Australian press thinks its unlikely US will take rejected 'refugees' off their hands

11/23/2016 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Mr Trump! Forget Syrians for a minute! Are we going to suspend resettlement of all ‘high-risk aliens?’

Here is a story from Sky News Australia which links Trump advisor Kris Kobach’s proposals to Trump last weekend in NJ as evidence that the deal might well be dead on arrival. See my earlier post this morning about a letter from two powerful members of Congress who want the fishy Australia deal stopped now!

Sky News titters about photo that reveals some of Kobach’s suggestions to the Trump team on immigration:

An apparent bungle by US president-elect Donald Trump’s hardline immigration adviser shows just how difficult Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull’s US refugee re-settlement plan will likely be to pull off.

Kris Kobach, tipped to head the US Department of Homeland Security in the Trump administration, was clutching documents as he stood with a smiling and waving Mr Trump on Sunday in view of the media.

A photo taken by Associated Press, when zoomed in, shows the top page of the document is headlined ‘Department of Homeland Security. Kobach Strategic Plan for First 365 Days’.

It lists aggressive proposals aimed at ‘high-risk aliens.’

‘Reduce intake of Syrian refugees to zero, using authority under the 1980 Refugee Act,’ Mr Kobach’s plan states.

The plan also calls for ‘extreme vetting questions for high-risk aliens: question them regarding support for Sharia Law, jihad, equality of men and women, the United States Constitution’.

Mr Kobach was one of many potential Trump administration hires who met with the president-elect at the Trump National Golf Club in Bedminster, New Jersey on the weekend.

More here at Sky News.

Readers, I am starting to get nervous about whether Trump’s closest advisors on immigration fully understand the US Refugee Admissions Program.
In my previous post I said that if Trump picks Romney in combination with Nikki Haley at the UN (where the UN has plans for who comes to your towns!), we shouldn’t expect any major shakeup of the RAP.

Let’s talk about HIGH-RISK ALIENS!

There has been enormous national attention on the fact that FBI Director Comey testified to Congress that Syrians cannot be vetted because they come from a failed state where records are not obtainable. And, it is understandable that the focus has been on the Syrians, but…..
….if you are a longtime reader of RRW you know this is also true for the vast majority of Somalis (tens of thousands) we have admitted over the last two-three decades. In fact, in 2008 the State Department (DOS) cut off family reunification for Somalis because they discovered wide spread fraud—-Somalis lied about their family connections! Family reunification was closed for years (all documented here at RRW). See the most recent news on Somalis who thumbed their noses at your generosity.
The DOS and DHS say they can vet the Iraqis. But, they screwed up big time a few years ago and Iraqi refugee Al-Qaeda supporters were arrested and convicted on terror charges in Kentucky. One of them actually had fingerprints on an IED shard in US government hands and no one ever made the connection. That IED killed American service men. These two had lied on their refugee application.

And, how are we possibly screening the Rohingya Muslims who have fled Burma, many on boats that ended up in Malaysia and Indonesia. We are taking thousands of them! They don’t have ‘papers’ from the government of Burma (a Buddhist government that is all too happy to get rid of them)!
Other countries that produce unvettable (new word!) Muslims are Afghanistan, Ethiopia, Sudan and Uzbekistan. Just those few countries mentioned above account for probably half of the flow to the US right now!
So, Mr. Trump and Mr. Kobach! Stop focusing on only Syrians! The problem is much much bigger!

More on Rutland: Refugee resettlement is about (your) money

11/22/2016 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

It’s hundreds of thousands of dollars in grant money that goes towards transitioning the refugees.

In Rutland, VT the controversy about whether to bring mostly Syrian refugees to the city in the coming months continues to simmer. The brakes are on right now, as we told you here and here recently, because the federal contractors know they can’t get out too far ahead of their money (YOUR money, federal grants).
Frankly, the contractors have virtually no money of their own especially the contractor in Rutland (USCRI here). For new readers, USCRI*** is the contractor working in Twin Falls, Idaho too.

mayor-louras — Rutland Mayor Louras thinks small towns will be saved by bringing in mostly Muslim refugees from the Middle East. I don’t see him clamoring for the Congolese Christians. Photo: http://www.pewtrusts.org/en/research-and-analysis/blogs/stateline/2016/08/05/shrinking-small-towns-see-hope-in-refugees

There is nothing earth-shattering in this, another story on Rutland, but I was interested to see how overtly the promoters of resettlement are willing today to talk (they didn’t 9 years ago) about the need for federal bucks to make the resettlement work.
Those promoting bringing the Syrian Muslims (flavor of the year!) to Rutland aren’t shelling out their own money, neither is the state of Vermont (at least on the surface, they will, however, shell out plenty for ‘services’ and educating the kids as time goes on.).
On this flavor of the year comment (I can hear the rage!), I was struck by a thought when I wrote about the rally for Syrians in Charleston, WV and we see it here in Rutland too.
Would the resettlement advocates be so eager if they were going to be getting mostly impoverished and boring Christians from the DR Congo or Burma, or is this fervor for Syrians and Iraqis (mostly Muslims) fueled by a desire to be just kinda cool?
Here is the bit of the story at WCAX.com I want you to see:

An opportunity about 100 Syrian and Iraqi refugees hope to find in Rutland. “It’s frankly just a lot of unknowns,” said Rutland Mayor Chris Louras.

After Donald Trump’s win, Rutland officials are not sure whether their resettlement plan for the refugees will be affected. “There’s the potential that we may only see two families in before he’s inaugurated. We don’t know what happens at that point,” Louras said.

President-elect Trump campaigned with anti-immigrant rhetoric, saying he plans to cut refugee funding and put a temporary halt on accepting Muslims.

“Without that federal funding for the program, there’s no mechanism to resettlement to the United States,” Louras said. [If people really were driven by humanitarianism, they would be privately funding resettlement, one family, one church at a time!—ed]

Right now with all the uncertainty, USCRI isn’t going to go out on a financial limb and hire staff and open an office!

It’s hundreds of thousands of dollars in grant money that goes towards transitioning the refugees. The Vermont Refugee Resettlement Program Rutland plans to hire three full-time case workers and two part-time translators to work with the refugees on education and employment. “We’re still planning as if these people are coming — we have to,” Louras said.

So is Marsha Cassel, a Rutland High School teacher and active member of the group, Rutland Welcomes.

And, check out this next line. The good citizens of Rutland are bringing over their old furniture, but USCRI gets to give it a monetary value so they can tell the feds they have some skin in the game. The feds expect the contractors to show they have contributed something, and since they don’t have cash (especially USCRI 97% taxpayer funded) they get to use old furniture and volunteer hours (your volunteer hours are given a cash value!) to prove they are contributing.

In the Rutland Herald’s former printing press room, hundreds of pieces of donated furniture await new owners. “They’re coming with nothing but hope, so we are just hoping to get them started,” Cassel said.

The WCAX.com story continues with much discussion about screening terrorists, but I think the greater threat is what we are seeing in Minnesota where the generation of cute little kids we supported grows up to be jihadists.
To see our very large archive on Rutland, click here.
***Learn more about USCRI’s CEO Lavinia Limon here at Breitbart.

Poughkeepsie: Church World Service official spins about refugee Islamic terrorists

11/12/2016 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

We told you on October 28th that Church World Service is planning to bring refugees, mostly from Syria and the Middle East, to Poughkeepsie, NY, and the plans were kept secret from the city elected officials and the public in general until very recently. The arrival of the first Syrians is apparently only a month or so away.

Because most citizens don’t fully understand how costly resettlement is and they don’t know (because all mainstream media is silent) how disruptive to the social make-up of communities large numbers of refugees have been, they don’t know enough to ask enough good questions so they naturally focus first and foremost on the security issue. They want to know if Islamic terrorists could be hiding among them?
Refugee industry spokesmen are quick to make a joke, asking why would a terrorist want to go through such a lengthy process to get here, when they can simply fly in or walk across the border (a question which invariably brings laughs in the audience).
One thing we never hear about outside of certain circles is the fact that some Muslim refugee children in America have grown up to be jihadists—-dozens of them from the Somali community in Minnesota, for example, have thumbed their noses at your good will and left for battle in Africa or the Middle East. Others have tried to show their jihadist ‘skills’ here.
Read about the Poughkeepsie meeting and pay close attention to how an official of Church World Service attempts to answer security concerns.
From the Times-Herald Record:

Former refugee Erol Kekic, executive director of the Immigration and Refugee Program, told attendees that refugees are vetted vigorously, especially those from Syria.

“We have not had one single refugee commit an act of terrorism,” Kekic said to a large round of applause.

mohamed-mohamud — Mohamed Mohamud a Somali refugee who came to the US as a child is serving a 30 year sentence for planning to blow up a Christmas tree lighting ceremony in Portland, OR. https://refugeeresettlementwatch.org/2014/10/01/portland-or-somali-christmas-tree-bomber-to-be-sentenced-today/

Apparently no one in the audience was knowledgeable enough to ask the follow-up question:

How many refugees have been arrested and convicted of planning terrorist attacks—arrested before they could commit the act?

The answer is a larger number than we should find acceptable!
Off the top of my head: There were the Iraqis men arrested in Kentucky in 2011 who were working with Al Qaeda in Iraq (doing life in prison now). ABC News did cover this story! Indeed the whole Iraqi flow to America was disrupted for a year or so in the wake of that revelation and all Iraqis on the way in were re-screened.
Then here are some of the kids you welcomed:
There was the Somali Christmas tree bomber sentenced in 2014.
Most recently there was the Iraqi refugee who admitted to planning an ISIS bombing in Houston, here.
And, we can’t forget an ISIS sympathizer (Somali refugee) who was successful in attacking and wounding shoppers in a mall in St. Cloud, MN, here.
Although they have never admitted it (to my knowledge), I believe the Chattanooga killer’s family was a resettled refugee family, see here.
There are others, visit our crimes category here with over 2,000 refugee crimes and terror attacks/attack planning from all over the world.
I know many of you will cite the Boston Bombers. Yes, they were ‘refugees’ who entered the US with their parents who were granted political asylum (which made them refugees). Kekic would argue that they don’t count because they didn’t come through the UN/US State Department Refugee Admissions Program run by contractors like Church World Service.
Be sure to revisit my post of last week on Church World Service’s finances. Poor Mr. Kekic is not being paid very well (he doesn’t make the top employees’ list on their recent Form 990) compared to other top execs of the organization. What’s up with that, he has been around for a long time—almost 17 years according to LinkedIn.

What should Trump do about refugees on January 21, 2017

11/11/2016 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

It is not unprecedented to reduce refugee numbers dramatically, we did it following 9/11! By Inauguration Day 2017 we will already be at 35,000 for the fiscal year!

Donald J. Trump will be inaugurated on the 20th of January as our 45th President. Many of you worked very hard to make it happen. He said he will stop the flow of Syrian (majority Muslim) refugees to your towns and cities and at minimum we expect him to do that!

But, reducing the numbers is not enough, he must demand the repeal of the Refugee Act of 1980. The system as constructed is rotten to the core and I no longer believe it can be reformed.

us-chamber-donohue-ap-640x480 — This isn’t just an ideological battle between ‘do-gooders’ on the Left and ‘haters’ in the conservative grassroots, but a third player is the Chamber of Commerce which will fight tooth and nail to buck Trump. They want the cheap immigrant labor! Tom Donohue, friend of Paul Ryan, here: http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2015/10/12/chris-wallace-establishment-business-groups-ready-to-primary-conservatives-if-they-dont-play-ball-with-paul-ryan/

A simple reduction in numbers, that has been suggested by some in the immigration control movement, is not adequate. If it is deemed in the national interest to resettle third worlders in America going forward, an entirely new program must be constructed by Congress.
In my view, there are three issues that must be addressed in a White House and Congressional review and they are: 1) National security concerns, 2) the VOLAG system where non-profits are paid by the head (out of the US Treasury) to resettle refugees chosen by the UN, 3) lack of transparency (the outrageous secrecy by VOLAGs and the feds involved in choosing target towns). There may be others I can’t think of at the moment.

So as we knew, and as a Newsweek article yesterday confirmed, on January 21st, Donald Trump can turn off the spigot of refugees flowing in to the US and tell Congress if they want a refugee program to get to work and come up with a new one!

He can hold the hammer over their heads by turning off the flow!

But! He will have to battle the major corporations and the US Chamber of Commerce looking for a plentiful supply of CHEAP LABOR.

As much as some want to frame it this way—as a battle between two major forces of Democrat Left wing open borders ‘humanitarian’ activists on one side and Republican Right wing believers in tightly controlled immigration on the other, there is a third player with enormous power—BIG business and US Chamber of Commerce lobbyists always on the hunt for CHEAP (some say captive, compliant) LABOR!
Trump will have to battle Republican Congressional leaders who follow the lead of their industry friends!
That (above) is my main point, for those who want to wade into the numbers weeds, here is what I’ve been looking at this morning.

What do the numbers look like now?

Using data provided by the Refugee Processing Center, we have admitted 12,272 refugees of all stripes between the beginning of the 2017 fiscal year (October 1, 2016) and election day (November, 8, 2016). This rate (319 a day) is higher than anything we have seen in the last ten years (see chart in this post).
If that rate continues until Inauguration Day on January 20th, 2017, then we will have admitted over 35,000 refugees in just over 3 1/2 months, more than we brought in 2002 and 2003. Obama wants 110,000 for the entire fiscal year (319 a day would bring the total over 110,000).
However, it is not unprecedented to dramatically reduce numbers. See here that in the two years following 9/11 we admitted less than 30,000 refugees for each year 2002 and 2003!
So where would the greatest impact be if the spigot were closed on January 21st? On the contractors of course. They will have to close some offices, not open new ones, reduce staff and overhead, and gee maybe even reduce the excessively large salaries their CEOs are getting. Of course they will scream bloody murder and say how mean Trump is by leaving refugees in the pipeline.
By the way, if you like to do research, check USASpending.gov in the coming weeks and see if the federal agencies—US State Department and Health and Human Services—are pouring excessively large amounts of grant money into the coffers of the nine major contractors before Obama leaves office.
More numbers….
When I checked the data this morning, I see that the following numbers have been admitted from Muslim sending countries (from October 1 to November 8):
Iraq (1,635)
Somalia (1,684)
Syria (1,602)
Smaller numbers come from places like Afghanistan and Uzbekistan. Keep an eye on Burma because originally we resettled mostly Christian Burmese, but Burmese Muslim (Rohingya) numbers are ticking up (269 since Oct. 1).
One final note: The UN/US State Department Refugee Admissions Program is only one program of many LEGAL immigration programs admitting large numbers of Muslims and others from the third world. I previously wrote about the Diversity Visa Lottery which admits another 50,000 migrants to America via a lottery system each year because we need more diversity (!). I hardly see it mentioned, so I need to start writing about it again because we have the best chance ever now to review and possibly throw out programs which are detrimental to American workers and our communities.
The Republicans previously have tried to stop the Diversity Visa lottery (some call it the Green Card lottery) and I don’t know why they have shut up about it.

Opposition to refugee resettlement growing in West Virginia

10/26/2016 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

We have reported on many occasions that West Virginia has pretty much dodged a bullet when it comes to the federal government resettling third worlders in the state, but all of that is changing as new efforts are underway to supply more industries there with cheap labor—in a state that has been struggling for years! [***Update*** or is it pressure from the Catholic Church, see here—ed]
The controversy began last spring when Episcopal Migration Ministries (one of 9 federal refugee contractors) went public with its plan to bring Middle Eastern refugees—Syrians in particular—to Charleston which had only gotten a few Iraqis and Iranians in the last ten years.

alex-mooney-2 — Rep. Alex Mooney represents Charleston, WV. He is also a member of the House Freedom Caucus. West Virginians who have concerns about refugees being placed secretly in the state, must get a commitment from him BEFORE the election to join any effort in the lame duck session to DEFUND the RAP. See here: https://refugeeresettlementwatch.org/2016/10/26/reminder-these-are-the-house-members-who-should-be-automatically-on-the-side-of-defunding-the-refugee-admissions-program/

BTW, 176 refugees in total were placed (mostly by Catholic Charities) in West Virginia in the last decade. Charleston got 13 Iraqis and 9 Iranians before last year’s five Syrians.
We reported on the plan by EMM here. Then again here and here in September. And, more recently published the testimony of citizen activist Brenda Arthur to Senator Jeff Sessions Subcommittee on Immigration and the National Interest, here.

Arthur has now launched a facebook page—ACT Charleston-Secure West Virginia. Click here to join and keep up with the news.

Earlier in the summer when Arthur was just learning about the RAP (Refugee Admissions Program), after reading about it in an article in the Charleston Daily Mail, she penned a letter to the editor. Arthur reports the following:

This (below) is the letter I tried to get Kelly Merritt – Charleston Daily Mail Opinion Page Editor – to publish in late July 2016. He wanted me to “soften” it, as he said it was too “inflammatory”. I would not — therefore, he would not publish it.

This is the “inflammatory” letter, what do you think?

REFUGEE RESETTLEMENT FOR CHARLESTON?
Brenda Arthur

On May 26, 2016, the Charleston Gazette-Mail published an article by staff writer Erin Beck. She painted a glowing face on the issue of Charleston being targeted by Episcopal Migration Ministries as a “resettlement community.” I’m compelled to fill in gaps in her narrative with what Paul Harvey called ‘the rest of the story’.

The refugees being brought to the United States are 98% Muslim. Only a small number are Christians. In reality, the Christians are treated much worse in the refugee camps. Many Christians are afraid to go to the refugee camps because of mistreatment by the overwhelming numbers of Muslims.

Although people being brought here as refugees come from all over the world — many of those coming now are picked by the United Nations High Commissioner For Refugees from the refugee camps in Syria, Turkey, and Jordan. The UN is a corrupt organization that hates America and Israel. How can we trust any refugees they pick for us?

Beck’s article never mentioned that ISIS has sworn to infiltrate the ‘refugees’:

“ISIS has said in their own words that they want to exploit it to infiltrate the West. Again, it is not a threat I am making up, it’s a threat their own officials have warned us about.” (11/18/15)–House Homeland Security Chairman Michael McCaul.

Beck neglected to report that these refugees can’t be vetted, an alarming fact that ISIS knows even if Erin Beck doesn’t.

James B. Comey, Director, Federal Bureau of Investigation, U.S. Department of Justice: “There is risk associated with bringing anybody in from the outside, but especially from a conflict zone like [Syria]… My concern there [about bringing Syrian refugees into the United States] is that there are certain gaps I don’t want to talk about publicly in the data available to us.” (10/8/15)

Supporters of this resettlement scheme will tell you that the refugees are vetted by our State Department and Homeland Security. REALLY? Is this the same State Department that “vetted” the wife of the San Bernardino terrorist, and gave refugee status to the Tsarnaev brothers a.k.a. the Boston bombers? Perhaps Erin Beck has a copy of the State Department memo warning Charleston – and other host cities across America – that some refugees are afflicted with drug resistant strains of TB.

Are we to believe highly informed intelligence experts — or groups like the Episcopal Migration Ministries (one of 9 major Federal Contractors paid mostly with our tax dollars) who are paid “by the head” to bring these people to the United States. Thanks to a reserved place at the public trough, these Federal Contractors get hundreds of millions of dollars in government grants.

Ask yourself these questions:

Why do groups like Episcopal Migration Ministries (a 501(c) 3 charity) *(and the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops operating in West Virginia as Catholic Charities of West Virginia) get hundreds of millions of our tax dollars to do their work ?

Why do they operate “below the radar” away from public scrutiny?

Why aren’t they presenting our elected representatives with the R & P Abstract (Reception & Placement) which details the plan for the town they are invading?

Before you vilify me as a bigot, xenophobe, racist, or hater, answer these questions:

Why is it incumbent on us to absorb so many impoverished third world peoples who reject our language, our culture, or our values?

Why spend millions on them when thousands of my fellow West Virginians are facing hard times due to the Federal assault on our coal industry?

Why is money given to foreign nationals when our veterans cannot get quality medical care?

Why not resettle them in other Muslim countries like Saudi Arabia where there is plenty of space and oil money to boot?

Why should our country which is almost 20 Trillion dollars in debt give refugees Supplemental Security Income (SSI), Food Stamps, Medicaid, Social Security Disability Insurance, Public Housing, Child Care & Development, Job Opportunities for Low Income Individuals (JOLI), Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP), and other government benefits?

We have our own problems. Could any group that wants to bring impoverished third world peoples here that add a further financial burden to our citizens and have the potential of risking our security have the interest of our community and state in mind?

*Added: 10-23-16

More questions from me:
Where is the West Virginia Congressional Delegation? Where is Senator Shelley Moore Capito? Where is Rep. Alex Mooney? Are they shilling for industries in West Virginia clamoring for cheap immigrant labor in a state that has seen unemployment go up as the coal industry is being killed by Obama? Their silence is telling!
Endnote: While doing my research on Iraqis here yesterday, I noticed that the tiny town of Washington, WV on the Ohio border is getting Iraqis, only a small number so far, but I wonder why? Spillover from Ohio?