Category: Taxpayer goodies

Human Rights First and five refugee contractors/others oppose tightening US security

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

I know all of you are distracted this morning by the horrific news out of the United Kingdom in the wake of the latest terrorist attack on innocent people.  I’m distracted too and don’t have the focus to analyze a House bill which was the subject of a hearing last week in the House Judiciary Committee.
First I laughed when I saw this at Human Rights First’s website:
 

 

Human Rights First Press Contact Mary Elizabeth Margolis 212-845-5269

Here is what Human Rights First says about the bill (of course they oppose any tightening of security for immigrants legal and illegal already on our soil or about to enter).
From their website:

Washington, D.C. – Human Rights first today, along with 25 leading human rights, refugee resettlement, and faith organizations, called on the House Judiciary Committee to reject the Michael Davis, Jr. and Danny Oliver in Honor of State and Local Law Enforcement Act (H.R. 2431), a bill that would harm refugees, asylum seekers, and stateless people fleeing persecution. The organizations submitted a joint statement for the record for today’s House Judiciary Committee hearing on H.R. 2431, emphasizing that many provisions in the bill would severely limit access to asylum and undermine U.S. commitments to refugee protection.

“H.R. 2431 undermines our nation’s legal obligations to refugees and would cause unnecessary hardship for refugees seeking and refugees who have already received protection in the United States,” wrote the groups.

H.R. 2431 would significantly increase the use of immigration detention, increase barriers to seeking asylum in the United States by expanding already sweeping inadmissibility provisions that mislabel innocent refugees and victims of armed groups as supporters of terrorism, and deny countless asylum seekers their day in court by requiring expedited removal of broad swaths of immigrants in need of protection.

Continue reading here. (Here is their complete statement on the bill.)
It must be a good bill if they hate it so much!
Below are the groups opposing beefing-up our security (those in red are refugee contractors whose budgets are largely funded by your tax dollars):

Signers of today’s statement include the Asylum Seeker Advocacy Project at the Urban Justice Center, Center for Gender and Refugee Studies, Church World Service, DC-Maryland Justice for Our Neighbors, Friends Committee on National Legislation, HIAS, Hispanic Federation, Human Rights First, Human Rights Initiative of North Texas, International Refugee Assistance Project, International Rescue Committee, Jesuit Conference of Canada and the United States, Jesuit Refugee Service/USA, Latin America Working Group (LAWG), League of United Latin American Citizens, Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service, Multifaith Alliance for Syrian Refugees, NETWORK Lobby for Catholic Social Justice, Northern Illinois Justice for Our Neighbors, Office of Social Justice, Christian Reformed Church in North America, Pax Christi USA, Tahirih Justice Center, The Episcopal Church***, The IMPAC Fund, U.S. Committee for Refugees and Immigrants, and Women’s Refugee Commission.

***The Episcopal Church is probably a stand-in for Episcopal Migration Ministries (also one of nine federal resettlement contractors).
Why on earth Congress continues to fund these groups and ‘religious charities’ which take our money (ostensibly to care for refugees), and then work politically in Washington to weaken our security is beyond me!
For new readers, here are the nine major federal contractors which you pay to place refugees into your towns and cities:

Garden City, Kansas to become new poster-city for the joys of BIG MEAT-generated multiculturalism

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

If you’ve been reading RRW for a bunch of years, you probably heard about the propaganda film featuring Shelbyville, TN that a left-wing-funded media outfit did back in 2007. The film was a whitewashed look at the turmoil created in the town when Tyson Foods ‘welcomed’ refugee (mostly Somali labor) to Shelbyville.
In the Shelbyville flick a local newspaper reporter who wrote a series of stories about the disruption the Somalis had brought to town was the villain in the film that was ultimately shown around the world about how great it was that the locals finally accepted their African brothers.  (Here is one of many posts I wrote about the Shelbyville propaganda film.)
Now, check this out, a new propaganda film (actually two of them) are being filmed this summer in Garden City, Kansas. (That Shelbyville film is too old now, they need something new for the Trump-era.)

Somali workers attend new employee orientation at the Tyson beef meat packing plant outside of Garden City, Kansas. http://100percentfedup.com/how-tyson-foods-is-spreading-islam-in-u-s-forcing-taxpayers-to-pick-up-housing-healthcare-costs-for-refugees-and-destroying-local-towns/

They have villains too!  You will see them discussed in the opening paragraphs here at The Garden City Telegram (read about them yourselves).
Just like the Shelbyville film, the Garden City film(s) will be used to shame other towns in to accepting a flood of third world diversity.
What a coincidence…..
Here (below) are a few snips from this latest news.  Guess what? It is Tyson Foods that brought the ready supply of cheap refugee labor to Garden City too!  What are the odds that this film company will bring up the issue of low wage (cheap!) immigrant labor? Zip! Zero! Nada!
I was going to visit Garden City last summer on my 6000-mile trip to see some of America’s meatpacking towns that have been changed by BIG MEAT, but my local contact (not happy with what has happened to G-C) had a family emergency, so I went to Nebraska instead.
Maybe I should resuscitate my idea about a book that shows how major global corporations, like the meat and poultry industry, are changing America for one reason—Low wage workers means PROFITS for them!
And, then along come these Leftwing film makers to shut up any citizen opposition and help BIG MEAT get its laborers for decades to come!  Makes me wonder if Tyson Foods is helping pay for the project!  Hmmmm!
The Garden City Telegram:

When Lawrence-based documentary filmmakers Tess Banion and Bob Hurst heard this news [about villains in western Kansas—ed], they decided their next project was going to take place in Garden City.

[….]

Their documentary will be a feature length film, so 90 to 100 minutes, and will try to illustrate how Garden City’s diverse culture works by diving deep into immigrants’ stories. [These leftwingers love their “stories,” we need  to get better at telling ours!—ed]

“This is not going to be a journalistic piece,” Hurst said. “It’s more of a portrait. I think it’s more personal and more in depth about the lives of particular individuals who have come to Garden City and have been there for a long time, or new arrivals and what they have gone through personally and what their stories are.”

[….]

Hurst said their goal for their new film is for viewers to reflect on the lives of others, and find that every resident of Garden City is working toward the same goals. [Fascinating admission that they are trying to bend minds—ed]

[….]

To help understand the mindset of long-term Garden City residents, Hurst and Banion have enlisted the help of Nancy Harness, former mayor and longtime resident of Garden City. Harness said she is excited to be a part of the film and hopes that the documentary can serve to be an ambassador for the town.

“I think that the community is unique in how we dealt with the diversity of cultures, and it’s nice to have that be recognized by people from outside the community,” Harness said. “ I think part of my job here is to be an ambassador for Garden City and western Kansas. It’s an intriguing place and interesting community. To be part of the crew to introduce that community to a larger audience is cool.”

Harness said she hopes that residents who are hesitant of immigrants watch the film and reflect on why Garden City has welcomed immigrants in the past.

BIG MEAT changed Garden City!

“Part of what happened was that in 1980, we opened the world’s largest beef packing plant,” she said. “They needed 3,000 folks to just keep the plant running. Well, where are those workers going to come from? When the community decided that’s how they wanted to move forward economically, we basically said as a community we will open our doors to new people because that’s the only way this will work. I hope that this film gives the life-long locals who might be hesitant to this immigrant change a moment to stop and think about how the only reason Garden works is that everybody feels some ownership to it.”

Obviously that is not true—that everybody feels some ownership of the meat industry’s need for cheap labor and its role in changing the demographics of American heartland towns.
And, btw, in case you are wondering, the meat industry once paid wages that were very attractive to AMERICAN workers. It is only when they discovered first the illegal aliens willing to work for less, and then ultimately the refugee laborers whose low wages you subsidize with your welfare support, were they able to keep wages low.
Continue reading here.
Here is a lengthy story from the Wichita Eagle in 2010 with more background on Garden City and Tyson Foods.
One of my favorite stories about Garden City (and Harness role) was this one from 2010 where we learned that Somalis in Garden City wanted their own (separate) publicly funded cemetery. No association with infidels even in death!
Another controversy long-time readers might remember is the one about Emporia, Kansas and how the arrival of the Somali labor force there for, yes, another Tyson Foods plant, roiled the town so much so that Tyson closed the plant!
Don’t miss this post: Trump refugee number reduction could hurt BIG MEAT (at Bloomberg no less!).
Here is one of about 20 posts I wrote on the controversy in Emporia.  Unfortunately most of the links are now dead, so it’s a good thing I did snip articles throughout the period back in 2008.  Some of those Emporia Somalis moved to Garden City.

It is really too bad that there aren’t documentary film makers with some cash to tell the other side of the ‘diversity is beautiful’ story to balance the Garden City films in the works.

Is it time for a modern day version of The Jungle?

Ohio resettlement agency employee talks about his "clients"

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

His “clients” are refugees admitted to the US in recent months.
Yes! for resettlement agencies paid by your tax dollars, the ‘refugees’ they resettle are “clients.”  I think that is a better word than ‘refugee’ since most aren’t legitimate refugees in the first place.

US Together is a subcontracting resettlement agency of the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society, see here.
Here is a bit of the interview at IdeaStream (All things considered) entitled: Uncertain Future Remains For Northeast Ohio Refugee Resettlement Agencies. 
After you listen, I want to give you some facts about what the US Together employee is talking about and on resettlement to Ohio in general.

White House press secretary Sean Spicer yesterday said President Trump’s travel ban order is fully lawful, and he was confident the order would be upheld by an appeals court. The comments came after a three-judge panel from the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in Seattle heard arguments in Hawaii’s challenge to the ban. [As is the case with most reporters, they don’t know the difference between the ‘ban’ and the President’s lawful power under the Refugee Act of 1980 to set refugee admission numbers each fiscal year.—ed]

After the first executive order in January affecting travel from mostly Muslim countries, Northeast Ohio refugee resettlement agencies feared lay-offs and uncertain finances [because they are paid out of the federal treasury!—ed].

Yesterday I spoke with Evan Chwalek with agency Us Together, about how things were going:

CHWALEK: “The way I like to think about it is, there are the things that the judiciary can affect, and the things they can’t affect, and we’ve been able to continue the resettlement process, but because the President has essentially cut the number of refugees admitted to the country in this fiscal year in half, we have fewer refugees to resettle, and unfortunately because of that we had many lay-offs.” [You see how they do this, “cut…in half!” From what, from Obama’s 2017 dream number of 110,000 for a year he would be in the WH for only 3 and a half months!—ed]

GANZER: “How many would you say?”

Hear the whole interview with US Together employee Evan Chwalek here: http://wcpn.ideastream.org/news/uncertain-future-remains-for-northeast-ohio-refugee-resettlement-agencies

CHWALEK: “Somewhere in the neighborhood of 10, I would say, across the Cleveland office, and then we have offices in Toledo and Columbus, as well.” [Chwalek identifies the employees let go as “contractors.”—ed]

GANZER: “And you personally were affected by this. You were laid-off, right?”

CHWALEK: “That’s correct. I was laid-off in February and because of the changes in staff, they actually brought me back on as a full-time employee just three weeks ago.”

GANZER: “Not knowing many of the things that will come through the courts, or what the Administration might do next, what is the mood would you say around Us Together? Is it one of fear, or panic, or optimism?”

CHWALEK: “Fear isn’t the word I’d use. Resiliency comes to mind. Despite the uncertainties of the future, we have to continue offering the day-to-day services to our clients: getting them from medical appointments, applying for Social Security, making sure they understand how to use the bus on the way to work.” [If only poor Americans knew ‘refugee’ “clients” get such “services!”—ed]

[….]

GANZER: “How many families do you think will come to Cleveland this year, projected, would you say?”

CHWALEK: “I don’t really know the answer to that, but I would say somewhere around 175 individuals by the end of this fiscal year, which ends in September.”

GANZER: “In a pre-Trump Administration era, can you compare how many families we can look at?”

CHWALEK: “I look at the arrival sheets, and they are almost completely blank now. We probably had 400 resettled in the last fiscal year, individuals that is.”

[….]

CHWALEK: “We recommend that our clients don’t leave the country.

Chwalek goes on to say they are waiting to see what Trump does for the next fiscal year after admitting that Trump can change the numbers within a fiscal year (either up or down).  We too are waiting to see what the Trump State Department does in September when the Presidential Determination is sent to The Hill for FY18.
First, on this last point I snipped above, if a ‘refugee’ is truly a persecuted person, why would he/she leave the safety of America to risk the danger they supposedly escaped?
I went to Wrapsnet to get a feel for the numbers that Chwalek is talking about.
Look up data for Ohio and you can readily see how deceptive they can be to reporters who don’t have their facts in advance.
I went back to FY12 (in the Obama Administration) and found that the average number of refugees admitted to the whole state of Ohio for FY12, 13, 14 and 15 was 2,709 per year.  Then the numbers jumped in Obama’s last year as he pushed for the huge increase in Syrians.  Ohio “welcomed” 4,194 in FY16 (obviously well above the previous average for 4 years).
So far in FY17 (about 7.5 months) Ohio has received 2,274 refugees.  Again the pre-FY16 average for Ohio is 2,709 for the whole year, so they will likely hit their average this year (excluding the anomaly year FY16).
As for numbers for Cleveland/Cleveland Heights, the average resettlement there was about 75 per month during that anomaly year of FY16 and at this moment Cleveland/Cleveland Heights is getting an average of 60 per month—clearly not so far off the FY16 banner year. Chwalek was rehired because the numbers are not that drastically lower and paying “clients” are still coming in, but they don’t want reporters like this guy Ganzer to know that! The story line they are selling is that Trump is bad and the agencies need money (so please give!).
(There are several resettlement contractors in addition to US Together vying for paying “clients” in Ohio so some of those going to Cleveland are clients of other federal contracting agencies.)
For new readers, in 2013, I alerted Ohioans that the big push was on to diversify Cleveland by seeding it with ‘clients’ of federal contracting agencies like US Together and its parent organization the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society.

Boo Hoo! Charitable organizations which resettle refugees forced to raise private funds

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

You have probably seen them—bushels of stories about how the nine federal resettlement contractors are wailing and moaning as Trump cuts off their refugee/money flow—but I was surprised that the Wall Street Journal didn’t do a little better job of putting it all in perspective.
For new readers like Nancy, here are the nine federal resettlement contractors (aka Volags, short for Voluntary Agencies, Ha! Ha!) that make up the “refugee-resettlement industry:”

 
The WSJ does make it clear that these NON-Profit groups (six are ostensibly religious groups) are paid by the head to place refugees in your towns and get them signed up for their stuff.  For the first few years that I wrote this blog, mainstream media never mentioned that fact!  So, yes, their budgets will vary as they have become almost completely dependent on federal money for their salaries/benefits, office rental, travel, etc.
For them to be whining that they have to raise private money for their ‘religious’ charitable work as refugee numbers vary makes me want to scream. When the Refugee Act of 1980 became law it was supposed to be a public-private partnership, but as the years have passed, federal funding (and state and local funding!) has become a greater and greater share.

Before I give you the latest whine-fest from the WSJ, here is how the contractors got in to this pickle.  Obama set the CEILING for FY17 at 110,000 in his final months in office.  The WSJ tells us it was the highest ceiling since 1995. Thus the contractors were building their budgets on a pipe dream of more paying clients (aka refugees) than they have had for years and years.
That 110,000 was, by far, Obama’s highest ceiling as we have reported ad nuaseum and as you can see in this chart from the Refugee Processing Center and is being used dishonestly as the benchmark for measuring the Trump flow:
 

Note that the US DOS has gotten around to removing the 110,000 ceiling for FY2017. This chart last month still listed it. See last month here: https://refugeeresettlementwatch.org/2017/05/05/despicable-usa-today-says-refugee-numbers-plummet-under-trump-but-were-silent-when-obama-monthly-numbers-were-low/

 
Last night I wondered just how the first seven months of the fiscal year matched up (FY17 runs from October 1, 2016 to September 30, 2017).  At the end of April we are 7 complete months in to the fiscal year, and those wailing contractors have been paid handsomely for 7 months based on the fact that by April 30,2017 we had admitted more paying clients/refugees than any of the previous ten years.  Do the math using the chart above!
As of the end of April, the US admitted 42,414 refugees, the highest number in the first seven months of any of the years since before FY07.  In fact, Bush had the lowest first seven months in 2007—17,150, but even Saint Obama had only 26,181 in FY12 as of April 30th. He never had a year with this high number (by April 30th) in his time in office.

Now here are a few snips from the Wall Street Journal giving the contractors another opportunity to wail and moan!
Although, I have to laugh to see the phrase “refugee-resettlement industry” in the first line!

Even though President Donald Trump’s travel ban has been put on hold, his administration is already reshaping the refugee-resettlement industry.

The Trump administration has cut the rate of refugee arrivals in half in the first months of the year [this is so dishonest!—ed] and charity organizations that settle refugees are slashing their budgets in response.

Has Hetfield slashed his salary? https://refugeeresettlementwatch.org/2016/11/13/hebrew-immigrant-aid-society-lectures-trump-never-mentions-its-pecuniary-interest-in-refugees/

More than half of the nine agencies that are approved by the State Department to resettle refugees in the U.S. have already either laid off staff or frozen hiring. Some agencies have let hundreds of people go. Many are staging fundraising campaigns the help make up for lost federal funding, which is tied to new refugee arrivals but also supports programs for refugees already here.

“We’ve been asked by the State Department to cut our budget twice already,” said Mark Hetfield, president of HIAS, a Jewish nonprofit that resettles refugees in the U.S. HIAS has instituted a hiring freeze. “You can’t manage a program like this.”

[….]

In the last fiscal year, the federal government allocated more than $554 million for refugee admissions, and 84,994 refugees were resettled. More than $227 million of that money was distributed to the nine resettlement agencies, most of them religiously affiliated, that help newcomers adjust to the U.S.

[….]

World Relief, one of the resettlement agencies, began adding case workers in the fall, expecting a huge influx of refugees. At the organization’s 25 offices, case workers shepherd refugees through all aspects of life in America. They pick them up at the airport; set up housing, complete with furniture and clothes; advise them on searching for jobs; and help enroll children in school.

Oopsy!  As Mark Krikorian pointed out on twitter last night the reporter left out one important duty of the contractor in that line above—they sign the refugee up for all forms of welfare and move on to the next client!

WSJ continues….

Resettlement agencies had been hoping 2017 would be a banner year. In September, before the Oct. 1 start of the fiscal year, Mr. Obama announced he would raise the number of refugees allowed into the country to 110,000, the highest total since 1995. Many agencies began staffing up. [Sniffle—ed]

[….]

The nine resettlement agencies contract much of the work settling new refugees out to hundreds of local affiliates. These organizations are paid $2,075 for each refugee they resettle, the majority of which goes directly to refugee assistance. [No! About half goes to the contractor for salaries and overhead!—ed]

[….]

Many resettlement organizations have started fundraising campaigns to try to make up for lost revenue.

Pity! They actually have to go out to the public and look for private charitable dollars for their humanitarian good works.

You know what it means if they can’t find private money?  It means the public is generally not behind their efforts to import poverty and diversify American cities and towns with refugees from the Middle East, Africa and Asia.
Read the whole article here and be sure to see that Mark Krikorian is quoted.

Minnesota Dept of Health needs $5 million to fight infectious diseases in immigrant population

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Hey, since many of the refugees and other immigrants now causing expensive infectious diseases to spread in the state are a result of Obama’s migration policy, maybe he could contribute his $3 million speaking fee to Minnesota as a partial payment to handle the crisis!
Here is the latest news generated by the recent Measles epidemic in Minnesota. As of Tuesday there were 50 diagnosed cases, most (45) are in the ‘Somali community.’
And, we are told that refugees don’t cost state and local taxpayers a dime!
From Michael Patrick Leahy at Breitbart:

Minnesota Health Commissioner Dr. Ed Ehlinger sounded an alert on more frequent and costly threats to the public health, referencing measles, tuberculosis, and even the Zika virus and syphilis, according to a statement released by the MDH on Wednesday as reported by Hometownsource.com.

Remember this story! Gov. Mark Dayton: If you don’t like our Somali refugees, get out of Minnesota because they are here to stay! https://refugeeresettlementwatch.org/2015/10/16/mn-governor-dayton-dont-like-immigrants-get-out-of-minnesota/

“In recent months, state and local public health officials have had to respond to a series of infectious disease outbreaks including multi-drug resistant tuberculosis, hundreds of new cases of syphilis, and now, the largest measles outbreak the state has faced in nearly 30 years. These outbreaks come on the heels of extensive public health efforts in 2016 for the Zika virus response and in 2014-15 for Ebola preparedness,” he added…..

[….]

Minnesota is currently in the middle of the largest outbreak of measles in over twenty years. As of Tuesday, 50 cases of measles have been diagnosed in the state since the first case was reported on April 11, 45 of which have been diagnosed in Somali Minnesotans.

As Breitbart News reported previously, 90 percent of the 168 cases of active tuberculosis diagnosed in Minnesota in 2016 were foreign-born, much higher than the 67 percent of foreign-born cases that accounted for the 9,287 cases of active TB diagnosed in the United States in 2016.

Fourteen of those cases were from newly arrived refugees, eleven of whom were diagnosed with active TB in medical screenings overseas but were nonetheless allowed to resettle in Minnesota by the Obama administration’s Department of Homeland Security.

Continue reading here. The article is chock full of important information and links to follow.
See my ‘Health issues’ category, here, where I have archived 329 previous posts about health issues (including mental health issues) involving the refugee flow to America.
I wondered here if this Measles outbreak started with a newly arrived refugee from Somalia (or from elsewhere in East Africa since a large number of our Somalis come from UN camps in Kenya).
BTW, Slate had a hysterical story the other day claiming this Measles outbreak is Trump’s fault—not because he is admitting infected Somalis, but because he hangs with “Anti-vaxxer pals.”  Huh?