Category: Refugee statistics

LA Times headline is deceptive (yes, can you believe it!)

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Here is the headline of an LA Times story yesterday designed to give an impression to lazy readers that President Trump (the meany) has drastically cut refugee admissions.  He hasn’t.

Number of refugees admitted to U.S. drops by almost half

Their story begins:

The number of refugees admitted to the United States was cut by nearly half in the first three months of the Trump administration compared with the final three months of the Obama presidency, reflecting the new president’s skepticism toward immigration.

Further down, at least they try to be honest for readers willing to read more than the headline as they report what we reported ad nauseam and that is that the outgoing Obama State Department was pouring refugees in to the US at a phenomenal rate.

Obama at the UN last September just as he was opening the flood gates (wide!). http://www.lavocedinewyork.com/en/un/2016/09/21/obama-at-the-un-global-refugee-crisis-most-urgent-test-of-our-time/

The data suggest that the Obama administration, as it was about to turn over power to Trump, significantly stepped up the number of refugees admitted. Arrivals in its final three months reflected an 86% year-over-year increase compared to the same period the previous year.

In Trump’s first three months, arrivals were 12% lower than for the same period in the previous year.

But, heck, 12% lower doesn’t make for a headline designed to make President Trump look bad.
Have a look at the data for the last ten years (from Wrapsnet) and see the astronomical numbers that Obama was pushing through the pipeline in the final months of his presidency.
 

 
I’m getting sick of having to show how the mainstream media skews the news on refugees.  I bet you are too!
Then the LA Times story says this:

Trump has sought to limit the number of refugees to 50,000 this year. But adverse rulings in the courts could work against him.

As of today we are at 48,856, and at the present rate of arrivals we will reach 50,000 in a week to ten days.  I have maintained from the outset that Trump can legally slow or outright halt the number being admitted (under the ceiling of 110,000 set by Obama) at any time and will be watching to see how the Supreme Court handles this portion of the case before them.  (Decision is expected at any moment.)

Refugee contractors whine about not meeting 110,000 "target" for FY17

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Broken record alert! (and apologies to all who have been paying attention).
Here is one more whiny report  where the federal refugee resettlement contractors*** bitch to their media lackeys about Donald Trump’s modest slowdown of the UN/US Refugee Admissions Program.  This particular passage in the CBS whinefest caught my attention.

….several refugee resettlement agencies said that at the current pace, they won’t meet their targets for the fiscal year, which runs from October 1, 2016 to September 30, 2017. They also said it was not clear how the United States will accept 110,000 refugees during this period — a ceiling set by President Obama which remains in place.

Fast facts:
~The 110,000 is not a target. It is not a “goal.” It is a CEILING. Any number under the ceiling  is a legal number to be admitted.
~President Obama set the unusually high CEILING on about September 13th, 2016—8 weeks before election day.
~110,000 is the highest CEILING ever set by Obama, so it is outrageous for the media to portray that number as a standard. See this Refugee Processing Center data:
 

 
~Obama did not reach his own CEILINGS in a couple of years (way off in FY 11 and 12). Bush didn’t reach his either.
~If the contractors set “targets” based on 110,000 then that was very poor planning on their part, since most years the CEILING is not met.
~Actually at one point (again see data chart above), the 110,000 CEILING is not shown as still in place as reported by CBS!

If Trump refugee admissions continue at the present rate, he will come in higher than Obama did in two of his years. You would never know that if you hear the contractors whine and their media mouthpieces trumpet their wailing and moaning.

~Even if it is still in place, Donald Trump can legally admit any number under that!
~ Trump did not have to put the CEILING reduction number (50,000) in his Executive Orders.
~The contractors have been agitating for years for the CEILING to be made a target (I sure hope Trump’s lawyers and the Supreme Court understand the distinction and don’t transform it in to a target!).
~As of today, the US Dept. of State has admitted 48,611 refugees this fiscal year.
~The average number of refugees admitted in recent years is in the mid 60,000s.
~At the present rate of  admissions (somewhere around just under 900 a week), Trump’s State Dept. will admit around 62,000 refugees by the end of September. That is higher than 2 of Obama’s years.
~At the rate we were told here in late May (1,500 a week), Trump will admit around 71,000. That number would beat FIVE of Obama’s years.
~The refugee contractors’ budgets are based on a per head payment for the number of refugees brought in.  Fewer refugees=less taxpayer payola for them! Thus they always want more!
 
*** Here for the umpteenth time are the nine federal contractors that monopolize all refugee resettlement in the US, many are more than 90% funded by taxpayers.  We recently learned that EMM is 99.5% funded by you!

 

Syrian 'refugees' in Turkey headed home to celebrate Muslim holiday….

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

….and some plan to stay in Syria!
So, good news on World Refugee Day, right!  Syrians want to go home, so why is the UN distributing them around the world?
From Reuters  (hat tip: Diane):

Carrying suitcases, shopping bags and toddlers, thousands of refugees walked back home into Syria from Turkey on Thursday ahead of the Eid festival that marks the end of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.

Syrians running home! June 15, 2017. REUTERS/Umit Bektas

Turkey has taken in some 3 million Syrian migrants since the start of civil war in 2011, making it home to the world’s largest refugee population.

Now Ankara is giving Syrian refugees the right to return to Turkey within a month if they want to go home to celebrate the Eid al-Fitr holiday.

Some said they wanted to start again in their homeland, and would return within the month if it did not work out, while others said they wanted to return to Syria for good, citing the difficulty of finding employment in Turkey.

[….]

Authorities did not give any figures on how many Syrians have returned so far. A Reuters witness said at least 3,000 people crossed on foot through the dusty Cilvegozu border crossing into Syria during several hours on Thursday.

[….]

The offer to return applies to Syrian nationals with valid travel documents who cross through the Cilvegozu and Oncupinar border gates, authorities said. The Eid al-Fitr holiday begins on June 25. Those who wish to return can do so until July 14.

Anyone who comes back after that will be treated as new arrival and subject to the regular immigration process, a local official at the Hatay governor’s office said.

[….]

Authorities say thousands of Syrians have since returned to Syrian towns freed from Islamic State.

So that must mean it wasn’t Bashar al-Assad’s government they were running from in the first place!
More here.
You should know that the majority of the refugees being processed in to the US right now, by the Trump State Department, are coming in through Turkey.
See processing country map below from Wrapsnet:

Turkey is the number one processing country followed by Kenya. Opportunity for fraud? You betcha!

Refugee admissions not ramped-up yet

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

On the eve of President Trump’s return from his successful world tour, the Department of State sent out an e-mail (according to the New York Times, see my post here) that said refugee admissions would ramp up from an average of 900 a week to 1,500 a week.  Of course that news sent spasms of joy through the federal refugee contractors which get a big chunk of their budget based on the numbers of refugees they resettle.

Sec. of State Tillerson and Trump need to get loyal people in place in the Bureau of Population Refugees and Migration. They do not have to wait on an Asst. Secretary for PRM to be confirmed to begin to get the “Deep State” reined-in.

Once again, this is one reason the UN/US Refugee Admissions Program must be scrapped—it is built on a contractor run set-up where the supposed ‘charities’ must each year base their budget planning on numbers of refugees admitted, nevermind whether the number is beneficial for America or not.
So, these contractors*** are always pushing for more and more refugees (aka paying clients).
I just checked the numbers this morning from this day a week ago, and it appears that the DOS didn’t even reach the 900 level, let alone 1,500.

The number admitted this week from June 11th to June 18th is 822.

That puts the total admitted so far this fiscal year at 48,256—not far off the 50,000 Trump said he wants.
See my post here explaining why 50,000 is not much of a reduction anyway.
Broken record alert!  Trump did not even have to make any statement about reducing the Obama CEILING of 110,000 for this fiscal year, he had the power to simply slow the flow.  He can legally bring in any number UNDER 110,000.

The 110,000 is a CEILING not a TARGET! He could have stopped on inauguration day when the number was 30,122.

That would have kept the CEILING issue out of the clutches of our rogue courts!  The contractors have been agitating for years to turn the CEILING in to a TARGET and I fear that the courts could make that happen for them.
*** For new readers, these are the nine federal refugee contractors that monopolize the admissions program (and lobby Congress for more and more refugees!).

 

Is State Department refugee data being manipulated? Why are CEILING numbers missing?

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Bill Frelick of Human Rights Watch: “…there is no requirement that the U.S. resettle a single refugee….” https://refugeeresettlementwatch.org/2017/03/31/confirmed-trumps-department-of-state-is-going-back-to-normal-refugee-admission-numbers/

Readers, more important, in my opinion, than the so-called ‘travel ban’ portion of the Trump Executive Orders held up in our power-hungry court system, is the issue of the President’s power to set the CEILING on refugee admissions for the year.
My contention is that he has the right to set the CEILING and change the CEILING without any Executive Order. 
The Refugee Act of 1980 says only that he must “consult” with Congress on an annual determination.  If he changes the number throughout the year (the law envisions a wish to increase the number and is silent on the issue of decreasing it) he must notify Congress.
Since the number set annually is a CEILING (not a target), then there would be no need to even announce any lowering of the number during the year, nor would there have been a need to address a procedure for lowering the incoming numbers in the original law. The Dept. of State and Homeland Security would simply just bring in fewer numbers.
The dirty little secret is that for years, the refugee industry has tried to turn the CEILING in to a target, but at least Frelick is honest.
Frelick of Human Rights Watch (a pro refugee organization) knows that this garbage (the Buffalo story mentioned it again) we keep seeing that there is a minimum 50,000 refugees required under the Act is inaccurate, see what he said here.
It’s the media, the contractors, and the bureaucrat holdovers who are busy bluffing the White House by counting on the fact that no one there understands the program and its history!
And, now as for the missing CEILING data…..

I’ve been following the program since 2007 and Presidents have never reached the CEILING in those years.  Obama came pretty close several times, but he was under the ceiling—by huge numbers—in two years in particular.
See this chart (below) from Wrapsnet for 2006-2016.  Pay close attention to the columns for CEILING and the ultimate admission numbers. See the gap!  It varies from year to year under the CEILING.
 

 
 
In FY11 Obama set the ceiling at 80,000 and came in with 56,424 (a shortfall of 23,576).
In FY12 Obama’s ceiling was 76,000 and he ultimately admitted 58,238 (a shortfall of 17,762).
Did anyone sue President Obama for leaving thousands “stranded in war-torn countries”? No!

There were NO lawsuits and no screams (at least in public!) from the contractors!

Look at this same chart for the end of March 2017 (at that point Wrapsnet still lists the last CEILING set by Obama (110,000) his highest ceiling by far). I discussed it here.
 

 
Now here is the chart for the end of April 2017.  I discussed it here.  See the note!  **FY2017 ceiling is currently in litigation.
 

 
Today, I decided to have a look at Trump’s numbers for May because of my earlier post today about the contractors getting excited by increasing numbers coming in, but what did I find when I checked this monthly update?
Can you see what is missing?
 

 
Incompetence or an effort to obscure the facts?
Did you see it? They have removed the CEILING column arguably the most useful number from this particular data base.
Why?  Is it a deliberate attempt to hide facts? Or, just some dumb mistake by an underling at the Refugee Processing Center (aka Wrapsnet)?  You decide.
And, one last thing, for a chuckle, note how extraordinarily high the numbers were for October, November, December of FY2017 compared to the previous ten years.  Do you think the outgoing Obama Admin. was in a hurry to pour as many refugees in to your towns and cities as they could before getting out of Dodge?  You betcha!