“I haven’t felt the commitment and the attention I was expecting.” [From the Biden Administration]
Angie Plummer, Ohio resettlement contractor
Hope all of you had a good Thanksgiving with your friends and family. No promises, but I will try to post from time to time so I won’t have too big a gap in my now nearly 15 year running catalog of ills surrounding the US Refugee Admissions Program.
Reminder: there are over 9,000 posts archived here at RRW and the search function works pretty well. Choose a few key words and see what is here.
You surely know by now that the tens of thousands of Afghan evacuees are being treated like legitimate refugees and have swamped the refugee program causing complaints to surface from other ethnic groups and from contractors*** who do not want the Afghans to completely wipe out the chances of others, like the Somali starring in thisColumbus Dispatchreport, getting their extended family members into the US.
Biden’s pause on refugee resettlement worries agencies, advocates in Greater Columbus
Aden Hassan wants his mother here. He blamed Trump for not moving faster and now he blames Biden.
Biden has paused the regular resettlement program in order to accommodate the Afghans, many of whom have not been vetted and likely will never be legal refugees.
Columbus is a top Somali resettlement target city
Angie Plummer, executive director of local refugee resettlement agency Community Refugee and Immigration Services (CRIS) [CRIS is a subcontractor of Church World Service—ed], which resettled Hassan, said there’s no reason why Afghans and refugees from other countries can’t be helped simultaneously.
“When we were asked do we want to pause (refugee) arrivals, I said no because it’s apples and oranges,” Plummer said. “We don’t think that it’s necessary. It’s not a competition for resources to have these folks come.”
[….]
“I fear there’s only so much bandwidth and that it’s shifted to focusing on Afghans, and we can’t take our eyes off these other crises that are happening,” Plummer said. “We want to serve the Afghans well, but we also feel committed to serving those people whose cases we started and who got the shaft under Trump.”
In light of the pause, refugee resettlement advocates are lamenting the fact that Biden did not prioritize rebuilding the refugee resettlement program as soon as he was inaugurated in January.
Plummer said she is concerned because the program’s capacity is still being rebuilt after Trump’s administration decimated its infrastructure.
“Any stopping and starting creates pains,” Plummer said. “I worry about that. Even if their intentions are to try to exempt out certain groups, we should be trying to ramp it back up and help this machinery work again.”
[….]
“I haven’t felt the commitment and the attention I was expecting,” Plummer said. “I really thought some wrongs would be righted and they haven’t been, and it feels like they’ve been shuffled down the road.”
Meredith Owen, Church World Service
The fact that the administration hasn’t prioritized restoring resettlement capacity sooner makes Meredith Owen, director of policy and advocacy at the national refugee resettlement agency Church World Service (CWS), furious.
“The problem is you never want to undermine or harm one refugee population in the name of another,” Owen said.
But, that is exactly what is happening. Muslim Afghans are apparently Biden’s priority. There is much more, visit theColumbus Dispatch for additional details.
*** For new readers, these are the nine major federal resettlement agencies which have contracts with the US State Department and the Department of Health and Human Services, Office of Refugee Resettlement to place refugees (find housing!) and get them signed up for their welfare benefits, their medical care and get the refugee kids in school.
If you have an agency working near you and it doesn’t have the same name as one of the nine below, check its website carefully and you will most likely find it is a subcontractor of one of the nine (like CRIS is a CWS subcontractor).
Poor mouthing….
Know that when they “got the shaft” under the Trump Administration they were fundraising on their plight something they can’t do now that their guy is in charge of the taxpayer portion of their money stream.
Oh he mentioned immigration—“our war over immigration,” he called it—-but the word “refugee” does not appear in the text of his simplistic speech seemingly geared to a middle school reading level, given to a mostly empty House chamber, before a largely odd-looking bunch of masked (vaccinated!) so-called American leaders.
It must have been a hilarious spectacle for our enemies around the world. I tried to watch it, I really did, but just couldn’t stand it for more than a half an hour.
Formerly Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society
Yesterday, refugee contractor HIAS, in an e-mail to supporters, indicated that they had high hopes that there would be a renewed enthusiasm by Mr. Biden to expand the number of refugees to be admitted and that he would reaffirm that desire to the nation last night.
Nope! He didn’t.
Dear friend,
Tonight at 9 p.m. ET, President Biden will make his first joint address to Congress since taking office.
HIAS will be watching his remarks closely.
You probably followed the news last week, when the Biden administration announced plans to keep the number of refugees resettled in the U.S. at its all-time low level. Advocates like you immediately and fiercely called upon the administration to reverse the decision, and within hours, the administration committed to raising the refugee admissions ceiling by May 15.
The new deadline is less than three weeks away.
The e-mail goes on to urge supporters to keep the pressure on the White House.
Signed: The HIAS Team
Here is the textof Biden’s ‘government-is-here-to-take-care-of-you’ speech in which he mentions immigration. The ‘R-word’ is missing.
As you read this, think about the fact that the Obama/Biden administration had EIGHT YEARS to lead an effort to fix “our war over immigration” and it failed to do so.
Now Biden is tossing this hot potato to Nancy and (LOL! ) to Kamala…
Read it all, but here is the section on immigration.
Let’s end our exhausting war over immigration.
For more than 30 years, politicians have talked about immigration reform and done nothing about it. [Joe forgets that he was there for those 30 years and more!—-ed]
It’s time to fix it.
Biden: I am leaving it to the giddy girls to fix it! Wouldn’t you have loved to be a fly on the wall at Xi Jinping’s house as he watched this performance.
On Day One of my presidency, I kept my commitment and I sent a comprehensive immigration bill to Congress [Hot potato toss to Nancy—ed].
If you believe we need a secure border – pass it.
If you believe in a pathway to citizenship – pass it.
If you actually want to solve the problem – I have sent you a bill, now pass it.
We also have to get at the root of the problem of why people are fleeing to our southern border from Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador.
The violence. The corruption. The gangs. The political instability. Hunger. Hurricanes. Earthquakes.
When I was Vice President, I focused on providing the help needed to address these root causes of migration.
It helped keep people in their own countries instead of being forced to leave. [What the heck is he talking about. They came throughout the Obama/Biden eight years!—ed]
Our plan worked.
But the last administration shut it down.
I’m restoring the program and asked Vice President Harris to lead our diplomatic efforts. [Hot potato toss to Kamala, but didn’t he do that about a month ago?–ed]
I have absolute confidence she will get the job done.
Now, if Congress won’t pass my plan – let’s at least pass what we agree on.
Congress needs to pass legislation this year to finally secure protection for the Dreamers – the young people who have only known America as their home.
Holy cow! This storyat the New York Timesyesterday was revealing and that was because, first and foremost, it says to me that there is discord, and there are leakers willing to leak about that discord, inside the Biden/Harris administration!
The entire issue of refugee resettlement had gone into sleep-mode in recent months, so I’m surprised that the topic is now front and center, not so much because of refugee numbers per se, but because it is giving us a window into an extremely dysfunctional (back stabbing) administration.
Is Biden a racist?
Don’t get me wrong. I am happy with the foot-dragging and flip-flopping, and I am happy to see so many Open borders pushers with their undies in a wad, but it is disquieting to see such an erratic decision-making process.
Not to mention, if Biden’s rationale is that he doesn’t want to piss-off more voters (or members of Congress) on immigration issues before the mid-term elections, that ship has sailed.
Everyone already knows he has unleashed the invasion.
We are being overrun by illegal aliens and the average American isn’t sitting out there saying, well, we can cut him some slack because at least he isn’t bringing in tens of thousands of legal refugees from across the entire globe.
See my post yesterday about how the border and the refugee admissions program have long ago been “conflated” in peoples’ minds.
Here is a bit of what theNew York Timesis saying in what is likely the first, hopefully not the last, reporting on the bloom-off-the-rose for Biden. It is long, and likely only the wonkiest of refugee wonks will read it all.
Forgive me for my fixation on this, but I have never seen anything quite like this mess in all the years I’ve been writing about the US Refugee Program, and I especially love to see the Lefties at each others’ throats!
An Early Promise Broken: Inside Biden’s Reversal on Refugees
What had been an easy promise on the campaign trail — to reverse what Democrats called President Donald J. Trump’s “racist” limits on accepting refugees — has become a test of what is truly important to President Biden.
(If Biden brings in fewer refugees than Trump did in a year, will they call Biden a “racist?” Just wondering!)
WASHINGTON — Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken was in the Oval Office, pleading with President Biden.
Ha! Is it Blinken’s team doing the leaking?
In the meeting, on March 3, Mr. Blinken implored the president to end Trump-era restrictions on immigration and to allow tens of thousands of desperate refugees fleeing war, poverty and natural disasters into the United States, according to several people familiar with the exchange.
But Mr. Biden, already under intense political pressure because of the surge of migrant children at the border with Mexico, was unmoved. The attitude of the president during the meeting, according to one person to whom the conversation was later described, was, essentially: Why are you bothering me with this?
What had been an easy promise on the campaign trail — to reverse what Democrats called President Donald J. Trump’s “racist” limits on accepting refugees — has become a test of what is truly important to the new occupant of the White House, according to an account of his decision making from more than a dozen Biden administration officials, refugee resettlement officials and others.
Mr. Biden was eager for the praise that would come from vastly increasing Mr. Trump’s record-low limit, people familiar with his thinking said, and he decided to increase the cap even earlier than the usual start of the fiscal year, Oct. 1.
If Chief of Staff Ron Klain thinks holding refugee numbers down will bring some bipartisanship in Congress and brownie points for the midterm elections, he has very seriously miscalculated.
But only weeks into Mr. Biden’s presidency, immigration and the border had already become major distractions from his efforts to defeat the coronavirus pandemic and to persuade Congress to invest trillions of dollars into the economy — issues championed by aides like Ron Klain, the White House chief of staff, as more central to his presidency.
[….]
The exchange on March 3 took place shortly after Mr. Biden had dispatched Mr. Blinken and two other cabinet secretaries to formally tell Congress that he would increase refugee admissions during the next six months to 62,500 people from the annual 15,000-person limit set by Mr. Trump.
Instead, the president undercut his emissaries and left hundreds of refugees in limbo for weeks.
For the next month and a half, Mr. Biden’s aides stalled, repeatedly telling reporters and refugee advocacy groups that the president still intended to follow through.
[….]
On Feb. 12, the president delivered on the specific commitment to Congress, pledging to resettle 62,500 refugees fleeing war and persecution at home. Mr. Blinken delivered the message to lawmakers along with Alejandro N. Mayorkas, the homeland security secretary, and Norris Cochran, the acting health secretary at the time.
Hetfield is surely the leader of the pack as he stirs the political pot and I’m guessing the ringleader in guiding the NYT reporters with the help of his sources in the State Department.
“They went there and presented a really thoughtful plan, and we were so thrilled,” said Mark J. Hetfield, the chief executive of Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society, a resettlement agency.
“And then,” Mr. Hetfield said, “it just evaporated overnight.”
[….]
As the weeks stretched into months, it became clear that Mr. Biden’s presidency would not be the panacea some had thought.
The biggest knife-cut of all! Biden wanted to stick with Stephen Miller‘s cap!
Instead of making good on his promise to significantly expand refugee entry into the United States, Mr. Biden was sticking to the cap engineered by Stephen Miller, the architect of Mr. Trump’s immigration policies.
“This reflects Team Biden’s awareness that the border flood will cause record midterm losses,” Mr. Miller tweeted, adding that if it were still up to him, “Refugee cap should be reduced to ZERO.”
The idea that Mr. Miller and Mr. Biden were in agreement about anything was anathema to most of the president’s supporters, many of whom flew into a rage.
[….]
By Friday evening, the White House was in full damage-control mode.
Jon Finer, the deputy national security adviser, held an emergency conference call with refugee advocates at 7:30 p.m., emphasizing that the administration would work to welcome in the refugees with haste.
That is enough to show you what a hash the administration has made of the refugee admissions program and immigration in general!
I’ve wondered for over a decade why Biden’s Delaware never welcomed refugees in any numbers.
Only a handful have ever been placed there and no one seems to know why. It isn’t because it is a small state, because Rhode Island is smaller and has welcomed thousands more than Biden’s home state.
According to the US State Department data base at the Refugee Processing Center, Delaware has only ‘welcomed’ 171 refugees since the beginning of fiscal year 2003. (Data before 2003 is not easy to access.)
Well it is a small state you say!
It is twice the size of Rhode Island which took in 3,122 poor third worlders in the same time period.
There are some deserving refugees in the world, but the Left, by saying anyone on the move for any reason is a legitimate refugee have made the word a joke.
The most recent post in my series on fighting back is here at ‘Frauds and Crooks:’
Here is the news (welcomed by those North Dakotans who have been strenuously objecting to the placement of more impoverished third worlders into their state).
Lutheran Social Services of North Dakota to close its doors; 283 jobs will be affected
FARGO — Lutheran Social Services of North Dakota CEO and President Bob Otterson told employees in a company-wide video meeting Friday, Jan. 15, that the 102-year-old agency will be closing its doors.
In an emotional exchange, Otterson — who has been in the position for only 45 days — told employees that, due to the heavy drain on resources caused by LSSND’s housing department, the agency could no longer survive. Otterson said the ongoing financial strain caused by the COVID-19 pandemic also compounded the agency’s financial difficulties.
Otterson said several LSSND programs will continue, including the Unaccompanied Refugee Minor program and Abound Counseling, but they will no longer be known as part of the agency.
Otterson said that as part of the agency’s controlled liquidation plan, many employees will receive notification that their jobs have ended today, but some staff will continue working for several more weeks to help transition clients to other agencies.
Keep reading, apparently they got out on a financial limb in the housing industry (I’ve never understood the housing industry involvement refugee contractors have gotten into.).
The scope of social services LSS offers is broad, including counseling, aid for youth and families, and affordable housing. However, in recent years, the organization is perhaps most often associated with refugee resettlement.
It’s taken criticism over the number of refugees who have come to North Dakota, in recent years in particular.
To learn more about the huge controversy over refugees in North Dakota see my archive on the state.
See LSSND’s most recent IRS Form 990 byclicking here. Note that in an income stream in that most recent year of $18 million, over $8 million came from government grants (that of course is you, the taxpayers!).
Here is a screenshot of their income page. Be sure to scroll through to see salaries and other expenses.
I never thought of it before, but I wonder if taxpayers in ND can ask for an audit of where all the grant money came from and where it went.
By the way, LSSND was a subcontractor of one of the big nine federal contractors, Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service. The US State Department funnels refugees through one of the big nine which in turn funnels federal dollars and refugees to its so-called affiliates (aka subcontractors).
That map above locates the subcontractors and identifies who their motherships are.
For new readers here are the top nine supposed charities that put refugees before American citizens.
