Rep. Brian Babin to Congress: Don't fund Obama refugee slush fund!

12/06/2016 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

As I have been saying, Congress is going to be deciding on the so-called Continuing Budget Resolution this week because they are all eager to get out of Dodge (DC).

mccarthy-and-ryan-2 — Big test!!! Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy and Speaker Paul Ryan will soon show their colors on Refugee Admissions Program if they cave and give the Obama ORR BILLIONS more of your dollars to spend before the end of March. We will be watching!

The Obama Administration is asking for a huge special funding addition because they claim the Office of Refugee Resettlement is going to run out of cash in February (the CR would, if as predicted, extend 2016 funding levels through March). ORR has (surprise!) a huge number of Unaccompanied Alien Children to take care of as the border is being assaulted by all those wanting in before Trump takes office.
I told you all about it here last week.
Now, Rep. Brian Babin of Texas pleads in an opinion piece at the Daily Caller for the REPUBLICAN led Congress to not fall for it because once appropriated it will literally be a slush fund available to ORR which they could distribute to the refugee contractors through all sorts of means even if Trump cuts off the flow of refugees on January 21st (which he can do!).
I’ll let you read Babin’s op-ed yourself because I have one more important warning for you and I have to get out of here shortly.

Warning!

Even if the House of Representatives does not capitulate to the Administration’s plea for BILLIONS more of your tax dollars, the Senate Appropriations Committee might very well be happy to accommodate Obama and add in the money. [For Marylanders remember Babs Mikulski is on this committee!!! Swan song? Money for more Muslims for Maryland?—ed]
If the Senate adds the money, when the House and Senate conference committee meets to iron-out differences between their respective versions of the funding bill, the House leadership (Paul Ryan!) could waffle and not fight for the House version on this important point.
We know their tricks and it goes like this: ‘Gosh we tried, but the Senate put the money in and there was nothing we could do about it! We sure don’t want to shut down the government over this.’ (Of course it would be Obama shutting down the government for not signing the CR!)
You need to put pressure on your House members to not add in the money and then to stick to their guns in conference committee—tall order I know!

And, tell the Trump transition team what could go down here! This is a test for Speaker Ryan and whether he will work with Trump on Trump’s promises about the refugee program.

All of our posts, on the all important funding issue, are tagged ‘Where is Congress.’

Minnesota, no surprise highest Somali resettlement state in nation

12/05/2016 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

For those of you in cities and states contemplating whether to ‘welcome’ refugees, remember this: Once you have set up a program, there is no stopping it. The federal government looks to see if your community has a particular ethnic group growing and you then will get more of them. (Obviously, even if you have had a terror attack as St. Cloud did!)

st-cloud-mall-attack — Minnesota CAIR director worried that the September Islamic terror attack could cause blowback against Somalis in St. Cloud. Not to be deterred, the Obama State Department and Lutheran Social Services are still pouring Somalis in to St. Cloud. Photo: http://www.mprnews.org/story/2016/09/23/st-cloud-mall-stabbing-update

LOL! The feds want the refugees to be with their own folks, their own kind of people (never mind that that seems a bit racist to me!).
Since I was having fun with numbers, see my previous post about how Somalis are being resettled at the fastest rate in US history, I thought I would have a look at where the 334 Somalis were resettled in Minnesota in the last 2 months. So, here we go (Wrapsnet.org). Top two in red.

Burnsville (3)

Chaska (1)

Fairbault (1) typo?

Faribault (29)

Inver Grove Heights (6)

Mankato (4)

Marshall (11)

Minneapolis (164)

North Mankato (2)

Owatonna (2)

Rochester (15)

St. Cloud (57)

St. Joseph (1)

St. Paul (26)

Waite Park (1)

Willmar (11)

Many Somalis find work in meatpacking plants (which are luring them to the state!). When I made my summer swing to visit many meatpacking/manufacturing towns overrun with refugees, I stopped at a rest stop near Rochester, MN and I was shocked to see Muslim women praying on the lawn of the rest stop in the middle of lovely farm country stretching from Wisconsin to Minnesota. I said to myself, I guess I am in Minnesota and my East Coast neighbors would not believe this!
One more thing, this story floating around over the last few days says Minnesota will get 2,500 total refugees this year (we assume they are using the standard fiscal year as we do). At the rate of Somalis we are reporting here, that means that just over 2,000 of the 2,500 would be Somali. (If Trump doesn’t step in on January 21 and cut off the flow from Islamic terror-linked countries.)
By the way, most of our Somali refugees come through Kenya so I hope Trump’s people aren’t blindsided by that! Somalis are Somalis wherever in the world we find them.
***Update*** I just remembered this post I wrote in 2015 when I looked back for ten years at all the towns in Minnesota seeded with Somalis, click here.

If Continuing Budget Resolution (as is) extends to late March, ORR will run out of money

12/02/2016 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

“HHS anticipates that it would run out of funding under the CR for these activities in February 2017“

(Leaked document)

That is what the Administration is telling House and Senate Appropriations Committees according to language leaked from an Administration request to Congress.
It is no surprise as we have been reporting this morning here, that the Unaccompanied Alien Children are literally depleting the budget by the day.

donald-trump-grouchy — Calling Donald Trump! Keep your eye on the Republican leadership, they could tie your hands now by appropriating the extra MILLIONS Obama wants for refugees/illegal alien kids in the CR for 2017.

We reported this too many times to repeat: since Congress never finished the budget for FY2017 (that began on October 1, 2016) and extended last year’s budget to December 9th, they need to either complete a whole year budget next week, or they can pass another Continuing Resolution (at the 2016 level) to March which gives the incoming Trump Administration some say over what the government will spend in the second six months of the fiscal year.
They can’t run this program without a lot of money….
And, if they don’t get more of it, if they have a budget shortfall, there is no way the Obama Administration can keep pouring refugees in to the US at the rate it has for the last 2 months. Therefore, they also won’t be able to open all of those new offices they are trying to get open in 47 new locations. (Unless Congress appropriates the money in the Continuing Resolution expected on the floor by December 8th!)

We know for sure that the Obama Dept. of Health and Human Services is begging for bucks from Congress right now in the Continuing Resolution.

Here is some language that has apparently ‘gotten loose’ in Washington. The big question is whether the House and the Senate Appropriations Committees will be inclined to do Obama’s bidding! Why should they?

Language is needed to provide a rate for operations of $3,874 million for the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), Refugee and Entrant Assistance account and to authorize additional transfers of funding from other HHS accounts to the Refugee and Entrant Assistance account, in the event caseloads are higher than anticipated. To support the Administration’s refugee admissions target as well as high projected flows of other humanitarian entrants, an annualized rate of $1,051 million is needed to cover cash and medical expenses and social services for these populations. In addition, HHS is experiencing the highest number of unaccompanied children in care and the largest footprint of funded capacity in the program’s history, and flows of unaccompanied children have continued to grow over the last months; an annualized rate of $2,823 million is needed for HHS to meet its legal obligations to shelter and care for unaccompanied children referred to HHS. Given current shelter needs and flows of unaccompanied children, without this anomaly, HHS anticipates that it would run out of funding under the CR for these activities in February 2017. At a minimum, HHS anticipates needing an additional $500 million above the current CR rate during the period of the CR through March 31, 2017, $430 million for the unaccompanied children program and $70 million for refugee and humanitarian entrant programs, as well as additional transfer authority to protect against higher than expected costs.

Consider this:
First, this administration is making sure (at this very minute) that “caseloads are higher than anticipated.”
Second, the Obama Administration has encouraged the great flow of “unaccompanied children” and now they whine they don’t have the money to care for them.
And, third, Congress holds the purse strings. Will they starve the beast now, or feed it through March. What will Rep. Tom Price (as Trump’s pick for HHS) signal to his House colleagues in the coming days.
Does Trump understand that he might not be able to turn the spigot off completely on January 21, if Congress has appropriated the money? I bet Speaker Paul Ryan and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell know! Will they roll him on this?

You need to let your members of Congress and your Senators know they must disapprove this request!

So far, we don’t know of any move to completely defund the program on the CR, but will keep you posted if we hear.
Endnote: All of our posts on this topic are tagged ‘Where is Congress.’

Unaccompanied Alien Children eating up Health and Human Service's agency budgets

12/02/2016 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

You’ve probably all seen this news about the Dept. of Health and Services scrambling to re-direct money from other areas of the agency budget to take care of the largest number of ‘children’ (ever!) entering the US illegally.

train-map — Seems like the Trump Admin. might be able to figure out exactly where the wall needs to be!

I’m posting this so that as we move ahead in the coming days with news on the budget for FY17 and the Continuing Resolution, you have some background understanding of the dilemma the refugee program is in during the waning days of the Obama Administration. The ‘kids’ (who are NOT refugees) are gobbling up limited funds putting their needs in direct competition with the refugees entering the US from all over the world. (In addition to depriving US citizens of other needed programs.)
For new readers, the Office of Refugee Resettlement is an agency at HHS which has been given the duty of taking care of the illegal alien kids.
Here is Jessica Vaughan at the Center for Immigration Studies:

An average of 255 illegal alien youths were taken into the custody of the Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) every day this month, according to the latest figures the agency provided to Congress. This is the largest number of illegal alien children ever in the care of the federal government. To pay for it, the agency says it will need an additional one or two billion dollars for the next year – above and beyond the $1.2 billion spent in 2016 and proposed for 2017 – depending on how many more arrive. For now, the Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), where ORR resides, is diverting $167 million from other programs to cover the cost of services for these new illegal arrivals through December 9, when the current continuing resolution expires.

An email to congressional staff from Barbara Clark of the HHS legislative liaison office, dated November 28, 2016, stated:

Daily referrals of unaccompanied children averaged 247 over the last seven days, and 255 so far in November. For comparison, referrals averaged 185 per day in November of FY 2016 and 64 per day in November of FY 2015. As of November 27, 2016, the number of children in ORR care is approximately 11,200.

A separate email informed congressional offices of HHS Secretary Burwell’s intent to transfer money from other programs to ORR to pay for shelters, health care, schooling, recreation, and other services for the new illegal arrivals, who typically were brought to the border by smugglers paid by their parents, who often are living in the United States illegally.

Continue reading here and see which programs are being robbed to pay for the ‘kids.’
About the map: I was searching for a graph to show how many ‘kids’ (mostly Central American teenage boys, see here) had come in to the US in the most recent years, but every graph I found only went to 2014. So what is up with that! I figured the map would be a nice addition to the post instead.
By the way, this post is tagged ‘Unaccompanied minors’ because many years ago they were called that and that is how I first tagged the topic.

Cut the crap! Australia 'refugee' deal is about the Australian public not wanting any more Muslim migrants

11/27/2016 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

….while Obama is willing to take all he can get!
Look at this New York Times story on the supposed deal the Obama Administration has made with Australia to take its rejected asylum seekers off their hands! And, look at the UN twisting like a pretzel as it tries to explain why this insane deal is even being considered.
What it all boils down to is this: the Australian public (the voters) are sick and tired of all the Muslim boat people trying to break into Australia (so they have been parked offshore), but Australian political leaders, by agreeing to take Central American (phony refugees) in Costa Rica, are banking on being able to sell the public on most likely Catholics (or Christians of some sort) rather than the Muslims whose asylum cases were rejected!
This is basically a swap of illegal aliens! Don’t believe the UN that this is a “one-off!” Check out Malta, the European island nation that sends the US its overflow African illegal alien boat people, a travesty we have been writing about for years.

The Muslim boat people held in detention in Australian offshore facilities have had their asylum claims rejected. So neither those on Nauru or those in Costa Rica are legitimate (by definition) refugees!

For background, before you read on, see Grassley and Goodlatte blast Obama, here. There is a list of the nationalities of the failed asylum seekers, most come from Muslim countries.

New York Times (hat tip: heymister24):

SYDNEY, Australia — For years, the United Nations’ refugee agency told Australia that its policy of banishing asylum seekers to remote Pacific island detention centers was illegal.

samantha-power — This is Obama’s Ambassador to the UN, Samantha Power. This “deal” sounds like something she wholeheartedly approved. What will Nikki Haley do about it (or other similar deals, this is not a one-off) when she gets to the UN? Will she say No! We don’t know, but one thing we can be sure of, Haley will likely dress more professionally than Power!

Now, the agency is working with Australia in what both sides call an unusual, not-to-be-replicated agreement to send some of those refugees across the world, to be resettled in the United States.

The deal, announced by Australia last week, is aimed at shutting down two offshore detention facilities — one on the island nation of Nauru and the other on Manus Island in Papua New Guinea — where hundreds of people are housed in what rights groups describe as deplorable conditions. The United States has agreed to take some of them; how many, and how quickly, remains unclear.

[….]

In an interview this week, Volker Turk, an assistant high commissioner with the United Nations’ refugee agency, said his staff would help with the screening and resettlement of refugees but only as a “one-off” to allay their suffering. “We think there is an urgent imperative to find a humanitarian way out of this otherwise very, very, complex conundrum,” he said by telephone from Canberra, the Australian capital.

What the heck is the “complex conundrum?”

Either they are legitimate refugees that Australia should admit to the mainland or they are illegal aliens who should be returned to where they came from.
THEY ARE NOT AMERICA’S PROBLEM EITHER WAY!
NYT continues:

“We do not in any way want to give the impression that we would continue supporting such types of mechanisms,” Mr. Turk said, referring to Australia’s offshore detention policy. “We, all of us, are very clear that this is a one-off, good offices, exceptional humanitarian type of involvement because we do not believe that the future of handling this lies in sending people to Manus Island and Nauru.”

[….]

Making the deal even more unusual, Australia has agreed to take in an unspecified number of Central American refugees who fled gang violence in their homelands. [Fleeing gang violence is not a criteria for being designated a refugee!—ed] The United Nations says there are an estimated 2,400 such people from El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras who have been screened and recognized as refugees [Who “recognized” them?—ed]. The United States has long been reluctant to let them apply for asylum on its territory and only recently agreed to let the United Nations vet them at a processing center in Costa Rica.

I REPEAT, WHY ARE THE CENTRAL AMERICANS WHO FLED TO COSTA RICA OUR PROBLEM?
Legitimate asylum seekers are supposed to ask for asylum in the first safe country they get to, they are not supposed to be ‘asylum shopping’ for better deals! By doing this ‘one-time’ (ha! ha!) deal we set the precedent for many more to come!

Continue reading here.
If you want to learn more about Samantha Power, we have a lot, click here.