This should keep enquiring minds busy!
Here is CIS’s press release this morning:
Launching of New Immigration Data Portal
Washington, D.C. (March 12, 2018) – The Center for Immigration Studies announces the creation of a new immigration data portal. The portal consolidates government agencies’ most recent immigration statistics in one location, allowing easy access to detailed information on a multitude of key topics in immigration such as crime, illegal immigration, and labor.
Visit the data portal at: https://cis.org/Immigration-Statistics-Data-Portal
The Center’s goal is to lessen the challenge of finding important immigration statistics so that fact-based research can play a larger role in informing the national debate on immigration policy. Whether the user is searching for specific numbers on refugee arrivals by country of origin, E-verify statistics reports, or the jobsite location and wage data of requested foreign workers, this portal will make finding the data dramatically easier.
Mark Krikorian, the Center’s executive director, said “It is my hope that the immigration debate will benefit from the launching of this data portal. It is imperative that immigration policy be formed by accurate data; this initiative will make it easier for all parties to access crucial immigration statistics.”
So, why am I writing about this? If you are a relatively new reader, you probably don’t know that I followed food stamp fraud stories for many years as a sideline to my refugee research work. (We had a bust in my county just as the refugee arrivals began in earnest.)
I first became interested in it when I noticed that the majority of busts I was reading about, mostly at small grocery stores and convenience stores, were of immigrant owners and managers.
One recent bust in Maine: http://fox23maine.com/news/local/portland-shop-owner-pleads-guilty-to-welfare-fraud
If you click hereyou can see many years worth of stories on food stamp fraud here at RRW. Many are million dollar frauds involving trafficking perpetrated by frankly many Middle Eastern/Asian immigrants some of whom sent the money they ripped off out of the country. Here is a storyabout a recent report from the Dept. of Agriculture on the extent of the fraud. Let’s hope Big Don will take care of these crooks!
Remember readers, trafficking involves big bucks, your money! It is not about people buying junk food on food stamps.
From CNS News:
(CNSNews.com) – The U.S. Department of Agriculture has published a report estimating that 35,891 food retailers around the country engaged in food stamp fraud, illegally “trafficking” more than $1 billion in Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits annually over the three-year period from 2012 through 2014.
Most of the fraud is in small groceries and convenience stores!
CNS News continues….
“Retailer trafficking of Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits occurs primarily when SNAP recipients sell their benefits for cash to food retailers, often at a discount,” the USDA’s Food and Nutrition Service said in a summary of the report.
“SNAP benefits are permitted for the purchase of eligible food items from authorized food retailers,” said the report. “The sale or exchange of SNAP benefits for anything other than food sold by an authorized SNAP retailer is illegal.”
[….]
“An estimated $1.077 billion in SNAP benefits annually were trafficked and thereby diverted from their intended purpose,” said the report.
“Overall, about 1.5 percent of total SNAP benefits were trafficked; and approximately 11.8 percent of all authorized SNAP stores engaged in trafficking,” it said.
[….]
“Trafficking is defined as buying or selling benefits for cash or consideration other than eligible food, and the penalty is permanent disqualification,” said the report. “Permanent disqualification occurs when a retailer’s authorization to redeem SNAP benefits is revoked.”
States where ‘diversity is beautiful’ have the highest number of illegal operations.
A breakdown by states showed that the largest number of retailers permanently disqualified from SNAP in fiscal 2016 were in New York (448), the second largest number was in Florida (175), the third largest was in California (133) and the fourth largest was in New Jersey (130).
Go get’em Donald!
Again, see my food stamp fraud archive byclicking here. There are some doozy stories there!
“…..reveals the insidious racism harbored by those in this administration.”
(Eleanor Acer, director of refugee protection at Washington-based advocacy group Human Rights First)
Here is the story at Think Progress (consider the source):
They are one-trick ponies! It is “racist,” Trump is “racist” and you, dear readers, are “racists!”
In a move formalizing more than a year of hardline anti-immigration rhetoric from the White House, the agency responsible for overseeing both green cards and citizenship has wiped a key line framing the United States as a “nation of immigrants” from its mission statement.
In a letter sent Thursday, Lee Francis Cissna, the director of United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), told employees that the statement had been altered to “guide us in the years ahead.”
The original language:
“U.S.C.I.S. secures America’s promise as a nation of immigrants by providing accurate and useful information to our customers, granting immigration and citizenship benefits, promoting an awareness and understanding of citizenship, and ensuring the integrity of our immigration system,” read the agency’s original mission statement.
The new Trump Admin. language:
The new offering is notably altered: “U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services administers the nation’s lawful immigration system, safeguarding its integrity and promise by efficiently and fairly adjudicating requests for immigration benefits while protecting Americans, securing the homeland and honoring our values.”
That new statement, Cissna said, “clearly defines the agency’s role in our country’s lawful immigration system and the commitment we have to the American people.”
In addition to the removal of the “nation of immigrants” phrase, the statement has also eliminated any reference to non-U.S. nationals as “customers” — a decision Cissna said served as “a reminder that we are always working for the American people.”
Did you know that some Native Americans and Blacks never did like the phrase—nation of immigrants—so they must be cheering this move!
The phrase “nation of immigrants” is not without controversy — many Native Americans have argued against the saying, as have Black Americans, arguing that the arrival of colonizers and slaves should not be conflated with immigration more broadly. But the phrase has become a rallying cry for many contemporary proponents of immigration, which helps to diversify the United States and keep the economy strong. Its removal formalizes an agenda long pursued by the Trump administration, which has made cracking down on immigration a key pillar of its tenure.
[….]
“Our nation is one built by immigrants—removing this language does nothing to change that fact, it only reveals the insidious racism harbored by those in this administration,” said Eleanor Acer, director of refugee protection at Washington-based advocacy group Human Rights First, in a statement.
More here. You might find it heartening to read the list of all the “racist” things the White House has been doing!
And, I don’t want to get in to a big yak, but we haven’t been a nation of immigrants, in fact we took about a 40 year break until Senator Ted (don’t bring them to Hyannis) Kennedy pushed the 1965 Hart-Cellers Immigration Act that opened the present day flood gates. Earlier waves of immigration were mostly from Europe (and there was no welfare system. They worked hard or went home). All that changed in 1965. 15 years later he pushed through the Refugee Act of 1980.
I always wondered if ol’ Teddy was a true believer, or did someone have a gun to his head?
A little background first….
The Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) in the Department of Health and Human Services somehow, awhile ago, was tasked with taking care of the Unaccompanied Alien Children entering the US illegally. In fact, their involvement created a huge new money stream to at least two refugee contractors—the US Conference of Catholic Bishops and Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service—which received government grants and contracts to care for the ‘children.’ Director of ORR Scot Lloyd had to face some really witchy Congresswomen over the issue of abortion for the illegal alien children. https://refugeeresettlementwatch.org/2017/10/28/no-borders-left-aimed-at-destroying-orr-director-scott-lloyd/
But, in yet another demonstration of the expanding taxpayer funding to care for illegals, the ORR also has a grant program to provide the ‘children’ with legal services.
Keep in mind, however, that the ‘children’ (mostly teenage boys) are not refugees. Refugees must prove they will be persecuted if returned to their home country. The Central American lawbreakers may be running from crime and poverty, but those are not criteria for receiving asylum (refugee status).
In recent months a controversy has exploded for ORR because some of the illegal alien ‘children’ claim they have a constitutional right to an abortion and ORR is saying, NO! They do not.
You fund the Open Borders industry!
ORR is warning a large legal aid contractor that they could be removed from the federal dole if they instruct the ‘children’ about abortion rights.
Who knew ORR would have such gumption!
The Leftwing WaPoclearly is disconcerted by this move….
A major legal services group for immigrant children told its lawyers nationwide not to discuss abortion access, even if minors in custody ask for help understanding their legal rights, for fear it would jeopardize a multimillion-dollar contract with the Department of Health and Human Services.
The constraints on what government-funded lawyers can say to young detainees was contained in an email from the nonprofit Vera Institute of Justice, which said it acted after a phone call with an HHS employee. Vera’s instruction to lawyers comes as the Trump administration has tried in court to block access to abortion procedures for undocumented teens in federal custody.
“We know for a fact that there is a very real risk to the entire legal services program for children in [Office of Refugee Resettlement] custody if issues other than immigration are addressed in consultations or representation, the abortion issue in particular,”a Vera official cautioned in a Feb. 2 email obtained by The Washington Post.
In an internal e-mail someone forwarded to the WaPo, Mulcahy says that VERA does not want to risk losing the millions of dollars taxpayers give them to represent the Unaccompanied Alien Children.
The government pays $57 million a year under a five-year contract to Vera, which works with 38 organizations in six regions to provide legal help to minors who have crossed the border illegally and without their parents.
In the email, Vera official Anne Marie Mulcahy said she was sending it after a conversation with the government analyst who manages the program within the Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) at HHS.
During the call, the employee “directed us to ensure that Vera’s legal services providers are not talking to children in HHS custody about abortion,” wrote Mulcahy, who is the director of Vera’s unaccompanied minors program.
Mulcahy instructed lawyers to immediately strip references to abortion from “Know Your Rights” legal pamphlets and said lawyers could refer children with abortion-related questions to other attorneys.
[….]
The office is responsible for the care of approximately 7,700 minors in custody, nearly 70 percent of whom are boys, according to HHS. The minors are facing possible deportation to countries such as El Salvador and Honduras…..
There is much more here at the WaPo.
Below is a screenshot page of a recent Form 990 for VERA, note that the vast majority of their income comes from you—US taxpayers. In order to view the 990, go to ProPublica here and follow links. If you visit their Form 990, don’t miss the salaries page! You paid VERA lawyers $41.5 million in 2014 to represent the illegal alien children. Obviously VERA could not exist without federal funding!
Immigration is big business in America, not just for the global corporations greedy for cheap labor, but for the extensive industry the federal government runs through its grants and contracts like those to VERA—Institute of Justice.
Go for it! ORR should cut off their taxpayer-funded money stream.
Neil Munro tells us about the losses at Breitbart yesterday:
Immigrants Sent $140 Billion From U.S. Back To Homelands in 2016
In fact, we have written many times about how these dollars sent back to Central American countries, like El Salvador, from people here on Temporary Protected Status literally prop up the economy of the country.
When you look at the newly released numbers, think about how Mexico and other south of the border countries (that regularly storm our border) could make a decent contribution to the price tag of The Wall if the Administration taxed remittance dollars flowing to those countries!
Here is Breitbart:
Legal and illegal immigrants wired almost $140 billion from the United States back to their home countries and foreign relatives in 2016.
The huge loss of domestic spending by of immigrants’ remittances is spotlighted in a new report by the Pew Research Center, which also noted that $6.5 billion was sent back to the United States by foreign-based U.S. workers. That is a 21-fold difference and is enough money to support 2.6 million additional $50,000 jobs in the United States.
The remittance number is based on calculations by the World Bank.
Now here are the top receiving countries. For the full list go to the Pew report by clicking here.
Continue reading as Munro discusses the impact of the immigrant cheap labor supply entering the US.
I wonder if there is any way to determine how many of these dollars are taxpayer-supplied welfare dollars as opposed to those earned through gainful employment.
