So what is this asylum issue the Secretary of State mentioned?

09/19/2018 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Several people have asked me about the statement made by Secretary of State Pompeo when he announced the Administration’s intentions of capping refugee admissions at 30,000.

Intelligence Chiefs Testify To Senate Committee On World Wide Threats

According to the New York Times, Pompeo mentioned a backlog of 800,000 asylum cases piled up in immigration courts and the NYT is quick to point out that the number is too high.

It is ONLY 320,000!

(And, remember readers that those waiting for their asylum hearing are mostly free to roam the USA, relatively few are in detention!)

See here:

“This year’s refugee ceiling reflects the substantial increase in the number of individuals seeking asylum in our country, leading to a massive backlog of outstanding asylum cases and greater public expense,” he added.

Nazanin Ash (left) speaking for refugee contractor the International Rescue Committee: “In justifying its policy intention, the administration has pitted those seeking asylum against refugees.”

Mr. Pompeo said refugees had to be weighed against a backlog of 800,000 asylum seekers who are awaiting a decision by immigration authorities about whether they qualify as in need of protection under United States law and will be granted status to remain.

But he vastly overstated the numbers, while making a linkage between two groups of immigrants that are not the same and are processed differently.

As of the end of June, the Department of Homeland Security reported just under 320,000 people who had claimed asylum — meaning they had passed an interview conducted to verify that they met the “credible fear” threshold to be considered — and were awaiting a decision from the department about whether they could stay.

About 730,000 additional immigrants were waiting for their cases to be resolved by immigration courts, according to the Justice Department…

In other words Pompeo is saying that the Trump Administration is going to focus first on a huge backlog of asylum claims.

So what is this asylum issue?

Perhaps we haven’t talked about it enough over the years, but asylum is the other side of a two-sided coin for ‘refugee’ admissions to the US.

The cap we are talking about refers to the refugees who are found abroad, are accepted for admission and are flown here at taxpayers’ expense and turned over to one of the nine refugee resettlement contractors for care.

Asylum seekers are people who got to the US on their own dime and upon entering the country across a border illegally (or sometimes with a legal visa) they request asylum claiming they would be persecuted if returned home. They then go through a legal process to determine if their claims are legitimate or not. (Another can of worms involves the question of how many of those whose claims of asylum were rejected actually leave the country!)

If granted asylum they are called Asylees and are eligible for all of the social service goodies we give to the refugees we fly in. Therefore, US taxpayers’ generosity is not only to the smaller number of refugees we flew in, but potentially to tens of thousands more each year!

The asylum system here and in Europe has been massively scammed where worldwide millions are claiming asylum when in fact most are economic migrants or just plain crooks.

There are so many that they are overwhelming our legal system and that is why Sec. of State Pompeo says we are prioritizing—getting those hundreds of thousands processed.

(See Jim Simpson’s chart in this post to see how many had successful asylum claims for each of the last 10+ years. Total is over 266,000 since 2008!)

Refugee Industry thrilled with Asylum avenue to America!

In 2010 I attended the 30th anniversary celebration for the Refugee Act of 1980 at Georgetown University in Washington, DC and was struck by the focus speakers were placing on the asylum process.

Doris Meissner 2 — At the Georgetown anniversary event, it was Doris Meissner (who apparently had a role in crafting the Refugee Act of 1980) who said with obvious pleasure: We only expected the odd Russian ballet dancer to use the asylum process, but now (yippee!) large numbers of migrants are using it!

They were downright giddy that so many migrants were now showing up at our borders seeking asylum. In fact, they seemed to be conscious of the fact that there were limits to the numbers they could get in to the US in the normal refugee admissions process even before Trump ever appeared on their radar screens.

In 2011, after seeing more stories about asylum seekers arriving at our borders from far flung places like Somalia, I wrote this post:

Is there a conspiracy by NGO’s to bring asylum seekers to US borders?

I said this at the time about the Georgetown shindig after calling for a Congressional investigation.

I was also struck at the conference by how much emphasis the pro-refugee, pro-open borders activists and speakers were placing on our asylum program. They wanted to educate more asylum lawyers and hire more asylum judges (apparently the refugee program itself wasn’t bringing immigrants in fast enough!). One speaker even said that the original idea behind the program was to rescue the odd ballet dancer seeking asylum from some repressive regime, but had now expanded to thousands every year.

You can read the whole post here, but the gist of it was that I believe the international open borders Leftists are actively involved in pushing migrants to first world countries’ borders (maybe even paying their way!) where, having been previously coached, they know how to ask for asylum. Of course that is exactly what we are seeing now here and in Europe.

By the way, check out the whole NYT story. The reporter says that Secretary of State Pompeo wanted to keep the CAP where it was at 45,000, but Stephen Miller in the White House pushed for an even lower ceiling.

See my post yesterday where I say it should have been ZERO!

Are the refugee contractors and their friends in Congress preparing to end-run the President on refugee cap?

09/18/2018 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

I reported this morning that the Refugee Council USA (RCUSA), the lobbying arm of the refugee industry, was sounding pretty cocky about going for their 75,000 refugee cap for Fiscal Year 2019 which begins less than two weeks from now in spite of the President’s proposed 30,000 cap.

Intelligence Chiefs Testify To Senate Committee On World Wide Threats — Will Secretary of State Pompeo’s legal team find and extract a sleeper amendment in the State Department Appropriations Act?

It is abundantly clear that the President has the power to set the cap (aka ceiling) under the Refugee Act of 1980.

(Indeed, it is also the case that there is no requirement in the law to admit any refugees.)

So what might make the contractors and their lobbyists make what sounds like a threatening statement:

We still have the desire, capacity, and resources to welcome at least 75,000 refugees to the United States in the coming year. And we will spend every waking moment looking for ways to do just that…

Admittedly they are desperate because they stand to lose millions of federal dollars if fewer refugees are admitted.

Yikes! Appropriations???

Could they be planning to get a friendly Senator or Congressman to use the upcoming Appropriations process and plant language in the State Department funding bill that would direct the President to bring in 75,000 refugees?

The strategy may be to use that upcoming State Department Appropriations Act to override the President’s determination under the Refugee Act. For this to occur properly, Congress would likely have to include in the Appropriations Act a specific line item of funding for 75,000 refugees accompanied by a statement that the funding was being provided despite the provisions of the Refugee Act. In other words, the Appropriations language would supersede existing law!

For more on the legal principles involved, take a look at page 2-67 of Principles of Federal Appropriations Law published by the Government Accountability Office.

When you have a look at the legal principles, based on a Supreme Court decision, note that if they think they can do it with simple report language they are mistaken. It must be actually language in the bill itself.

Hopefully, Mike Pompeo’s legal team will be on the look-out for any attempt by the contractors and their lobbyists to use the appropriations process to usurp the President’s authority!

(But can we trust a legal team that might be comprised of Obama leftovers to find the sleeper provision in time?)

We will be watching!

If the contractors, who have millions of dollars at stake, and their Democrat pals pull off a dirty trick like this, it is just one more example of why American citizens are so sick of Washington and why we elected Donald Trump.

Where are you Stephen Miller?

Why I think a refugee cap of 30,000 was a bad decision

09/18/2018 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

I’m going to try to be brief because faithful readers have heard this all before.

The President was going to be vilified if he had come in anywhere under the 75,000 the ‘humanitarian’ refugee industry was pushing for anyway. (See Pompeo announces 30,000 cap here yesterday.)

He should have, in my opinion, halted the entire program until it was completely reformed. *

Simply cutting the numbers for a few years will do NOTHING. If the basic flawed structure is left in place the big contractors will simply hold out until Trump is no longer in office. They have already said so!

Yes, one or two of the contractors might go belly-up with a paying client number of 30,000 or less to be divvied up by the present nine contractors, but the giants, like the US Conference of Catholic Bishops and the International Rescue Committee, will survive.

Why do political activists who want to see lower immigration numbers always play small-ball?

Screenshot (1452) — Church World Service employee in Lancaster, PA

If the President said no refugees will be admitted until the program is reformed that would be the hammer to get the job done because those in Congress who want the cheap labor and those who want more Democrat voters would have been forced to cooperate with the White House.

Here are some of the reforms I want to see (assuming there is a demand for a refugee admissions program at all!):

~The present contracting system must go. For non-profit groups to be paid by the head for each refugee they place is an insane system that only encourages them to beg for more refugees each year whether our towns and cities are already in overload or not!

And, it sets up an advocacy (read political agitation) system potentially using taxpayer dollars to promote policies and candidates.

~States must have a larger role (the largest role!) in determining the number of refugees placed in their states since the federal government is at present burdening states by requiring state taxpayers to carry much of the load for refugee care (medical, schooling, housing, translation services, criminal justice and so forth).

In the present system the US State Department and the contractors sit down every week and determine which refugees will be your new neighbors without any input from state and local governments (LOL! Unless those governments have been determined to be friendly in advance!).

~The program must be reformed to promote transparency. Local citizens have a right to know who is coming to their towns. When President Trump first came in to office, his early executive orders on refugees actually mentioned that the Administration was going to visit refugee placement towns and cities to hear testimony and ascertain the impact the refugees are having in those locations. What happened to that idea?

In fact, right now, we can’t even find out which towns are targets. At least during the Obama years we could find which contractors and subcontractors were working in each location. That list maintained by the Refugee Processing Center is no longer available under the Trump Administration. Why?

Screenshot (1449) — This is the most recent map available, produced in 2015, showing the resettlement sites and contractors operating around the country. Why is the Trump State Department keeping this information from us?

Continuing on reforms that would promote transparency—for many prior years (although Obama cut this off toward the end of his Presidency) there were “scoping meetings” held by the US State Department in May or June of each year where people like me (us!) could at least voice our opinions about admissions for the coming fiscal year. They are no longer held even by Trump’s State Department.

~Citizens must be assured that the vetting process is as fool-proof as it could be and that additional steps are taken to eliminate fraud. By just reducing the numbers and not telling us—the public—about what measures are being taken to eliminate dangerous refugees and the ones committing fraud, we are still being left with great uncertainty and frankly fear!

~The United Nations should be removed from our decision-making process. We should pick our own refugees based on our own US interests and concerns. We don’t need the UN to tell us which people in the world need help.

~If big business is looking for cheap laborers, let’s have that debate. Stop talking about the refugee program as solely a humanitarian program. Have them come forward and identify themselves so citizens in communities, where the business is located, know who is coming to their towns and why.

~We must stop stretching refugee law by picking up illegal migrants from places like Malta, South Africa, Israel or Australia.

More as I think of them, but this is getting too long! Simply reducing the numbers for a few years does nothing to solve the problem going forward.

The window for serious reform is rapidly closing. Does the Trump team assume the House and Senate will remain in Republican hands and they will get it done next year? Big assumption!

Or, is this (reducing numbers for a few years) it?

If so, in 2021 or 2025 it will be business as usual for the refugee industry and we might as well go lay on a sunny beach somewhere with a cool drink in hand!

*To head off the complaints from even people on the immigration restriction side, there could have been provisions made for the admission of some extreme cases.

Lobbying arm of the refugee industry puts out statement, says they will work toward their 75,000 refugees despite Prez

09/18/2018 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

I have no idea what they are talking about in the final paragraph of a statement put out yesterday by the Refugee Council USA (RCUSA) in response to the Secretary of State’s announcement that the CEILING (the top number that could be admitted to the US) will be 30,000 in FY19. See my post yesterday, here.

Update: I think I know why they are so cocky below, read my latest here.

rcusa with caption

Over the years we have written extensively about RCUSA, a consortium set up under the auspices of Church World Service, of the federal refugee contractors and other assorted ‘human rights’ groups to promote refugee admissions, organize demonstrations against this President, and to lobby Congress since technically the contractors are not permitted to use their federal dollars to lobby (see ORR letter below).

See my RCUSA file here, note that they joined CAIR to protest President Trump here.

And, don’t miss this post where I reported that RCUSA had hired the now disgraced and disbanded Podesta Group to lobby key Senators for more refugees.

I want to know if any of the over $100,000 that went to Tony Podesta and his pals was taxpayer money!

Here is RCUSA’s opening volley directed at the White House yesterday:

Today, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced the Administration’s intention to set the refugee admissions level for Fiscal Year 2019 at 30,000, the lowest number ever in the history of the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program. Refugee Council USA, a coalition of resettlement agencies and other organizations that promote robust protections for refugees, asylees, and other vulnerable people in need of humanitarian assistance, is deeply disappointed in this retrenchment of U.S. leadership and deeply concerned about the impact of this decision on vulnerable refugees needing resettlement.

Mary Giovagnoli, RCUSA Executive Director, noted: “As a generous and compassionate country, the United States has a long, proud tradition of welcoming refugees. With today’s announcement, the United States is turning its back on thousands of vulnerable refugee families in harm’s way and abandoning its historic global leadership role in refugee protection and resettlement. The reduction in refugee admissions for Fiscal Year 2019 is part of a systematic effort by the Trump administration to tear down humanitarian programs long afforded bipartisan support that local communities built over decades. The deliberate step-by-painful-step decimation of the resettlement program not only harms vulnerable refugee families and the communities that are ready to welcome them, but also strains the resources and threatens the stability of smaller, poorer refugee host countries left to fill the void created by the withdrawal of U.S. leadership.

But hope is not lost.

We still have the desire, capacity, and resources to welcome at least 75,000 refugees to the United States in the coming year. And we will spend every waking moment looking for ways to do just that as part of restoring the strong American tradition of welcoming refugees.

So what does that mean? Sounds downright menacing!

Are they going to hire more expensive lobbyists to try to get Congress to reverse the President? Under the Refugee Act of 1980, the President has all the power to set the cap for the coming year and they know that.

Lobbying not permitted!

Just about this time last year, the new Director of ORR reminded contractors that they could not use taxpayer money for lobbying at any level of government. But, RCUSA helps them get around lobbying restrictions as the contractors donate money to RCUSA.

Does anyone ever check to see if it is our taxpayer dollars going to RCUSA?

Here is the reminder letter to the nine contractors*** and their subcontractors:

ORR lobbying reminder

*** The nine major contractors (VOLAGS), all members of RCUSA, that monopolize the US Refugee Admissions Program are these:

Church World Service (CWS)
Ethiopian Community Development Council (ECDC) (secular)
Episcopal Migration Ministries (EMM) (DFMS is its other name)
Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society (HIAS)
International Rescue Committee (IRC) (secular)
Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service (LIRS)
US Committee for Refugees and Immigrants (USCRI) (secular)
United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB)
World Relief Corporation (WR)

And, the word is that a continued steep decline in the number of paying clients (aka refugees) entering the US will cause one or more of the contractors to go belly-up. You can bet the surviving contractors won’t be complaining since the nine are in constant competition with each other for more bodies to place in your towns and cities. A few less contractors won’t cause the remaining larger ones to lose sleep!

See Jim Simpson’s fantastic accounting of the billions the contractors have received from the US Treasury in the last ten years, here.

Secretary of State announces refugee cap for fiscal year 2019—30,000!

09/17/2018 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Update September 23rd: 30,000 may not be final number, here.

Update September 19th: One more reason the Trump Administration could have gone with a ZERO cap this year—320,000 migrants already in US looking to get refugee status, here.

Update September 18th: See why I think a cap of 30,000 was a bad decision, here.

So, I guess Church World Service can get off its “pins and needles!”

trump and pompeo 2 — The President with Secretary of State Pompeo

It was only this morning that we reported that a Church World Service employee announced that there would be no CEILING (aka CAP) announced until December. They sure seem to have gotten their facts wrong, or did they?

There will be much wailing from the usual contractor gang (they wanted the number to be 75,000!), but remember readers that we are under 30,000 this year—we should come in at less than 25,000. (Update: as of today we have admitted 20,919 refugees with only 2 weeks to go in the fiscal year.)

Here is the brief news posted a little over an hour ago at Politico:

Trump administration intends to slash refugee cap

The Trump administration will admit no more than 30,000 refugees to the U.S. in the coming year, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said, down from the current cap of 45,000.

Pompeo announced the lowered ceiling during a press conference Monday at the Department of State headquarters in Foggy Bottom.

Pompeo said the 30,000 cap “must be considered in the context of the many other forms of protection and assistance offered by the United States” and should not be “sole barometer” to measure the country’s humanitarian efforts.

The hawkish turn demonstrates President Donald Trump’s willingness to push hard-line immigration policies in the run-up to the November midterm elections ….

When Trump took office, the refugee cap stood at 110,000. He lowered that to 50,000, and subsequently to 45,000.

It is my opinion that the program won’t be reformed as it should be until the number is ZERO with the understanding that Congress and the Administration must reform the entire program during a moratorium.

Without real reform, as the Lancaster, PA Church World Service employee said: they will just wait out this president and claim they need huge numbers in 2021 or 2025 to make up for Trump’s lost years.

Will the Administration and Congress follow the law in the next few weeks?

The Refugee Act of 1980 requires the US State Department, in conjunction with the President, to present a detailed Report to Congress explaining how many refugees they would like to admit and from where they will come.

The report should arrive in Congress weeks before the end of the fiscal year (September 30th) and BEFORE refugees begin arriving in the new year. The House and Senate Judiciary Committees are supposed to hold PUBLIC hearings and “consult” with the Administration on that report.

Where is the report? Has it been made public? How can they go forward with resettlement on October first with no guide as to which refugees will get priority?

After consultation with Congress about The Report, the President then is supposed to make his final determination.

Of course they haven’t been following the law for years, so it remains to be seen if they will this year or not.

We will be waiting with great anticipation to see if the first of the new batch of 30,000 begins arriving on October first (2 weeks from today!).