Pittsburgh paper: HIAS remains defiant in wake of synagogue murders

The Pittsburgh Post-Gazettes headline is this:

Pittsburgh’s Jewish refugee resettlement agency, HIAS vow to continue work after threats, Squirrel Hill shooting

 

The story paints a picture of a ‘non-profit‘ group that is all about welcoming the poor and downtrodden to America, but never mentions the fact that it is more than 50% funded by US and state taxpayers many of whom do not share its open-borders views and would prefer their tax dollars be spent on America’s needy people.

HIAS received $186 million from taxpayers in the last ten years, here.  Its CEO is paid over $300,000 annually.

And, like virtually all mainstream media stories about the horrific attack on innocents, The Post-Gazette, mentions not one word about that fact that HIAS is paid to do its ‘good works’ by the US government.

As I said here.

It is fine and dandy if HIAS wants to hold anti-Trump political rallies, sue the President and organize for the Tuesday midterms, but doing those things while accepting millions of taxpayer dollars every year strikes most people as fundamentally unfair!

 

white house CWS and HIAS
This is from an anti-Trump protest in January of this year put on by Church World Service, HIAS and CAIR   https://refugeeresettlementwatch.org/2018/01/28/church-world-service-and-hias-join-cair-to-protest-at-white-house/

 

Here is a bit from the deficient Pittsburgh Post-Gazette story:

The Jewish refugee resettlement agency in Pittsburgh remains defiant in its work despite the connection Saturday’s mass shooting at a Squirrel Hill synagogue shared with its mission.

[….]

“These [sites] are echo chambers where people just get angrier and angrier and angrier about falsehoods,” said Mark Hetfield, CEO and president of HIAS — formerly the Hebrew Immigration Aid Society. “I mean, what harm was this congregation doing by welcoming refugees in a religious service?”

HIAS pie chart
Charity Navigator reports that in 2016, HIAS was 58.5% funded by government grants mostly to resettle refugees.    https://www.charitynavigator.org/index.cfm?bay=search.summary&orgid=3820

Mr. Hetfield said that he’s aware of several “hate sites and hate sites masquerading as issue-oriented sites” that have attacked the work of HIAS and JFCS.

“But they’ve just been words so far, but as we see now, words lead to action.”

Mr. Hetfield said HIAS has in the past had a designated person monitor social media for threats but the organization will be “totally changing” its strategy.

“I mean we did not know about this murderer on Gab, we were not following Gab. We do not follow these hate-filled fora, but we need to,” he said. “And then we need to figure out what do we do when we see things. We see things every day against us.”

That is an example of how out of touch with most Americans these open borders leftwing groups are, they didn’t know about Gab?  This is a prime example of why the Dems were so shocked at the 2016 election of Donald Trump.

Mr. Hetfield said the physical security strategy has changed as well since Saturday. Armed guards now surround HIAS offices in New York City and Silver Spring, Md. He likened the change to how he felt after 9/11.

JFCS has begun closely monitoring social media and re-evaluating security since the attack happened; it had also not known about Mr. Bowers prior to Saturday.

Go here for more.

See if you can find one word about how HIAS is a US State Department contractor that is paid by the head to place refugees in towns and cities of their choosing (behind closed doors in conjunction with the US State Department).

If HIAS, the US State Department, and the mainstream media were transparent and honest about how refugee resettlement is carried out in America, citizen taxpayers wouldn’t get so frustrated.

So, why aren’t they more transparent?

I have a guess, but I would like to hear what they say for a change!

Endnote: I did see an AP story sometime in the last week that did mention (briefly!) that HIAS receives taxpayer dollars, but couldn’t find it again.

 

 

Dozens of Australia’s rejected asylum seekers offered a ticket to the US, turned it down, see why…..

They heard they would have to work in America!

This is another in my ever-expanding archive about that Obama “dumb deal” (honored by President Trump) to take 1,250 of Australia’s detained illegal aliens to the US as refugees.

Readers need to know that this whole scheme is outside the normal internationally understood process for dealing with asylum seekers and economic migrants.  Simply put:

Australia’s illegal aliens are not our problem!

Do we expect Australia to take some of those crossing our borders illegally now—of course not.  It would never happen.

Several hundred of the mostly single Muslim men have already been quietly placed in your towns and cities.  See here.

 

nauru refugees 2
Prospective ‘New Americans’ were apprehended over five years ago attempting to break in to Australia. They have been in detention ever since.

 

Thanks to reader ‘Father Jon‘ for alerting us to this jaw-dropping bit of news.

From the UK Daily Mail:

A total of 71 asylum seekers on Nauru have turned down the chance to move to the US after discovering they would need to work and wouldn’t get free welfare.

Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton claimed those who who rejected the move were not ‘genuine’ refugees.

Mr Dutton claimed their reluctance to take up the opportunity proved they were simply economic migrants trying to take advantage of generous welfare systems.

He told The Daily Telegraph: ‘People who have refused to take a place in the US are not genuine.

‘Millions of refugees have gone to the US and may have died trying because it’s one of the greatest countries in the world.

Reports have come back to people on Nauru it’s all a bit financially tight there because you have to get a job and there’s no welfare there.’

More here.

But, don’t anyone tell them that they do get welfare here as well! 

1,830 refugees arrived in the US in first month of FY19, welcomed by 43 states

In the first month of Fiscal Year 2019, Trump’s State Department admitted its initial group of refugees, mostly UN-selected, toward its proposed cap of 30,000 for resettlement  this year.

They are being quietly distributed to approximately 170 towns and cities.

If the DOS kept this same pace, 1,830 a month, we would come in just under 22,000 for the year that ends September 30, 2019.   In fiscal year 2018, we admitted 22,491 as the final number. (These numbers do not include the thousands granted asylum each month or the Special Immigrant visa entries who mostly come from Iraq and Afghanistan and get the same benefits as the regular DOS refugees.)

Here (below) is where they went (from Wrapsnet).

Washington state gets the honor of being the number one welcoming state for the month.

 

Screenshot (776)

Screenshot (777)

 

1,615, or 88%, came from 4 countries:  DR Congo (608), Eritrea (358), Ukraine (345), and Burma (304).

362 of the total 1,830 are Muslims of one sect or another with the largest number 126 from Burma.  Those would most likely be Rohingya Muslims.

This post is filed in two categories for your future reference:  Refugee statistics and Where to find information.

 

 

How more of your money flows out of Washington to non-profit groups that ‘help’ immigrants and refugees

The grant program is known as the ‘Ethnic Community Self-help Program’ run out of the federal Office of Refugee Resettlement (HHS).

At one point I followed their activities closely and began a file on it, see here, but too much breaking news pushed the subject to the back burner.

Money machine

First, as you know, nine federal resettlement contractors*** are hired by the US State Department to place refugees in your towns and cities.  Their job is to help the refugees settle in and get them signed up for their ‘services.’

You also know that the nine are paid by the head to place those refugees, but in addition the Office of Refugee Resettlement doles out many millions more each year to non-profit groups including those nine in the form of discretionary grants.

But, what you might not know is that an entire cottage industry of non-profits have sprung up which get federal grants in most cases to benefit their specific ethnic group—Ethnic Community Based Organizations (ECBOs for short).

The grants are ostensibly to help the refugees integrate into a community, but one might wonder then why the funding is specific to groups that are maintaining their own cultural identity. 

If such a helping hand is needed in certain cities, why isn’t the money given to local government agencies to help all ethnic groups, all races and all religions, instead of favoring one ethnic non-profit group over another?  Seems to me that the present system creates division rather than integration.

Here is what ORR says about the grant program.

Pay attention to the list of what you are paying for—getting refugees their resources, building their community, getting them involved in local “civic participation” (aka voting!), and getting local citizens minds right about the immigrants’ presence in the community!

In other words, you are paying for ethnic non-profit groups to organize in your community.  Remember ACORN? Well these are little ACORNs!

(Don’t you just love this deceptive language!)

The Ethnic Community Self-Help program supports ethnic community-based organizations in providing refugee populations with critical services to assist them in becoming integrated members of American society.

Program Description

The Ethnic Community Self-Help program provides assistance to refugee community-based organizations and other groups that:

Address community building
Facilitate cultural adjustment and integration
Deliver mutually supportive functions
Information exchange
Civic participation
Resource enhancement
Orientation and support to new and established refugees
Public education to the larger community

Ethnic Community Self-Help programs connect newly arrived refugees to community resources [aka welfare!—ed]. Ethnic Community Self-Help programs target all ORR populations, and all U.S.-based governmental and certified non-profit organizations are eligible to apply.

What is up with ORR that much (maybe all!) of their grant information is out of date!

Over the years, I’ve visited ORR and found lists of who was receiving grants and for how much, but that information is not available now.

Oh sure, you can get the old ECBO grants list.  But those grants have expired.  Check it out and see that they passed out nearly $4.5 million to a list of ECBOs around the country.  Those grants expired in 2017.

So, maybe the Trump Administration has cut out the program?

The answer is NO! 

Just this month the ORR put out a notice of two upcoming grants.  One of those is for ECBOs.  Although the money is less than in the past—$2 million instead of over $4 million—13 non-profit groups will rake in $100,000-$200,000 each.

Here is the information on the ECBO grant offering:

 

Screenshot (771)

 

An aside:  For all of you who have ever tried to get a conservative non-profit group/Tea Party up and running you know that this is one heck of a lot of money. Of course, grants like this are not available to you!

When I couldn’t find an up-to-date list of grantees right now, I emailed ORR and was sent the list below.  However, it is lacking in information—no grant amounts and no end date—so who knows if these little ACORNS are still enjoying your tax dollars.

 

Screenshot (769)
Your tax dollars went to grants ($100,000-$200,000 each) so they could get their ethnic group established, and for refugees to get their “resources” in your cities. 

 

Just a reminder:  When you see something here at RRW that you are concerned about, let the President know how you feel, here.

 

***Below are the nine federal refugee resettlement contractors.

The present US Refugee Admissions Program will never be reformed if the system of paying the contractors by the head stays in place and the contractors are permitted to act as Leftwing political agitation groups, community organizers and lobbyists paid on our dime!  

And, to add insult to injury they pretend it is all about ‘humanitarianism.’

The number in parenthesis is the percentage of their income paid by you (the taxpayer) to place the refugees into your towns and cities and get them signed up for their services (aka welfare)!  And, get them registered to vote eventually!

From my most recent accounting, here.  However, please see that Nayla Rush at the Center for Immigration Studies has done an update of their income, as has James Simpson at the Capital Research Center!

Pittsburgh Mayor Peduto refused to meet the President yesterday

Surely you know all about Democrat Mayor Bill Peduto shunning the President and his family when they went to Pittsburgh yesterday to pay their respects to those murdered in the synagogue attack last Saturday.  Here is one of many stories about the Mayor’s snub.

And, here is Peduto with Chris Matthews:

 

 

By the way, the Rabbi, who was leading services on Saturday when the attack happened, welcomed the President saying “he is my President.”

So, what does this have to do with RRW?

Let’s take a trip down memory lane!

Mayor Bill Peduto was one of 18 mayors who signed a 2015 letter to then President Obama telling the President that 10,000 Syrian refugees for America in the upcoming fiscal year was too few and they wanted Obama to ultimately admit 100,000.

The letter was organized by Cities for Action which says it is: “A coalition of city governments who stand in support of stronger cities through immigration action.”

As you know, President Trump is permitting very few Syrians to enter the US at the present time.

If you missed it in 2015, here are the 18 mayors pressing Obama for more Syrian refugees for their cities:

Ed Pawlowski, Mayor of Allentown, PA
Stephanie Rawlings-Blake, Mayor of Baltimore, MD
Martin J. Walsh, Mayor of Boston, MA
James Diossa, Mayor of Central Falls, RI
Mark Kleinschmidt, Mayor of Chapel Hill, NC
Rahm Emanuel, Mayor of Chicago, IL
Edward Terry, Mayor of Clarkston, GA
Nan Whaley, Mayor of Dayton, OH
Domenick Stampone, Mayor of Haledon, NJ
Pedro E. Segarra, Mayor of Hartford, CT
Eric Garcetti, Mayor of Los Angeles, CA
Betsy Hodges, Mayor of Minneapolis, MN
Bill de Blasio, Mayor of New York City, NY
Jose Torres, Mayor of Paterson, NJ
William Peduto, Mayor of Pittsburgh, PA
Javier Gonzales, Mayor of Santa Fe, NM
Francis G. Slay, Mayor of St. Louis, MO
Stephanie A. Miner, Mayor of Syracuse, NY

Some posts on that campaign by the leftwing open-borders mayors, especially Pittsburgh’s Mayor Peduto, worth revisiting:

18 US Mayors tell Obama: We want MORE Syrian (Muslim) refugees!

Pittsburgh letter writer: Mayor is wrong to invite Syrian refugees to city

ACT for America launches citizen action campaign urging 18 mayors to re-think their demand for more Syrian refugees

Pittsburgh, PA Mayor Peduto: Bring us Syrian Muslims!

 

And, a few additional posts on Pittsburgh:

Pittsburgh: Jewish agency and Islamic Center working together to bring more Syrians to the city

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette editorial: Are there holes in US refugee vetting process?

Pittsburgh: Refugees placed in dangerous housing complex….

Jewish refugee resettlement agency: Let’s bring Rohingya Muslims to Pittsburgh (to increase diversity!)

Pittsburgh at “tipping point” as refugee population mushrooms

Pittsburgh working hard to “welcome” refugees

More on refugee mental health issues from Pittsburgh

Pittsburgh: World Refugee Day brought out the diversity, but few Americans

Pittsburgh Catholic Bishop defends Catholic Charities and calls a meeting

And, there are more, but you get the idea!