Category: Pockets of Resistance

Republican Governors who Consented to Accept Refugees in FY2020 Scrambling to Explain

~ Ann Corcoran ~ 5 Comments

I can’t possibly write an all-encompassing post about all the feedback I’m getting from concerned citizens who are hopping mad that their Republican governor foolishly (and prematurely) jumped on the bandwagon to accept more refugees for their states just so the nine federal contractors*** could get their requests for MONEY into the US State Department ASAP.

Here are the 19 Rs who have thumbed their nose at the President’s effort to rein-in the UN-driven Refugee Admissions Program.

The first wave of governors to pander to the Left are marked in orange, and the second wave is in hot pink.

If your governor hasn’t caved yet, keep up the pressure.  Florida, Georgia and Texas are the big targets for Open Borders Inc.

 

Last night John Binder at Breitbart published a letter from Arkansas Governor Asa Hutchinson to his legislators who want answers.

Since most of the governors are completely unfamiliar with this 4-decades-old program, we can only assume that someone is feeding them talking points like those in the memo Binder published.

Go here to read it all.

Exclusive: Memo Reveals How GOP Governors are Pitching Refugee Resettlement to Opponents

I want to just focus on a couple of points in the governor’s attempt to explain himself.  First this:

Refugees are eligible for 36 months of case management assistance and financial assistance when they first arrive through a combination of federal and private funds, which Canopy manages. They do not receive any other special financial assistance aside from typical public assistance available to other low-income Arkansans (Medicaid, SNAP, TANF etc.). 100% of refugee households have seen reductions or terminations of this public assistance because of income within the first 6 months of arrival in the state.

LOL!  They don’t get any public assistance other than Medicaid, SNAP (food stamps), TANF, etc!  What is the etc.?

100% have seen reductions in their welfare use?  Where is the data governor? Or is the governor just parroting what the Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service SUBCONTRACTOR is telling him.

I also want to bring to your attention this section of his talking points memo.

Who will be placed in Arkansas?

African nations and those countries in which the United States has engaged in military actions and cooperating nationals are at risk.

I would be asking the governor which African nations?  Somalia? And, then he is lumping the Special Immigrant Visas (mostly from Afghanistan and Iraq, but possibly soon Syria) in with the regular refugees.  I told you here that the Trump administration is predicting 10,000 SIVs on top of the 18.000 regular refugees for 2020.

And, get this!  According to the Funding Guidance I’ve been yakking about for days, we will be taking another 10,000 SIVs from Iraq and Afghanistan (maybe Syria!) in the 2020 fiscal year. That is over and above the 18,000 ceiling that the President determined for the year.

The FY 2020 ceiling for refugee admissions established by the President, after consultation with Congress, is 18,000.  In addition, applicants should include 10,000 Special Immigrant Visa (SIV) recipients in their planning. Applicants should assume similar admissions and recipient numbers for performance periods beyond FY 2020.

Note that last bit—the contractors should expect similar numbers beyond 2020.

One more thing, don’t miss LIRS getting direct payola from Tyson Foods!

Starting later today (I hope), I’m starting a new series of posts I’ll call ‘Knowledge is Power’ to go back for many new readers and help you get up to speed on how the UN/US Refugee Admissions Program operates and how you can find out more about your state’s involvement (or lack of involvement) with the program.

 

***For new readers these (below) are the nine federally-funded refugee contractors that operate as a huge conveyor belt monopolizing all refugee placement in America.

A ‘religious’ message from CWS one of three federally funded contractors suing to stop the President’s effort to reform the UN-driven Refugee Admissions Program.

And, they do not limit their advocacy toward only legal immigration programs, but are heavily involved in supporting the lawlessness at our borders.

The question isn’t as much about refugees per se, but about who is running federal immigration policy now and into the future?  

(I plan to say this once a day from now on!)

I continue to argue that these nine contractors are the heart of America’s Open Borders movement and thus there can never be long-lasting reform of US immigration policy when these nine un-elected phony non-profits are paid by the taxpayers to work as community organizers pushing an open borders agenda.

Second County to Vote NO for More Refugees is in Minnesota

~ Ann Corcoran ~ 6 Comments

Previously, I reported that Appomattox County, Virginia had gone on record in response to the President’s refugee resettlement reform plan and said no thanks to refugee resettlement.

Every county in America is up for grabs as the US State Department hires its contractors for later in Fiscal Year 2020 to place the Africans, Asians and Middle Easterners (largely chosen by the UN) destined for Anytown, USA.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beltrami_County,_Minnesota

Now check this out, Beltrami County, Minnesota voted Tuesday to tell the State Department to count them out. 

Even if Beltrami has not been a target site in the past, they want to make it clear that at least for FY2020 they don’t want to be like some other of the refugee hotbeds in the state.

Speaking of hotbeds, Stearns County (St. Cloud) voted to table the issue until the end of the month as did several other refugee resettlement locations in the state.

 

From the Bemidji Pioneer where reporter Matthew Liedke did an excellent job of explaining the complex issue.  H/T Ron

UPDATED: Beltrami County votes no to accepting refugees

Tuesday’s no vote in Bemidji was the first for any county in Minnesota.
An estimated 200 people came out to let their elected officials know that they don’t want to become a resettlement site for 2020.

BEMIDJI — With applause from a loud, passionate crowd Beltrami County on Tuesday, Jan. 7, became the first local government unit in Minnesota to refuse refugee resettlements.

In a 3-2 vote, the county’s Board of Commissioners chose to opt out of accepting refugee resettlements. The decision comes months after President Donald Trump signed an executive order enhancing state and local involvement in refugee resettlements. The order says the federal government “should resettle refugees only in those jurisdictions in which both the State and local governments have consented to receive refugees.”

While the order doesn’t take effect until June, though, resettlement affiliates and nonprofits are required to submit their placement strategies to the State Department by Jan. 31. Because of the short timeline, District 1 Commissioner Craig Gaasvig said organizing a public hearing wouldn’t be feasible, and as a result, the crowd of at least 200 people weren’t able to comment Tuesday at the meeting in Bemidji.

[….]

While no official comment period was held, the standing room only crowd extending out into the lobby of the County Administration Building did make itself heard at various times in the meeting. Additionally, when asked by Gaasvig for a show of hands on how many were opposed to accepting refugee resettlements, a clear majority of the crowd raised their hands. More than 200 people attended the meeting.

[….]

The refugee subject has been the talk of the area for the past few days. While it wasn’t on the agenda Monday for Bemidji’s City Council meeting, City Hall was still packed with individuals expressing concern over the matter.

Somalis have dominated the refugee flow to Minnesota, resettled there mostly thanks to Catholic Charities and Lutheran Social Services.

Earlier Tuesday, the St. Louis County Board voted 4-3 to delay its response to refugee resettlement until May after two-and-a-half hours of testimony in Duluth.

Counties to have approved accepting refugees after the executive order takes effect include Blue Earth, Kandiyohi and Nicollet. According to the Associated Press, the nation’s first county to ban refugee resettlement was Appomattox County, Va., where commissioners voted 4-1 on Dec. 17 to deny consent to resettlement.

[….]

Since 1980, more than 100,000 individuals have come to Minnesota through the United States Refugee Admissions Program.

Much more here and don’t miss the video of the meeting!

Maine: Writer Says Lewiston’s Somali Makeover is Good for the City; But Was She Completely Honest?

~ Ann Corcoran ~ 5 Comments

Mainer Cynthia Anderson recently published a book about how 6,000 plus Somali refugees are busy resuscitating a supposedly dying Maine city.

No surprise that the Star Tribune, in the heart of Little Mogadishu, MN, reviewed Anderson’s book.  One quote in the review stands out and it makes my blood boil!

“I also think journalists, including me, sometimes don’t push for answers lest they appear insensitive or out of fear they’ll provide ammunition to haters.”

Just think about that, she is admitting she might have pulled some punches so as not to give us (haters! and Islamophobes!), critics of the UN/US Refugee Admissions Program, any ammunition. WHAT THE H***!

If so-called journalists were HONEST, for one thing there would be no need for me to write this blog and secondly if they were HONEST then maybe government programs like this one might be reevaluated, reformed or trashed.

From the Star Tribune:

Review: ‘Home Now: How 6,000 Refugees Transformed an American Town,’ by Cynthia Anderson

“Home Now” by Cynthia Anderson; Public Affairs (318 pages, $28)

“A moving chronicle of who belongs in America.” Guess you can see the bias right there at Amazon.

At a campaign rally in Portland, Maine, President Donald Trump linked worsening crime in Maine to the influx of Somali refugees there. He blamed their large community in Minnesota for straining the state’s social safety net and bringing potential recruits for Islamic terrorist groups.

“You see it happening,” Trump said. “You read about it.”

The above is a reminder to all those wimpy Republican governors who are ‘welcoming’ more Somalis, Iraqis, and Syrians to your states that the President wants to rein-in the program. Duh!

Long before Trump turned refugee resettlement into a national flash point, Cynthia Anderson was immersing herself in Lewiston, Maine, a small white town that came to host one of the largest populations of Somali-Americans in the country, for her timely, richly detailed book “Home Now.”

Anderson grew up in a village 45 miles away and recalled the area’s gradual decline leading up to 2001, when the first Somali refugees arrived in nearby Portland.

She reported on Lewiston’s transformation for more than a decade, moving from seeing Somali newcomers as passive victims traumatized by war to people with complex, resilient trajectories.

[….]

Fatuma Hussein at 2017 Women’s march. “We are the future of Maine. We are the face of Maine.” See one of my posts on the Somali community organizer here in 2014: https://refugeeresettlementwatch.org/2014/01/11/maine-somalisothers-protest-welfare-rule-change-proposal/

Anderson also writes about Fatuma Hussein, a community leader and advocate for Somali women who admires Maine’s civility and is optimistic about relations between natives and newcomers. She speaks out in opposition to Trump’s election, yet she is also forthright about the challenges of merging different cultures in Lewiston.

The town is not prepared to absorb the arrivals so quickly; the mayor draws headlines for saying Lewiston is “maxed out.”

Anderson deftly sums up the tension by noting that the new refugees were not ungrateful but nor were they just grateful.

[….]

Though the book paints a mostly rosy picture of how refugees can revitalize a community, Anderson is honest [?—how honest?—ed] about her qualms.

There is a brief mention of the murder of Donald Giusti killed by a gang of African migrant teens in Lewiston’s city park. https://fraudscrookscriminals.com/2019/04/15/arrests-made-in-lewiston-me-death-of-white-man-at-the-hands-of-a-gang-of-african-refugees/

During debates over a state bill aimed at the Somali-American community to ban female genital mutilation (FGM), she admits to being conflicted. Anderson is initially opposed, and doesn’t want to see the Somali community hurt, but nor does she want harm to come to any Somali girls.

[What woman could possibly be conflicted about the brutal practice of slicing off a portion of a girl’s genitals?—ed]

Anderson also acknowledges that the refugee vetting process warrants examination, noting that records can be inadequate in war-torn countries.

She considers it fair to question how long refugees take to become self-sufficient, finding answers inconsistent and hard to find. [No kidding—this program is run in secrecy! The refugee contractors and the government don’t want anyone to find out how poorly the refugees are doing!—ed]

“I also think journalists, including me, sometimes don’t push for answers lest they appear insensitive or out of fear they’ll provide ammunition to haters,” she admits. “But not asking and not knowing provides fertile ground for rumors to flourish. It’s also patronizing; Lewiston’s newcomers can withstand the scrutiny.”  [Note that she deftly suggests that those of us with concerns are trafficking in rumors!—ed]

Anderson raises these questions through her portrait of Jared Bristol, driven after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks to become an activist against Islamic extremism. Bristol advocates for the FGM bill during a hearing that’s one of the only times Anderson sees Muslims and anti-Islamists in the same place.

Such activists, Anderson writes, “are wrong if they believe I absorbed nothing they and other anti-Islamists said or that my thinking didn’t shift, however incrementally.”  [So what good is absorbing if she then pulls punches?—ed]

Scrutiny comes anew when a man dies of a fatal head injury after being attacked by several teens of African descent.

Nevertheless, and moving right along, the expert concludes:

….that Mainers feel that integrating refugees is worth the effort, even as it has taken time and money.

That is not what I’m hearing!!!

See my extensive, and I mean extensive archive on Lewiston here at RRW (there is more at ‘Frauds and Crooks.’)!

Gee, I wonder if Ms. Anderson used any of the material I’ve compiled over the years?  Did she get the story about the Somali teen who burned down four apartment buildings in 2013 for example? Or the one about the ISIS fighter whose wife lived in Lewiston?  Or the Somali health care scammers?  And, as far back as 2009 Somali ‘youths’ were roaming the streets and attacking people.

Maybe a journalist should write a book!

Waiting for Abbott, while Idaho Governor Little Caves, Becomes 16th Republican to Rebuff the President

~ Ann Corcoran ~ 3 Comments
Jen Smyers of Church World Service: “The impact if Texas doesn’t allow refugee resettlement to continue will be really dismal.”

The Leftwing federal contractors *** are on pins and needles waiting to see if they can reel in their big fish—Texas Governor Greg Abbott.   

Texas is their most desired catch because although Abbott tried to get out of the program several years ago, the state remains the top refugee placement state in the nation (the Left is turning Texas blue!).

Smyers told reporters that many church groups on the ‘religious’ Left and advocates for Open Borders have met with Abbott’s staff.

Here is the Statesman headline from yesterday:

Abbott silent as refugee resettlement deadline approaches

The article suggests that the deadline is “looming.”  It isn’t! as I explained here when I told you about the dumb Republican governors who jumped on the consent bandwagon prematurely when they obviously hadn’t read the guidance from the US State Department.

Smart governors are keeping their powder dry.

But up in Idaho….

We can add another governor to our dumb governors list.

I wonder, did Governor Little get a call from Pompeo too? Did he get any suggestion from anyone in Washington that his MONEY depended on his consent?

Governor Brad Little joins the list of governors thumbing their noses at one of the the President’s major goals—reforming the dysfunctional UN-driven Refugee Admissions Program and reducing refugee admissions.

Although Idaho doesn’t receive the massive number of refugees that Texas does, it nevertheless has been one of the major controversial locations in the country where many citizens there do not want to see more diversity and more poverty moved from Africa, Asia and the Middle East to their rural state.

(See my extensive Idaho archive here.)

Here is a headline yesterday from The Neighbor:

County, Little offer support for refugee resettlement, but questions over jurisdiction remain

You can read the story yourself, but I want to be sure you see the Governor’s letter to Secretary of State Pompeo:

You should consider this a weasel letter. The Governor is saying (sigh) if Twin Falls County wants it, it’s okay with me.

 

Twin Falls County

Three cheers for a government body that actually read the rules.

More important than the governor’s weak letter is this letter that Twin Falls County sent to the Dept. of State.  In the opening paragraphs, commissioners criticize the Funding Guidance for its lack of clarity, but toward the end of the three-page letter, they penned an important few paragraphs.

Don’t forget, this whole exercise is about whether federal contractors will get MONEY (your tax dollars) later in 2020.

Shut out of so-called ‘stakeholder’ meetings!

They want to be included in consultations in the future (having been shut out so far) and if this exercise is to be repeated they want to hold “robust public hearings.”  That is exactly what should be happening across 49 states (Wyoming has never been in the program).

Don’t forget the 100-mile radius rule! 

When a contractor is ‘hired’ by the feds and approval is given by, in this case, Twin Falls County (and the governor), contractors may place certain refugees in a 100-mile radius of the resettlement office.

With its consent, Twin Falls County has granted permission for refugees to be placed in these locations within a hundred miles. See radius calculator.

This region includes 11 counties: Blaine, ID; Butte, ID; Camas, ID; Cassia, ID; Elmore, ID; Gooding, ID; Jerome, ID; Lincoln, ID; Minidoka, ID; Power, ID; Twin Falls, ID

 

***For new readers these (below) are the nine federally-funded refugee contractors that operate as a huge conveyor belt monopolizing all refugee placement in America.

Church World Service poster girl!

For decades they have decided in secrecy where to place refugees and they don’t want to lose that power because even as they pontificate about their religious convictions and humanitarian zeal, they are Leftwing political activist groups working to change America by changing the people and using your money to do it!

And, they do not limit their advocacy toward only legal immigration programs, but are heavily involved in supporting the lawlessness at our borders.

The question isn’t as much about refugees per se, but about who is running federal immigration policy now and into the future?  

(I plan to say this once a day from now on!)

I continue to argue that these nine contractors are the heart of America’s Open Borders movement and thus there can never be long-lasting reform of US immigration policy when these nine un-elected phony non-profits are paid by the taxpayers to work as community organizers pushing an open borders agenda.

 

 

 

Massachusetts Interfaith Council Attacks Mayor who Says NO to More Refugees

~ Ann Corcoran ~ 2 Comments

If you wonder why more local elected officials aren’t brave. See what the Leftists do to those who go against them—mayors like Springfield, Mass  Mayor Sarno!

Mayor Sarno has been trying tor years to get the State Department to stop the pipeline of refugees to Springfield.

The Open Borders Leftwingers are ruthless and this is the type of in-your-face agitation they have no fear of launching, but LOL! I think this one backfired.

The Interfaith Council of Springfield Mass placed a full-page ad in the Sunday edition of a local paper to shame the mayor—they don’t want Springfield to be the first city in America to say NO! to more refugees.

(If you are confused, according to the US State Department’s Funding Guidance it is county governments that must officially opt-in or opt-out of refugee resettlement under the President’s plan, but the Open Borders activists are going after cities probably because they think that mayors are an easier target.  For the record, the first county to say NO is Appomattox County, Virginia.)

Here is the news, and then I’ll get to why the resettlement contractors’ (in this case primarily HIAS***) aggressive action, via the local Interfaith group, is backfiring!  (I’ve warned you before about ‘Interfaith groups’  as primary promoters of refugee resettlement.)

From Masslive:

Interfaith Council challenges Springfield Mayor Domenic Sarno on refugee resettlement

SPRINGFIELD – A full page taken by the Interfaith Council of Greater Springfield in the Sunday Republican today is requesting that Mayor Domenic J. Sarno bring unity rather than refusal around the issue of refugee resettlement in the city, saying in what it calls an open letter “no human is a burden.”

“Springfield is now the first city in the country whose mayor has refused to issue a letter of consent to allow refugee resettlement to continue,” reads the council’s letter.

“This is not a distinction we bear lightly.”

The statement, whose dozen signatures include those of the Western Massachusetts Conference of the Evangelical Church of America, Sinai Temple and the Islamic Society of Western Massachusetts, adds, “Instead of assigning blame to a small and already marginalized group, what if we were to bring people together – across our divides – to create real solutions? If, as the Mayor suggests, neighboring communities need to do more, one wonders what can be done to bring people together around such a solution. Many or us are ready to step forward.”

Following a unanimous City Council vote Dec. 16 supporting local involvement in refugee resettlement, Sarno issued a statement of opposition and in a Dec. 18 letter to MassLive and The Republican outlined why he would not issue a letter of consent permitting refugees to be resettled in the city.

[….]

In his letter explaining his refusal to do so, Sarno said, “It’s time for other much more affluent communities to take on their fair share.”

“My position has been very clear on that this issue taxes our city and school services and calls into question the accountability and follow-through aspects of refugee agencies, who not too long ago, placed a number of refugees in condemned housing units,” Sarno wrote.

“We have a number of residents in Springfield who need assistance and that will continue to be the concentration of my efforts. Springfield has proudly done more than its fair share on this issue.”

In an Dec. 18 interview about its work with refugee resettlement, Maxine Stein, president and chief executive officer of Jewish Family Service of Western Massachusetts, the largest area agency doing such work, said, “Refugees are not taking services from our city.”

[…..]

JFS is the oldest and largest refugee resettlement agency in Western Massachusetts and works in partnership with the Hebrew Immigration Aid Society or HIAS and the State Department in what, prior to the Trump administration, had been resettling some 240 refugees annually in the area.

HIAS is among the organizations that have filed suit against the administration over Executive Order 13888. [We expect that case to be heard in a Maryland court in early January—ed]

There is much more, please read it all.

So why do I say their aggressive ad backfired?

See the comments!!! 

As of this writing there are 98 of them, and based on a quick look the vast majority are in support of Sarno.

And, this is the ‘peoples’ republic of Massachusetts.’

Here are some screenshots of just a few recent ones (there are many more, but I had to quit for the sake of time!)  Go read them yourself and maybe consider adding a few more.

 

If Allwornout is referring to refugees, they are here legally. Readers need to understand that our LEGAL immigration system is massively flawed and must be reformed. The UN/US Refugee Admissions Program in my view should be entirely repealed. We must not in the future turn over the power to place refugees where un-elected fake non-profits (funded by taxpayers) choose.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

***Don’t miss yesterday’s post where I explained that this exercise is all about MONEY for the contractors.

It is kind of funny, in the Bible Belt, the contractors are using Leftwing Evangelicals to carry their water.  In Minnesota it is Leftist Catholics and Lutherans, but in the more liberal north east they turn to extremely Leftwing Interfaith groups symbolizing multicultural mush—love and peace for one and all.