like this strips resources from social services,” he said. How much Michigan will be affected, however, is unknown — officials have been guarded at best in discussing the matter.
The feds asked the Lutherans to not say a word to the media!
On Friday, Michigan United and Michigan Immigrant Right Center hosted an emergency conference call to coordinate an advocacy response about “the emerging issues for immigrant children,” but it was closed to the media.
Representatives from Lutheran Social Services of Michigan and Bethany Christian Services said they were unable to release data on unaccompanied minor children they house or comment on the Central American surge of children without authorization.
“The federal government has asked us to not talk about the increase in numbers or the humanitarian crisis at the border,” said Diane Baird, program manager of Lutheran Social Services.
“Historically, Lansing and the mid- Michigan area have been very welcoming,” she said.
See Lutherans lobbying for the “unaccompanied minors” here.
I would have some respect for the Catholic Bishops if with each of their statements like this onethey publish a disclaimer along with it.
The disclaimer would go something like this: It should be noted that the largest share of the money we use for helping refugees and the “children” coming across the border comes from the federal government.
Here is their annual report for 2012. Out of a revenue stream of $71 million they got $69.6 million from US taxpayers (numbers are rounded, reference to travel loan fees is your money too).
Bishop Elizondo leading a pack of priests on the border: they are all refugees now! http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2014/04/01/catholic-leaders-push-immigration-reform/7164359/
Children crossing border should be seen as refugees fleeing persecution
WASHINGTON–On World Refugee Day, celebrated June 20, Bishop Eusebio Elizondo, auxiliary bishop of Seattle, and chairman of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ (USCCB) Committee on Migration, called upon the U.S. government to do more to assist vulnerable Syrian refugees in the Middle East and to protect the rights of children crossing the U.S.-Mexico border.
“The Syrian refugee crisis in the Middle East has reached a point of humanitarian disaster,” said Bishop Elizondo. “Although the United States has provided overseas support to these refugees, other forms of relief, including possible resettlement of the most vulnerable, should be seriously considered.” The United States has resettled a total of 42 refugees this year, compared to a Syrian refugee population of over two million persons.
Bishop Elizondo also talked about the current migration of children from Central America as a refugee situation. As many as 47,000 unaccompanied children have crossed the U.S.-Mexico border since the beginning of the year in order to escape violence in their home countries.
“These children are indeed fleeing for their lives and must be looked at through a protection lens, not through an enforcement lens,” said Bishop Elizondo. “We must not send them back if they have valid protection claims.
The USCCB and the Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service are two leading federal contractors retained by the Office of Refugee Resettlement to take care of the illegal alien children. Refugees and illegal alien kids are “clients” of the contractors. So why don’t they ever tell the public that!
Glen Beck needs to get his facts straight. It is not Christian charity when the ‘church’ is paid by the taxpayers to do charitable work.
Glen Beck, get your facts straight!
The other day I heard Glen Beck suggest that the charity affiliated with his company should help take care of the illegal kids (unaccompanied minors).
His audience went berserk and many told him that was the final straw with their support for Beck’s charity and his show.
One example Beck used to demonstrate his point of view—that Christian charity dictates that we care for these kids—was a Catholic Church in Texas taking in the illegals. Glen was praising the parishioners.
I think Beck, like most of the general public, has no clue about the millions of tax payer dollars being doled out to ‘churches’ to take care of the so-called “refugees.”
Keep it up Bishops! Call the illegal alien teenagers “refugees” and you do more to tarnish the positive image the word “refugee” had enjoyed for decades than anything the “anti-refugee resettlement backlashers”could ever do!
See our extensive (and growing daily!) archive on the so-called “unaccompanied minors” crisis by clicking here. It extends back several years.
The people of Virginia say NO to Obama bureaucrats last week!
You surely haven’t missed this news, it is popping up everywhere as the Dept. of Health and Human Services (HHS) shops for locations in which to place hundreds of mostly teenaged illegal alien boys (dubbed “asylum seekers” and “refugees”) around the country, rather than returning them to their homes in Central America!
The first story brought to our attention by several readers is the one from Lawrenceville, Virginia. Here at Breitbart (emphasis mine):
LAWRENCEVILLE, Virginia—Over 1,000 angry residents of the small, rural town here gathered at Brunswick High School on Thursday and reamed out local, state, and federal government officials for offering the St. Paul’s College building as temporary emergency shelter for 500 unaccompanied alien children (UACs) coming from Texas. St. Paul’s, a historically black college, shut down five years ago after losing its accreditation.
Lawrenceville resident Arron Smith said firmly, “The people here don’t want to ask you any questions. We really don’t want to hear your selling points. We don’t want to hear your politically correct terms. We talk slow around here. We got a little twang, but talk direct. Let me say this to you as I look square in your eyes. We do not want you here.”
[….]
Although the UAC’s were scheduled to arrive on Thursday, the plan was put on hold following a severe backlash from the community. In the meantime, the panel of government officials continued to promise that if Lawrenceville residents did not want the UAC facility in operation, the plan would be scrapped.
See another story on the confrontation at The Blaze and here.
New York state?
In a hurry to establish refugee camps, the feds make a boo-boo in New York State, also from The Blaze(hat tip: Erich):
Searching for places to house the “overwhelm[ing]” influx of Mexican and Central American children crossing the U.S. southern border without parents or guardians, government officials scouted out an abandoned hotel in Grand Island, New York on Friday.
Or at least the government thought the hotel was abandoned.
As it turned out, the 263-room Byblos Niagara Resort and Spa was fully booked.
“It looks like there’s been a mistake,” federal agents with the Homeland Security Department and the Border Patrol told the hotel manager, according to the Buffalo News.
[….]
A simple Google search could have saved the agents the trip the the hotel.
What is clear is that the feds were moving quickly, without giving local authorities much notice.
This article also says a location being considered is in Rochester, NY.
Illinois?
No way says Illinois Congressman! Send them home! From Illinois Review(hat tip: Cathy):
OLYMPIA FIELDS – Thousands of children from Central America are entering the United States through the nation’s southern border, overburdening local facilities and resources. The crisis has the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services on the search for lodging facilities elsewhere in the states.
One facility being considered is in Chicago’s far southern suburbs – the quiet community of Olympia Fields.
Congressman Randy Hultgren (IL-14) released a statement Saturday morning announcing this week the HHS will be conducting an inspection of a former monastery at 203rd and Governors Highway to be used to house some of the children that were illegally sent to America unaccompanied by their parents.
Hultgren called for the effort to halt, saying moving the children to Olympia Fields will only make matters worse for the children.
“We should immediately halt this effort. It is an ill-conceived stop gap solution that will only exacerbate the terrible situation for these children,” Hultgren said. “Moving these children further away from the border unnecessarily elongates their legal limbo at orphanage-style federal facilities while they undergo removal proceedings.”
Looking for more “pockets of resistance!” Send us stories about the Obama Administration scouting your neighborhood for refugee camp sites to house the teenaged illegal aliens!
See our complete archive on ‘unaccompanied minors’ going back several years by clicking here.
It is infinitely cheaper than putting them on the welfare rolls for decades!
Of course the UN will scream like a stuck pig if the US should try such a thing! But, after all, most are economic migrants and not legitimate refugees.
As we have reported previously on many occasions, Australia, Israel and Bulgaria are three countries (international pockets of resistance!) willing to take the heat from “humanitarian” scolds in order to save their countries from invasion.
Abbott and Morrison: We are paying them off to go home! Alas, if only we had leaders like these!
The Abbott government is offering asylum seekers on Manus Island and Nauru detention centres up to $10,000 to abandon their hope of resettlement in Australia and voluntarily return to the country they fled from.
The revelation comes as the High Court on Friday issued a stunning rebuke to the Abbott government’s border protection policy, striking down its decision to to refuse to issue permanent protection visas to boat arrivals found to be refugees.
In two unanimous decisions, with implications for thousands of boat arrivals, the court ruled that Immigration Minister Scott Morrison’s decision to impose a cap on the number of places in Australia’s refugee intake for boat arrivals was invalid.
The sudden boost in payments is the latest tactic being used by the Abbott government to cement its hardline stance against asylum seekers who come to Australia without a visa.
UN: Australia slipping! (so what!)
The UN High Commissioner for Refugees on Friday showed Australia’s efforts to help alleviate the crisis have stagnated or worsened, with the country sliding backwards in the global rankings, according to some measures.
Australia now ranks 17th in the world to resettle refugees, according to the Refugee Council of Australia.
See our Australia categoryfor many more posts on clever Australian solutions.
The list is long! And, Obama surely tops it! But, here are some others who have brought us to this awful place in our Nation’s history: Senator Dianne Feinstein, Former Senator Sam Brownback (now governor of Kansas), the Office of Refugee Resettlement, the US Conference of Catholic Bishops, and Edwin Larios Muñoz (a convicted murderer)! Huh?
Edwin Larios Munoz, an “unaccompanied alien child” who was convicted twice of murdering a woman in whose home he was placed for foster care by a refugee contractor.
Editor: See also our post yesterday, here, for additional historical background and why the soft treatment of illegal alien teenagers by the Office of Refugee Resettlement has served as a magnet for more to break into America.
Last night a reader directed us to this 2006 article at VDARE by Thomas Allen which spells out the early history of how the illegal alien “children” first came under the care of the Office of Refugee Resettlement.
Allen tells us about Edwin Larios Muñoz the poster-boy who tearfully testified in Congress about his supposedly brutal treatment at the hands of the Immigration and Naturalization Service and was featured on the cover of an August 2002 issue of Parade magazine (I could not find the cover—ed)
Only three years later (2005) Honduran cover-boy Munoz was arrested and convictedof murdering Silvia Sanchez-Parada and her unborn child.
First, from the San Diego Union Tribune from August 2, 2002 (amazing the story is still available!):
Each year thousands of children under 18 try to sneak into the United States. While many make it, many are caught and turned over to the Immigration and Naturalization Service as “unaccompanied minors.” In San Diego alone, the INS processed 390 children last year. This year, the pace has quickened, with 234 arrested through July 31.
As the numbers rise, the INS is increasingly under fire for the way it handles the children.
One of the chief critics is California Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein, who has sponsored a bill that would remove the children from INS jurisdiction and transfer their care to a new office in the Department of Health and Human Services.
Feinstein and others have highlighted the San Diego case of Honduran immigrant Edwin Larios Muñoz, who was arrested Aug. 19, 2000, at the San Ysidro border crossing. Edwin is featured in an article in today’s issue of Parade magazine, and he testified in front of a Senate committee in February about his experiences at Juvenile Hall, where the INS housed him.
In his tearful testimony, Edwin said that at age 14 he was surrounded by violent juveniles facing serious charges such as murder and rape, witnessed numerous fights and was hit with sticks by probation officers.
Munoz not subjected to any cruel punishment!
Alan Crogan, the head of the Probation Department, disputed Edwin’s claims of mistreatment at Juvenile Hall, where he was held from Aug. 29, 2000 until Feb. 27, 2001.
Crogan said Edwin was kept in a special unit with other non-citizen Latinos and allowed the same privileges as other detainees. He attended school and was allowed the standard recreation time of two hours a day.
“He was not subjected to any kinds of cruel and unusual punishment,” Crogan said.
Nonetheless, Feinstein’s bill then became part of the Bush reorganization of Homeland Security.
In the meantime, however, Feinstein’s bill is moving forward. Last week, it was moved out of the Senate Government Affairs Committee as part of legislation to form the Department of Homeland Security.
So who was meting out “cruel and unusual punishment?”
Feinstein’s star witness was later tried and convicted (again), and here, of brutally murdering a woman and her unborn baby in a home where he rented a room. Munoz was under the care at the time of Bethany Christian Services a subcontractorof one of the top nine federal contractors—Church World Service.
