We are still taking ‘refugees’ from safe countries

10/13/2018 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Every so often I check out the Processing Country data at the Refugee Processing Center (Wrapsnet) maintained by the US State Department.

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More frequently I report to you about the nationalities entering the US, but processing country data is very different.

From processing country data, we learn in which countries supposed ‘refugees’ are processed in to the US, but we don’t learn where they came from before they arrived in that country.

I first became aware of this about ten years ago when I noticed that illegal aliens, who arrived by boat at the tiny island nation of Malta in the Mediterranean, were being sent to the US as refugees. (See my explanation of refugees vs. asylum here yesterday.)

What!!! Malta is a safe country in the EU, anyone arriving there claiming to be a refugee by seeking asylum must apply there, not be packed off to the US.

I have a huge file on Malta where this legally questionable movement of mostly Africans to your towns was put in place during the administration of George W. Bush and continues through today.

We are doing the same with Israel and South Africa where migrants get in to those countries from elsewhere (seeking asylum) and we help those governments out by taking some of their excess off their hands.

Heck, we have our own problem on our southern border where illegal aliens cross by the tens of thousands and then ask for asylum.

Are we going to ask Malta, South Africa and Israel to take a few of our excess asylum seekers? (Don’t laugh!)

Here (below) is the end of the fiscal year data table for Processing Country. I’m posting this now because it will disappear by the beginning of November.

Again, just so you know we are not taking Maltese people, South Africans or Israelis to America, the numbers represented here are people from elsewhere who got in to those three countries and are unwanted by those three countries.

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Notice the numbers for Papua New Guinea and Nauru. Those are the Australian rejected asylum seekers we are taking off Australia’s hands in the same possibly illegal manner.

There are probably other questionable processing countries above, but the three I have highlighted are countries which I have followed closely over the years.

The Trump Administration could stop this possibly illegal use of the refugee admissions process in a heartbeat if they wanted to! Congress would not have to be involved!

If you haven’t noticed, I have a link in the right hand corner of RRW for the White House contact information. Please take time to express your opinion to the President.

Twin Falls, Idaho welcomed nearly 3,000 refugees in ten years

10/11/2018 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

I was very interested to see the list of top cities in the US that ‘welcome’ refugees when I published The Tent Foundation/Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service Refugee Hiring Guide the other day.

Where is Twin Falls?

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Today I had a chance to look at the list more carefully and I’ll be darned, I don’t see Twin Falls, Idaho. (If you all check for me and see if somehow I overlooked it, see page 17, 18, and 19 at the guide, here.)

You would think that since The Tent Foundation is Chobani Yogurt CEO Hamdi Ulukaya’s foundation that Twin Falls would be on the list.

Is it possible, I wondered, that Twin Falls welcomed less than 100 refugees in the ten years being analyzed by the Lutheran contractor for the hiring guide?

Important note to readers: I hear from some of you referring to refugees as illegals. They are not. The immigrants we discuss mostly on these pages come to the US through the Refugee Admissions Program signed in to law in 1980. The numbers I’ll be giving you below are primary refugees placed directly in Twin Falls. The data comes from the State Department’s Refugee Processing Center. The numbers below do not include: asylum seekers, asylees, Special Immigrant Visa holders, Diversity Lottery winners, etc. They also do not include secondary refugee migrants. Those are legal refugees placed in another location who have moved, (possibly in this case to Twin Falls) for work or to be with others of their ethnic group. Again, secondary migrants are not included below.

These are all the primary refugees placed in Twin Falls by the US State Department and its local resettlement contractor during the ten year period, 2007-2016 presented in Tent’s Hiring Guide. Data is from Wrapsnet (Refugee Processing Center).

A total of 2,723 were placed in Twin Falls, population 48,260, from 2007 to 2016. (Boise by comparison received 6,918 in the same time period placing it at #29 on the Tent list of top resettlement locations.)

The Twin Falls number of 2,723 should have placed it on Tent’s list (where to find refugees) between Richmond, VA and Lincoln, NE

Screenshot (733)_LI — Twin Falls should be here. I am wondering now how accurate the other numbers are!

When I analyzed the data at Wrapsnet, I learned that Twin Falls ‘welcomed’ refugees from 17 different nationalities during that time period with the largest numbers coming from the following countries:

Bhutan (650)

Burma (620)

Iraq (382)

Eritrea (242)

Iran (229)

DR Congo (217)

Sudan (179)

Afghanistan (85)

Smaller numbers came from 9 other countries surely making it challenging for the school system, the health system and the criminal justice system there to deal with the language barriers and requirements for translation services (just one more cost being passed on to local and state taxpayers!).

I’ll be red-faced, but please let me know if you find Twin Falls on the Tent list of top cities in which employers can find refugee workers.

This post is filed in my ‘Where to find information’ category and in ‘Refugee statistics.’

First FY19 refugees arrive, mostly Africans distributed to 12 states

10/10/2018 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Update October 11th: 35 more came since yesterday. 21 of those were from the DR Congo. Total 108 refugees since October 1.

We told you yesterday that President Trump signed the Memorandum (the Presidential Determination) capping refugee admissions for FY19 which began on October 1 at 30,000.

A total of 73 were admitted yesterday in the first group.

DR Congolese refugees truck — In 2013, the UN asked Obama’s State Department to take 50,000 from the DR Congo over five years. More than 45,000 have arrived so far. The Trump State Department is continuing their resettlement to American towns and cities.

The vast majority (57) are from the DR Congo.

As we previously reported President Trump’s State Department is prioritizing Africans.

I reported here in 2013 that Obama told the UN we would take 50,000 from the DR Congo over five years. We have surpassed 45,000 so far and I will keep you posted about when we go over the 50,000 Obama promised.

I have said repeatedly on these pages that we must get the UN out of the business of choosing our refugees. If we are going to take refugees, let’s choose them ourselves!

We aren’t going to solve Africa’s overpopulation and poverty problems by siphoning off ten thousand (or more) each year.

There are 14 from Afghanistan and two Syrians in this first wave. Nine of the total 73 are Muslims, the remainder are various Christian sects with six from Afghanistan claiming no religion. The two Syrians being placed in Michigan are Muslims.

Below is a map from Wrapsnet showing the states that are ‘welcoming’ refugees in the first ten days of this fiscal year.

Ohio received the most with 16. The top five states were Ohio, Arizona, Vermont, California and Georgia.

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DR Congo tops the list for highest number of refugees resettled in US in FY18

10/08/2018 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

I’ve previously reported that the African country, DR Congo, holds the distinction of being the country sending (at present) the highest number of refugees to US towns and cities.

Congolese-refugees (1) — 35% of the refugees who entered the US in FY18 were from the DR Congo. The UN wants us to take 50,000 total.

Filling Obama’s promise…..

And, I told you that Obama’s State Department promised the United Nations that the US would take 50,000 in total over five years. We are almost there.

Since that promise was made in 2013 we have resettled 46,041 DR Congolese, placed them in 47 states with Texas being the top ‘welcoming’ state.

This years’ data….

The Refugee Processing Center data for FY18, the year that just closed, will be harder to find by next month, so I thought I should capture the numbers here for future reference.

22,491 total refugees were admitted from October 1, 2017 to September 30, 2018. Here is where they came from:

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This post is filed in my ‘Where to find information’ category and in ‘Refugee Statistics.’

Previous posts on the DR Congo are here. You probably recognize the DR Congo because it has been in the news a lot lately due to an Ebola outbreak there.

Libertarian think tank continues criticism of Trump refugee policy

10/04/2018 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

I really don’t get it—why a Libertarian think tank, the CATO Institute is so hot for more refugees for America. I can only assume it has to do with a pro-business orientation (the LEGAL worker issue again). I’m not going to try to figure it out today.

david-bier-cropped — CATO immigration policy analyst David Bier

However, they had a handy graph in a story yesterday criticizing Trump for reducing the overall number of refugees entering the US and pointing out that the number of Christians entering has declined (which is actually a function of the overall decline in numbers). Muslim entrants have declined at an even greater percentage.

This is the latest talking point from the refugee industry—that Trump isn’t admitting enough Christians—and CATO is carrying their public relations water.

Let’s have the debate!

I would really like to see a serious and honest public debate about the economic need for refugee workers, rather than the continued appeals to Americans’ emotions as CATO does here.

This is one of Bier’s wrap-up sentences:

By cutting the refugee program across the board, the Trump administration has not just violated a campaign promise to resettle more Christian refugees—it has condemned many more to desperate poverty, persecution, or death.

Have a debate about labor needs, but leave out the ‘humanitarian’ appeal because we know that isn’t was this is all about.

Here is Bier at CATO: