Refugee resettlement is driven by a desire for cheap compliant labor, not humanitarianism

“….these are really good workers. They show up on time. They say ‘yes’ when they are told what to do. They do what is necessary for their survival.”

(Lavinia Limon, CEO USCRI)

 

Ten years ago, when I first started writing this blog, NO ONE ever said a word publicly about refugee admissions being desirable for big business, especially for BIG MEAT, so it is gratifying to see stories like this one at the LA Times (even if it’s spun to sound like a good thing for the struggling refugees) that tells us the truth.

(See Bloomberg earlier, here. And, the NYT here.)

It is past time for the truth!

If we need laborers willing to work cheap, just say so!

I want to say to the refugee resettlement contractors—cut the c***! Stop propagandizing that refugees, like these Muslims in the story, are here out of the goodness of your hearts (and America’s heart!).

This is about money and the reason that there is no real effort by the Republican establishment to reform the US Refugee Admissions Program is because BIG MEAT (BIG CHICKEN AND TURKEY TOO!) is lobbying and surely contributing to the campaign coffers of RINOs (and Democrats!).

It is also about reliable Democrat (Union!) voters.

An aside: I wish him only the best, but surely you noticed that one of those injured on the baseball field that day with Rep. Steve Scalise was a lobbyist for Tyson Foods (huge consumer of refugee labor).  Do average Americans who are concerned about disruption to their hometowns and their security, and taxpayers concerned about the US Treasury have that kind of access to members of Congress—NO!

Here is the LA Times (hat tip: Richard @highblueridge):

Al Souki [Syrian refugee star of the story makes $10.50 and hour—ed] needs the work—and employers in the meatpacking industry say they need workers like him. Refugees have increasingly become vital workers in an industry with high turnover. And the growing unrest and bloodshed in the Middle East and elsewhere have readily supplied them in places like the Central Valley. [So for those of you wondering if we are purposefully creating refugees through our aggressive foreign policy, maybe so!—ed]

Tom Super, a VP at the National Chicken Council: refugees a big part of our workforce for decades.

The refugee and immigrant populations ”certainly have been a significant part, an integral part of our workforce for decades,” said Tom Super, a spokesman for the National Chicken Council.

It’s difficult to know exactly how many refugees work in this occupation but roughly one-third of workers in the industry in 2010 were foreign-born, according to a peer-reviewed article in Choices, a publication of the Agricultural and Applied Economics Assn., a nonprofit that serves those who work in agricultural and broadly related fields of applied economics.

Mark Lauritsen, director of the food-processing division at the United Food & Commercial Workers International Union, estimates that nationwide tens of thousands of refugees are part of the roughly 250,000 unionized meat and poultry plant workers.

Holy cow! Here we have the International Rescue Committee (one of nine federally funded NGOs***) admitting they are finding laborers for a chicken plant.

In 2010, Foster Farms in Turlock began hiring refugees placed by the International Rescue Committee, a refugee resettlement agency, said Christine Lemonda, deputy director of the IRC’s Northern California offices. Since then, the agency has placed more than 150 refugees at the poultry plant. In the last six months, 15 have been hired—an uptick—at Foster Farms, Lemonda said.

[….]

Immigrants have long been integral to the meatpacking industry, but refugees surfaced as a key labor force starting in 2006, according to experts who study the phenomenon.

Queen of Refugee labor procurement, Lavinia Limon of USCRI (98% taxpayer funded!), isn’t exactly telling the full story. Bush might have sped things up, but it was Bill Clinton (she was Bill’s director of ORR) who latched on to the concept of refugees for meat companies when he admitted tens of thousands of Bosnians for his buddies in the meat industry in Iowa. See here: https://refugeeresettlementwatch.org/2008/05/17/bosnians-iowa-meatpackers-and-more/

That year the George W. Bush administration directed immigration enforcement agents to raid meat processing plants in six states. Operation Wagon Train—the largest single work-enforcement action in U.S. history—led to the arrest of an estimated 1,300 people working in the country illegally.

Though it did not stop the industry from completely cutting off the hiring of unauthorized workers, the raids had a chilling effect.

The growing unrest and bloodshed in the Middle East and elsewhere provided a refugee population from which to fill the labor vacuum, said Lavinia Limon, chief executive officer and president of the U.S. Committee for Refugees and Immigrants, a resettlement organization.

“What the meatpacking industry knows is that these are really good workers. They show up on time. They say ‘yes’ when they are told what to do. They do what is necessary for their survival,” Limon said.”It works really well for employers.”

[….]

The meatpacking industry has become so reliant on refugees that the North American Meat Institute, an industry lobby group, released a statement stating their concerns after President Trump issued an executive action restricting citizens of seven predominantly Muslim countries and all refugees from entry into the United States. [If Trump, the businessman, squishes-out on the refugee issue, you know that globalists wanting the free flow of cheap labor got to him!—ed]

And, here (below) we have an answer to a question I have had for a long time—Do resettlement contractors have formal relationships with BIG MEAT and BIG CHICKEN?  Will the IRC make money supplying the slave refugee laborers? (BTW, we know  the meat industry paid great wages decades ago before they found the cheap immigrant labor!)

There is no formal arrangement between IRC and Foster Farms, but that may change soon.

The resettlement agency and Foster Farms are looking at possibly extending their relationship and formalizing a partnership in the next few months, Foster Farms spokesman Ira Brill said. He declined to talk more about the issue.

Continue here, there is much more!

Again, if we want to debate low-skilled labor needs, let’s do it, and cut the ‘humanitarian’ sob stories.

I have a huge archive on ‘meatpackers’ changing America, click here, and last summer I traveled over 6,000 miles around America to see some of those changed towns.

 

***The Federal contractors/middlemen/employment agencies/propagandists/lobbyists/community organizers? paid by you to place refugees in your towns and cities are below.  Under the nine major contractors are hundreds of subcontractors.

The contractors income is largely dependent on taxpayer dollars based on the number of refugees admitted to the US, but they also receive myriad grants to service their “New Americans.”

If you are a good-hearted soul and think refugee resettlement is all about humanitarianism, think again!

These federal contractors act as employment agencies for big companies in need of low-skilled workers and that is why the Republican establishment is loathe to abolish or reform the UN/US Refugee Admissions Program.

The only way for real reform of how the US admits refugees is to remove these contractors/globalist head hunters from the process.

Tesla in the news: is Elon Musk looking for refugee laborers?

Globalists love refugees!

Every time I see news about Tesla’s new cars, I am reminded of the R & P Abstract for FY16 for Reno, Nevada where refugee contractor, USCRI, cited Elon Musk’s nearby soon-to-be-built battery factory as a source of employment for refugees to be placed in their new resettlement site—Reno.

Wearing his white hat of humanitarianism, or fearing loss of workers? Musk not happy with Trump EO on refugees: https://www.theverge.com/2017/1/28/14427360/elon-musk-trump-immigration-executive-order

I told you about that abstract here.  This is the segment where the refugee resettlement contractor (one of nine***) assures the US State Department that there are work opportunities for refugees including at the new “Gigafactory” Musk was building on the desert nearby.

Employment Services:

The Reno-Sparks economy is well known for its hospitality and leisure sector, with seven large casino-hotels employing 9,500-13,000 people. It is also home to the University of Nevada, the single largest employer in the county (after the school district), employing over 4,500 Full Time Equivalents (FTEs). The Truckee Meadows Community College also employs 1,250 educators and staff. Two major hospitals (Renown and St Mary’s) and other large healthcare providers in the areas employ over 3,500 healthcare professionals, technicians, and staff. The location – four hours by highway to San Francisco, and seven hours to Salt Lake City – is also logistics hub, hosting many warehousing and fulfillment establishments including UPS (1,000 employees), and Amazon.com (650 employees). Tesla is slated to open its “Gigafactory” outside of Sparks in 2017. By 2020, the Gigafactory will be at full capacity, employing 6,500 FTEs and producing more lithium ion batteries annually (for electric cars, for example) than were produced worldwide in 2013.

Here is a very cool website showing the construction of the monster Gigafactory showing its speedy construction from June 2016 to July 2017.  It reminds us of the speed with which the Chobani Yogurt plant was built in Idaho that is now a consumer of refugee labor. (Investigative reporter alert!  There is a story in Nevada beyond the refugee aspect!)

Frankly, hiring refugees is a great business model. First, salaries can be kept low because refugee families are subsidized by US taxpayers (housing, food stamps, medicaid) and refugees can hardly complain because they are captive workers who can’t easily go home or easily move elsewhere (Somalis are the exception).

 

http://insideevs.com/teslas-gigafactory-progress-1500-batteries/

 

Then here is a news account from the Record-Courier about refugees arriving in the Reno area citing FedEx, Costco and Tesla among the companies ‘helping’ refugees.

For new readers…..

***The Federal contractors/middlemen/employment agencies/propagandists/lobbyists/community organizers? paid by you to place refugees in your towns and cities are below.  Under the nine major contractors are hundreds of subcontractors.

The contractors income is largely dependent on taxpayer dollars based on the number of refugees admitted to the US, but they also receive myriad grants to service their “New Americans.”

If you are a good-hearted soul and think refugee resettlement is all about humanitarianism, think again!

These federal contractors act as employment agencies for big companies in need of low-skilled workers and that is why the Republican establishment is loathe to abolish or reform the UN/US Refugee Admissions Program.

The only way for real reform of how the US admits refugees is to remove these contractors/globalist head hunters from the process.

 

 

BIG MEAT wants the cheap refugee labor, no wonder Congress won't reform law

But, it isn’t just the Meatpacking industry, it is the Chamber of Commerce, the hospitality industry, other food processing and manufacturing that has become dependent on the refugee labor force that you and I pay to bring to America (and support with our social service dollars!)  See my previous post where CIS refutes a very big lie.

Tyson Foods at Storm Lake, Iowa changing the demographic makeup of heartland towns, paying low wages to refugees and lobbying Congress for more!

In a few days I’ll tell you why I am re-posting this information about greedy companies like Tyson Foods lobbying Congress side by side with the refugee contractors/’religious’ charities who claim they are working for the good of humanity.
Have a look at some of my recent posts on Big Meat (particularly Tyson Foods!):

NYT: How Tyson Foods and its greedy demand for cheap immigrant labor ‘saved’ an Iowa town

Garden City, Kansas to become new poster-city for the joys of BIG MEAT-generated multiculturalism

Bloomberg: Trump’s refugee ceiling of 50,000 could hurt BIG MEAT

Storm Lake, Iowa: Filling America’s “dead spots” with diversity!

Nebraska: Lutherans, Somalis, meatpackers, mosques (and controversy) in small town America

My list is huge and I could go on, but you get my drift. Click here for my complete archive on Tyson Foods.
Big Meat’s desire for cheap labor, in conjunction with the lobbying efforts by the NGO refugee industry, produce a powerful juggernaut working against taxpaying citizens (we have no lobbyists) just looking for reform of the system that would include some say as to what is happening to our home towns and how much it’s costing us—financially, culturally and security-wise!
If you really want to do something (rather than sending angry comments to blogs and facebook pages), call your member of Congress this week and next—tell them to defund the US Refugee Admissions Program, then get to work reforming it.

After initial disappointment, Ohio resettlement agency getting excited for higher refugee influx

The Trump Administration is on target to blow past its own 50,000 admission determination number in 2 weeks!

As we reported here, just as the Memorial Day weekend was getting underway, the US State Department announced to its contractors that it was  going to open the refugee spigot wide again for the remaining months of fiscal year 2017 (the year ends on September 30th).

A picture speaks a thousand words! Lavinia Limon is the CEO of federal resettlement contractor USCRI and on her left is the CEO of Chobani Yogurt which has been a leading ‘consumer’ of refugee labor in America. “Give me your tired, your poor…” willing to work for lower wages…”yearning to breathe free.”

That means some of the federal refugee contractors, like this one in Ohio, may need to hire back some employees they had earlier let go, but there is still a question about how quickly Trump’s State Department and Dept. of Homeland Security can get the processing ramped-up abroad.
I had been waiting for the Trump White House to correct the mistake about opening the spigot, but their silence now signals that the White House is in agreement with the ramp-up!
From WKSU.  The International Institute of Akron is a subcontractor of one of nine major contractors (USCRI***in this case):

President Obama authorized 120,000 [No! It was 110,000!—ed] refugees for the fiscal year that ends Sept. 30.

President Trump cut that in February to 50,000. But the State Department sent a memo in late May telling refugee groups they would no longer be restrained by weekly quotas.

Liz Walters of the International Institute of Akron says resettlement numbers have always ebbed and flowed, with the agency resettling as few as 25 and as many as 130 a month. She says how many will be coming now depends on what happens overseas.

“The big question mark is how many folks have been in process overseas and how quickly they can start to schedule those folks for travel or at what point they finish up their security clearances and can get them here before the end of the fiscal year.”

[….]

Walters notes that Trump’s budget proposal for the next fiscal year [begins Oct. 1, 2017—ed] includes funding to resettle 50,000 refugees, the minimum under the law.

As far as I can tell, there is no legal minimum!
I’m not lawyer, and perhaps there has been some case law or regulations that I don’t know about, but as I read the Refugee Act of 1980, there is no requirement for any specific number after 1982.  Here (below) is the Act on admissions.  There is a lot of discussion about procedures if the President needs to ‘up’ the numbers, but I don’t see any prohibition about going below 50,000!
 

 
Be sure to read the law yourself and see that “consultation” is with the House and Senate Judiciary Committees and as far as I can see only requires the President to supply them with information.
I repeat!
Do you see how clever the refugee industry propaganda machine is—we are only talking about admission levels, not reform of the whole program.
The only way to force Congress to scrap/reform the Refugee Act of 1980 is for Donald Trump to set the admissions number at zero for FY18 and tell Congress, no more until they get to work. Heck, make them work through the month of August!
He also has the power to stop the flow right now without any Executive Order.

Today the Trump admission level is at 47,434 (Wrapsnet) and, at the admissions rate announced on the eve of Memorial Day, he will thus blow past the 50,000 mark (set by him) in 2 weeks!

***By the way, USCRI is approximately 97% funded by you—taxpayers! See here.

NYT: How Tyson Foods and its greedy demand for cheap immigrant labor 'saved' an Iowa town

That is pretty much the gist of the New York Times story here about Storm Lake, Iowa.
The opening paragraphs give the message that I, and others before me, have been giving for years.  When big global corporations like Tyson Foods discovered cheap (first illegal) immigrant labor and now legal refugees, the cultural make-up of American heartland towns was changed forever.

We told you here last November that the Obama State Department was making Storm Lake a direct resettlement site. https://refugeeresettlementwatch.org/2016/11/22/storm-lake-iowa-filling-americas-dead-spots-with-diversity/

The NYT spins it as a feel-good story as this town that features a PORK (no Muslim laborers) plant would have died.
My question is, why would it have died? If Tyson had kept up the wages over the years, there would be more generations of rural Americans who would consider this work (if they weren’t brainwashed in liberal colleges that is)?
It is especially maddening because immigrant wages stay low and you (taxpayers) help support the families with your welfare dollars. Wow! What a business model!
I’m posting this story for a reason other than the fact that it confirms what I have been yammering about for years—-refugee resettlement is about labor, not first and foremost ‘humanitarianism’ by our government and its resettlement contractors***.  But, I am posting it to give readers an example of what you can do!
Here are the opening paragraphs about how Tyson Foods is ‘saving’ a town:

STORM LAKE, Iowa — When Dan Smith first went to work at the pork processing plant in Storm Lake in 1980, pretty much the only way to nab that kind of union job was to have a father, an uncle or a brother already there. The pay, he recalled, was $16 an hour, with benefits — enough to own a home, a couple of cars, a camper and a boat, while your wife stayed home with the children.

“It was the best-paying job you could get, 100 percent, if you were unskilled,” said Mr. Smith, now 66, who followed his father through the plant gates.

After nearly four decades at the plant, most of them as a forklift driver, Mr. Smith is retiring this month.

The union is long gone, and so are most of the white faces of men who once labored in the broiling heat of the killing floor and the icy chill of the production lines. What hasn’t changed much is Mr. Smith’s hourly wage, which is still about $16 an hour, the same as when he started 37 years ago. Had his wages kept up with inflation, he would be earning about $47 an hour.

Continue reading here to see what meatpackers have done to Storm Lake.
One more thing, you will see if you read it all is that the NYT is out to get Rep. Steve King (no surprise!).

So what can you do?

Readers ask me all the time, what can they do to help get the message out.  I’ll try to write a comprehensive (as comprehensive as I can) post in the coming days about what you can do, but here is what one reader did because every little bit helps! (I’ll make a new category and call it ‘What you can do’ for ideas like this!)

She actually took the time to comment to the NYT. 
The comments are closed now, but please have a look and see what readers of the NYT said, here.  The NYT probably did not appreciate the tone of many of them! (When you open that previous link, the comments should pop-up in the right hand side bar, they do on mine.)
Here is our reader:

D Flinchum
Blacksburg, VA

It should be clear from this article that the influx of cheap foreign labor is for the benefit of the company owners. Pay low wages w/no benefits, but because low wages don’t often pay for a 1st-world life, shift the cost to the community at large by gov social services and higher costs for housing, lower quality schools, and ER health care.

The refugee program has become a recruiting system for Big Meat. It is made out to be some great humanitarian system and anybody who opposes it is called a heartless bigot. This is nothing more than gas-lighting – trying to make people who see the truth believe something that they can see isn’t so by calling them names. It’s just like a philandering husband trying to gas-light his wife into thinking that she is crazy for suggesting he is out partying with Marcia in Marketing instead of working late when he comes home half drunk with lipstick on his shirt.

It is also important to note that most of these new workers and their children qualify for affirmative action. It is likely that these new workers’ children who do go on to college will be able to take advantage of programs not available to the white working class kids who might also be interested in advancing into the professions.

As one man in the article said, it’s hard to have ill feelings for someone just trying for a better life, but the company owners already have a good life and it is they who should be held accountable.

Thus we have Trump in the WH.

See our tag ‘Meatpackers’ for many more stories about BIG MEAT changing America. Don’t miss this one about meatpackers worried about the Trump ‘proposed’ slowdown.
*** US federally-funded refugee resettlement contractors are paid by the head (by you!) to bring migrant laborers to your American towns and cities: