In just a little over 5 minutes last night Tucker Carlson in a segment on the US Refugee Admissions Program and the President’s efforts to reform it, explains exactly what we have been saying for weeks in dozens of posts.
Especially interesting is the focus on phony Christian charity as Carlson’s millions of viewers learn that it is federal contractors masquerading as charitable religious groups that have successfully lobbied Republican governors—18 so far—to thumb their noses at Trump and ask for more refugees for their states!
It is vitally important that you send this far and wide.Hat tip: Brenda.
The segment begins here:
Don’t miss my post yesterdayabout CAIR sending wet kisses to Maryland Governor Larry Hogan when he became the 18th governor to say his state welcomes more poverty from the Middle East, Africa and Asia.
“It’s a bargaining tool: We’ll take a certain number of refugees. These are the things you will do for us.”
(Melanie Nezer, Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society)
This is just a quick post as I am researching WTH Secretary of State Pompeo was doing when he had a little chit-chat about refugees with the now under- fire Tennessee Governor Bill Lee in October.
U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo
Before I get to the little nugget I discovered in a 2018 Politicoarticle about Pompeo, I want to remind long time readers, and inform new readers, that way back seven years ago (and long before that) the US State Department annually invited comment on the coming years refugee plans.
However, when those so-called scoping meetings began to be dominated by those of us who want the refugee program dumped or reformed, they stopped having the annual (albeit phony) ‘hearings.’
The Trump State Department has had no such opportunity for public input.
I regularly sent in testimony demanding a moratorium on the program and listed ten reasons, most are still applicable today. See them here.
Here is my Number 7:
7) Congress needs to specifically disallow the use of the refugee program for other purposes of the US Government,especially using certain refugee populations to address unrelated foreign policy objectives—Uzbeks, Kosovars, Meshketians and Bhutanese (Nepalese) people come to mind.
“Pompeo is the critical stakeholder,” one refugee advocate said.
Melanie Nezer of the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society. (One of nine federal refugee resettlement contractors.)
Now that he’s served both as CIA director and secretary of state, activists hope that Pompeo has earned an appreciation for the diplomatic leverage having a robust refugee program can give the U.S. in negotiations with other countries.
“It’s a bargaining tool: We’ll take a certain number of refugees. These are the things you will do for us,” explained Melanie Nezer, a top official with HIAS, one of several organizations that helps refugees.
It is time to shut up about the humanitarian BS! A refugee should be someone who is in legitimate need of protection, not a chip in a foreign policy poker game.
Think about that! Your community will be changed forever (while you pay for it with your tax dollars) because refugees being admitted to the US are pawns in US foreign policy wheeling and dealing!
On October 16th, refugee contractor the International Rescue Committee sent out a call to action to Kansans. https://www.rescue.org/announcement/how-make-sure-kansas-welcomes-refugees
The list is growing ever so slowly with the most recent addition being Kansas Democrat Governor Laura Kelly. In agreeing to take an in determinant number of refugees she has agreed that she is okay with the high cost of the care of more impoverished people coming into the country from Africa, Asia and the Middle East and placing that cost on Kansas taxpayers.
When the Refugee Act became law in 1980, Kennedy/Biden and Jimmy Carter said the cost would not fall on the states that ‘welcomed’ refugees, but over the years that is exactly what happened. The feds have shifted the cost to state and local taxpayers.
Incoming refugees are eligible for all forms of welfare and the primary job of the contractors*** who place them is to get them signed up for their services—medical, housing, food, education, and English language/citizenship training—a large portion of which is funded by state and local taxpayers.
Governor Laura Kelly joins seven other governors (by my count) who have said to the UN/US State Department (or to the media), sure send us any number of refugees you want to send us and we will pay for them!
Kansas Joins Other States in Accepting Refugees Under New Trump Rule
Kansas is the latest U.S. state to commit to resettling refugees under a new Trump administration rule that requires cities and states to opt in to the government’s refugee program.
The ultimate example of elections having consequences: Democrat Laura Kelly decides for Kansas rather immigration hawk Kris Kobach.
“I not only consent to the initial refugee resettlement in Kansas as per the terms of the Executive Order, I also welcome them into our state,” Democratic Governor Laura Kelly wrote to President Donald Trump in the letter, made public Wednesday.
With the letter, Kelly joins a small bipartisan list of governors to quickly respond to the new rule, issued in September.
Pennsylvania, Virginia, and Washington state — headed by Democratic governors — and Utah, led by a Republican, previously submitted similar letters to Washington officials.
Pay attention here! For nearly 40 years the US State Department and its contractors (nine today) have called the shots about which would be refugee target towns and cities and the contractors are now fighting tooth and nail to keep that power!
Prior to the Sept. 26 executive order, refugees were either reunited with family or assigned a destination based on a quarterly meeting near Washington, D.C., between government officials and the non-profit organizations that handle resettlement.
They generally placed refugees in communities around the country where the non-profits have offices and staff to help refugees, especially during their first year in the U.S. [The Leftwing contractors have been deciding which communities to turn blue—ed]
While there have been some cities and states, like Tennessee, that in previous years attempted to block refugees, such cases are rare. Resettlement had occurred in every U.S. state, territory, and the District of Columbia since 2003, according to U.S. State Department arrival records. [Wrong here! Wyoming has never taken refugees, Hawaii gets very few and Biden’s Delaware is near the bottom of the list.—ed]
By requiring consent, the Trump administration is allowing states and localities to bar refugee resettlement in their areas.
If you thought that maybe your governor could say that you would take a certain number of Middle Eastern Christians, you are WRONG! Again, by agreeing to ‘welcome’ refugees, your governor is saying your state will take any number from anywhere in the world!
Despite the consent requirement, state and local governments will not be able to choose which refugees it wants to accept, or to exclude certain groups.
[….]
The new rules will affect resettlement beginning June 1, 2020, according to an emailed statement from an agency spokesperson.
Written consent will be required from the state governor’s office and the chief executive officer of the county or county equivalent for each jurisdiction where refugees will be resettled, the spokesperson added.
Any cut-off date for the consent letters is unknown. The State Department did not respond to a request for clarification Thursday. [You need to get on this immediately, don’t wait to contact your governor and your county government.—ed]
Go to the VOA piece and see some of the governors’ letters.
I am keeping a list of governors who have publicly announced (some may not have sent their letter) that they will take on the financial burden of more impoverished people for their states in my right hand side bar here at RRW.
***These (below) are the nine federal resettlement contractors who might not get their funding for the later part of this fiscal year without approvals from the governor and the county in which they want to place incoming refugees. I say might not because the funding guidelineshave some squishy language.
These are the fake charities funded largely with your federal tax dollars to place refugees and they want to keep the federal money spigot flowing. And, that is why their lobbying arm, Refugee Council USA, has created a “toolkit”for Open Borders agitators.
They could help refugees and immigrants out of their good hearts and private wallets, but heck then they wouldn’t have the financial power to oppose the President.
Editor: Thanks to David James for another excellent analysis of the vital question about the resettlement of refugees in the US—do states have any right to say no to the placement of UN/US State Department selected refugees within their borders?
James says yes, and explains that a Migration Policy Institute paper by a legal expert confirmed that in 2011.
Indeed the original Refugee Resettlement Act of 1980 foresaw an opt-in and in practice that opt-in has been ignored for nearly 4 decades, Trump is attempting to fix that as I have been explainingin recent days.
The primary reason you should be involved now is that you should have a say in how your state and local taxes are spent (not some federally funded NGO operating out of New York City, Washington or Baltimore).
Soros Funded Immigration Think Tank Said States Can Reject Refugees
The self-described non-partisan Soros-fundedMigration Policy Institute (MPI), was light years ahead of President Trump about the limited authority of the federal government to force refugee resettlement in states which say no thanks.
In 2011, the MPI issued apaper titled, The Faltering U.S. Refugee Protection System: Legal and Policy Responses to Refugees, Asylum Seekers, and Others in Need of Protection, written by lawyer Donald Kerwin, Exec. Dir. of Center for Migration Studies and former ED of the Catholic Legal Immigration Network, a subsidiary of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops.
The USCCB is also one of the busiest federal resettlement contractors whose last available financial statement in 2017 showed $50 million dollars in federal grants comprising 94% of the USCCB budget for migration and refugee services.
States have rights!
Kerwin wrote that states need to say yes to refugees before the State Department’s Bureau of Population, Refugees & Migration (PRM) resettles refugees in any state:
Resettlement agencies (many affiliated with VOLAGs] meet with state and local officials on a quarterly basis regarding the opportunities and services available to refugees in local communities and the ability of these communities to accommodate new arrivals. They also consult with the state refugee coordinator on placement plans for each local site. PRM provides ORR and states with proposed VOLAG placement plans. If a state opposes the plan, PRM will not approve it.
During a 2010 U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing, testimony from Fort Wayne, Indiana and Clarkson, Georgia city officials stated that they had never been consulted or given notice by resettlement agencies or PRM about upcoming resettlement plans.
There’s plenty of evidence that even if these consultations actually take place, they only happen between like-minded bureaucrats and not with say, state legislators on the finance committees.
Remember too, that in states which have withdrawn from the resettlement program, the state refugee coordinator is typically an NGO which has its own refugee resettlement program heavily dependent on keeping the federal cash flowing to its bank account.
Another dirty little secret about refugee placements is that decisions about “capacity” at the local level for resettlement is left up to the federal contractors whose financial well-being is directly tied to how many refugees they can bring in during the fiscal year.
The US General Accounting Office found that “capacity” can pretty much mean anything the contractor wants it to mean including its own “long-term funding needs.”
It’s not clear what Kerwin’s basis was for his concession to a state’s authority to reject a proposed refugee resettlement plan. But Tennessee’s lawsuit offers a legally viable and coherent explanation – the federal government’s admission to shifting the costs of its refugee program to state governments in violation of the Tenth Amendment and U.S. Supreme Court precedent.
Not only that, but the refugee resettlement program was designed originally as an opt-in. The 1980 Act has no language authorizing a replacement after state withdrawal but is structured as an opt-in program for states just like other federal spending programs. It wasn’t until 1994, that the state withdrawal/ORR replacement provisions were added to the regulations.
When a state chooses to withdraw from the federal program ORR, gave itself, by regulation, what the enabling legislation didn’t – the authority to appoint a replacement state designee. Importantly, appointing a replacement state designee, is permissive, not mandatory. In each state that has chosen to withdraw, however, ORR has appointed an NGO resettlement agency as the state’s replacement designee. This has resulted in forced state participation and forced state expenditures for the federal program.
President Trump’s Executive Order reads as if a state can override consent by local governments to bring in refugees. However, the operating details won’t be known until HHS and the State Department issue their guidance on the consent.
Of course, the activist judge who will be deciding the lawsuitbrought by the VOLAGs challenging Trump’s order will have to choose between following the law or legislating from the bench.
Local activists would do well to explain the real fiscal implications to their state legislators and governor of the state being forced to pay the federal freight that Congress has chosen to shift to the state, taking state funding priorities away from the state’s most vulnerable citizens.
We’ve been reporting daily (just scroll back and see what I mean!) about the President’s September Executive Orderthat requires that refugees be placed in cities/counties where the elected officials have said in writing that they welcome more refugees, or in the case of new sites where the city or county wants a new site.
It is no wonder the federal resettlement contractors heads are exploding! They are going to have to work really hard to get their federal boodle!
I’ve been wondering how they are going to accomplish this goal by a deadline supposedly later this month.
In fact, I’ve been seeing a reference to a June 1 date that had me scratching my head. What happens then?
This morning, I opened my alerts to yet another sob story about how refugee families are suffering because they were expecting to bring their whole families here soon and now face a longer wait because of that meany in the White House.
The story is this one from Missoula, Montana—which hosts a very new resettlement site operated by the filthy rich International Rescue Committee.***
‘You pray, you pray’: Trump refugee cap places strain on Missoula families
It contains many column inches of stories the Left loves to tell—the stories that count on moving people emotionally. But, it also contained this brief paragraph:
Trump also signed an executive order, set to take effect next summer, that requires resettlement agencies like Missoula’s IRC to obtain state and local government consent before accepting more refugees.
So what is that all about?
There must be guidance published somewhere on how the Executive Order is to be implemented.
Sure enough, here it isand it is evident that the reason for the contractors hitting the panic button is that their FUNDING AFTER JUNE 1 IS TIED TO THEIR COMPLIANCE WITH THE EXECUTIVE ORDER.
FY 2020 Notice of Funding Opportunity for Reception and Placement Program
They must jump through a lot of hoops! They have to explain how they involved the public in their decision making about who and how many they want to place in a community; they need to say how much private money they have collected toward the project; and of course must have letters from the governor AND the local elected officials apparently by Christmas.
The funding guidance mentions the 50-100 mile radius around each resettlement site that I referenced in my post yesterday. If you missed it be sure to go back and see if you live near a site.
You are going to have toread the guidance yourself, and I’ll see what I can do to get a lawyer’s opinion on what appears to me to be a massive bureaucratic undertaking for the contractors. Boo hoo! It is about time they are being made accountable!
Just so you know, I don’t think there can ever be real reform of the UN/US Refugee Admissions Program until this entire contracting system that relies on nine Leftwing ‘non-profits’ largely funded by taxpayers (and who hate the President!) to place refugees throughout America.
***Note to Montanans! You must put pressure on your governor because you know the refugee industry there is mobilized! Additionally, if Missoula is lost, see what you can do to put some political pressure on county government.
***These (below) are the nine federal resettlement contractors who might not get their funding for the later part of this fiscal year without approvals from the governor and the county in which they want to place incoming refugees. I say might not because the 
