Category: Taxpayer goodies

Jeff Sessions' Justice Department planning to ask for dismissal of TN refugee case; feds say they lack time to deal with it!

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Gee, I wonder why they are so busy?  Of course, you would be living under a rock if you didn’t know that the Dept. of Justice recommended (and the President concurred) firing the Obama-appointed Director of the FBI, James Comey, yesterday.
I joked on twitter that the reason for the firing was because Comey admitted to Congress (without prompting!) that 300 refugees are in the pool of 2,000 cases being investigated by the FBI for reaching out to foreign terrorists.  See yesterday’s pre-firing post here.
In my opinion, in the long run, this Tennessee case is more important for the future of this country than anything to do with James Comey’s firing!

So why does the Trump Justice Department not have enough lawyers to handle a couple of big issues at once?

Now here is what The Tennessean is reporting yesterday about the lawsuit we watched being developed for years.  New readers might want to check this post when the case was filed in March for some background.

The federal government will ask for a dismissal of Tennessee’s lawsuit over refugee resettlement, according to document filed in federal court on Monday.

While seeking more time to file their request, attorneys for the Department of Justice said Tennessee lacks standing and “their claim is unripe.”

In March, Tennessee became the first state in the nation to sue the federal government over refugee resettlement, citing a violation by federal officials of the 10th Amendment. The amendment says the federal government possesses only the powers delegated to it by the U.S. Constitution, with all other powers reserved for the states.

The lawsuit argues the federal government has unduly forced states to pay for refugee resettlement programs.

The federal refugee act was designed to create a permanent procedure for the admission of refugees into the United States.

The lawsuit asks the court to force the federal government to stop resettling refugees in Tennessee until all costs associated with the settlement are incurred by the federal government.

In a brief response to the state’s lawsuit, federal attorneys say the state’s claims “lacks merit.”

Chad Readler, former Jones Day attorney, heads the Civil Rights Division responsible for the case. http://www.law.umich.edu/newsandinfo/features/Pages/ChadReadler_050917.aspx

Give me a break! Hire more lawyers if you can’t get the work done!

While explaining that they’d like until June 1 to prepare for their request for dismissal of the lawsuit, DOJ attorneys say they’ve been preoccupied with other matters.

“Defendants’ counsel have worked diligently to prepare their motion to dismiss, but due to the number and complexity of the issues, and the unexpectedly heavy press and urgency of business in other litigation for which undersigned counsel is responsible, Defendants require additional time,” the filing states.

Chad Readler, who has been involved in federal court cases related to President Donald Trump’s executive action on sanctuary cities, is among several attorneys for the federal government handling Tennessee’s lawsuit.

Continue reading here.
Silver lining….
The Thomas More Law Center does excellent work and if Trump’s Justice Department doesn’t keep the case out of court (as they appear to be aiming to do!) then a lack of knowledgeable and skilled federal attorneys defending the UN/US Refugee Admissions Program may be a good thing!
Always a very wild card these days is if the case is heard by a politicized judge!

If your city has low income housing (or a greedy meatpacker nearby!) you could get refugees

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

https://refugeeresettlementwatch.files.wordpress.com/2017/01/e44ac-prmnewsitedevelopment_28nov2016.pdf

During the final years of the Obama Administration, the US Department of State created a little booklet for communities to use to help plan for their town to be a new resettlement site.
This morning, reader Joanne sent this news from Colorado: Ft. Collins hasn’t enough low income housing so refugees are not being placed there in any numbers.
I’ll give you the news and then send you to places where you can learn more about the refugee program.  (Commenter Nancy, in a followup e-mail, asked to be further educated!).  Apologies to long-time readers who find the repetition boring!

FORT COLLINS COLORADOAN – While national rhetoric on immigration, presidential executive orders and international factors slow in the number of refugees settling in the U.S., a lack of affordable housing has all but halted refugee resettlement in Fort Collins, experts say.

Just 13 refugees have resettled in Fort Collins since 2002, and none have moved to the city since 2012, according to newly compiled data from a USA TODAY Network investigation. Eleven of those refugees came from Iraq, and the remaining two came from Chad and Sudan.

“Housing drives where refugees live,” said Kit Taintor, Colorado’s State Refugee Coordinator.

This is a photo I took on my fact-finding mission in the heartland this past summer. Meat giant JBS (formerly Swift & Co) is a Brazilian-owned company that encourages Somali refugee labor, and as such it is changing the demographic make-up of Greeley, Colorado.

Cities the size of Fort Collins can serve as a boon for resettlement options, she said. But Fort Collins’ lack of affordable housing coupled with student competition for rentals in the university town has significantly limited resettlement options, making matters “really challenging.”

Greeley refugee flow is no great surprise! Taintor is not completely correct, meatpackers drive where refugees live too! (See ‘Big Meat braces for refugee shortage,’ here.)

The Coloradoan continues….

Despite the low number of refugees settling in Fort Collins, a radically different story continues to unfold in a Northern Colorado city just 30 miles away.

Since 2002, 1,110 refugees fleeing war, genocide and other ills in their home countries resettled in Greeley, a figure that has inched upward annually since 2009. Data show 270 refugees were settled in Greeley last year, and nearly all of them came from Burma and Somalia.

More here.  Not a word about the labor draw created there by a BRAZILIAN-OWNED COMPANY! Think about it, they get a ready-supply of cheap labor and you pay for the refugee family’s welfare, housing support, medical care and education for the kids—what a  business model!

Refugee resettlement is not first and foremost about humanitarianism! It is about money! And, that is why you do not see any move toward reform from the Republican leadership in Congress!

Your short tutorial begins here:

Read the Department of State’s ‘New Site Development Guide,’ click here.
The DOS mentions that the UN High Commissioner for Refugees selects most of our refugees.  Here is a flow chart from the federal Office of Refugee Resettlement confirming that registration with the UNHCR is a first step.  But, please note that they are messing with the definition of a refugee when they say “war” makes one a refugee.  ‘Persecution’ makes one a refugee so just running from war and crime should not make one a legitimate refugee entitled to permanent resettlement.
The Open Borders Left wants every person on the move for any reason (including climate!) anywhere in the world to be considered a refugee! The Dems in the US want the reliable left-leaning  voters!

 

 
 
Now see some pages from the ‘New Site Guide:‘
These are the Nine Federal Resettlement Contractors (also known as “national volags”—ha! Voluntary Agencies that monopolize the program).
 

 
 
What does your town need to be a resettlement site:
 

Welfare, jobs, affordable housing, and citizen activists (Interfaith groups!) to smooth the way and silence the opposition!

 
By the way, under Obama, the DOS was identifying over 40 new sites.  We sure would like to know if the Trump DOS is still developing those sites!
You can find out if your town or city is already one of the hundreds of sites by clicking here.  If the Trump Administration slows the flow significantly (50,000-60,000 is NOT significant in my view!), then new sites need not be developed!
You can find your state refugee coordinator by clicking here.
My ‘Ten Things Your Town Needs to Know’ is here.

What do you do? The bottomline is this!

Either Trump and Congress rein-in the program (not seeing any serious effort yet) or you must fight at your local level to stop programs like those to expand low-income housing,  demand transparency in the resettlement process, expose corporations and politicians bringing in cheap labor, get a ‘welcoming’ mayor and council members unelected, oppose sanctuary city status, and oppose the work of so-called “interfaith” groups pushing diversity in your town. In other words—community organize!  I know—a tall order!
For new readers, this post is filed in our category ‘Where to find information’ which archives 541 previous posts! Happy reading!

Can we call Minnesota Somali Measles outbreak an epidemic yet?

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Michael Patrick Leahy at Breitbart has been doing great work digging in to the Minnesota Somali measles outbreak which we first reported here on April 20th.
Health officials in Minnesota predict it is going to get worse before it gets better and you can bet it is costing the state taxpayers a bundle to track and treat.

Kris Ehresmann is director of the Infectious Disease Epidemiology, Prevention and Control Division at the Minnesota Department of Health. Photo: http://www.mprnews.org/story/2009/10/16/ehresmann

Did you know that Measles was considered eradicated in the US in 2000?  I didn’t!
New cases are coming in with the new immigrants, most likely the refugee flow that Trump has not curtailed!
Here is Leahy yesterday:

The Minnesota Department of Health (MDH) announced on Friday afternoon that the number of confirmed cases of measles in the state has now increased to 44, three more than had been confirmed 24 hours ago, and ten more than had been confirmed 48 hours ago.

Of the 44 total cases, 41 are in Hennepin County, two are in Ramsey County, and one is in Crow Wing County.

Forty-two are “confirmed to be unvaccinated.” Two “had 2 doses of MMR.”

Forty-three of the cases are “in children ages 0 through 10 years,” while there is “1 case in an adult.”

MDH reports that “38 of the cases are Somali Minnesotan.”

[….]

“Once measles begins to spread in unvaccinated populations, it can be very difficult to stop,” Kris Ehresmann, director of infectious disease control for MDH, said in the statement.

“We would not be surprised if we saw additional cases in other parts of the state where there are clusters of unvaccinated people before this is over,” Ehresmann added.

[….]

“Measles was declared eliminated in the U.S. in 2000, but it is still common in other parts of the world. Ehresmann noted that Europe is currently experiencing a significant measles outbreak. [Gee, I wonder why?—-ed]

Continue reading here.

So where have Trump’s Somalis been placed in Minnesota?


When trying to figure out the source of the initial case of Measles in the state, the first group to be analyzed should be refugees admitted to the US in recent months! 
As we have reported on many occasions, the US State Department and DHS do not weed-out sick refugees.
The Minnesota Department of  Health should find out which Somalis entered the state within the disease’s incubation period.  Of course they will have trouble finding out who is ‘just visiting’ since there is no travel ban in place and as far as I know there is no way to track those who get in as visitors.  And, never forget, Somali, so-called refugees, are traveling back and forth to Africa all the time (so much for fearing persecution!).
For your edification, here (below) is where 193 new Somali refugees were placed in Minnesota since President Trump was inaugurated.
Overall (as of today, May 6th) Trump has welcomed 1,394 Somalis since inauguration day. Minnesota is the number one state, but as we reported here, some placed in other states pack up quickly to get to Minnesota as ‘secondary migrants’ to join their own kind of people and avail themselves of the more generous welfare that they get in MN.
(I am having trouble with screen shots these days, so forgive the lousy shots below).
From Wrapsnet:


For new readers, we have 328 previous posts in our ‘Health Issues’ category, click here to learn more about the many diseases, parasites, and mental health issues involving the refugee flow to America. You will see that TB is an especially big problem in the refugee flow.

(Only) 237 Somalis have been removed from US since last October; not thousands!

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

I was pretty excited to report here that we were stepping up deportations of illegal alien/criminal Somalis, that thousands would be removed. But, now I see that even that administration effort is really not much to write home about!
The news here, if it is accurate, is that ICE won’t arrest illegal Somalis (who are not in detention) at their homes or work places.  Already, “sensitive places” such as schools, places of worship and hospitals are off limits.

Trump’s ambassador to Somalia (Stephen Schwartz) gives Somalia’s new Prez a special gift. A better gift might be to give Somalia back its people instead of hauling them by the thousands to the US! We will see how many of their illegal aliens they will repatriate as well! Photo: http://tribunist.com/news/american-ambassador-gives-make-somalia-great-again-hat-to-somalian-president/

So are we expected to believe that federal agents are going to wait on the streets to nab them coming and going from home to mosque? Only, if we hire a lot more agents!
Over the many years I’ve written RRW there would be flurries of pronouncements that Somalis in the country illegally would be sent back to Somalia and each time there would follow squishy, mealy-mouthed discussions about how can we do such a thing (send people back) because Somalia is still a hellhole!
Is Somalia ever NOT going to be a hellhole? Is this administration headed that way (to weakness and squishy talk) again?
In case you missed it, Trump has admitted 1,359 supposedly persecuted (by whom?) Somalis since inauguration day.
According to Wrapsnet (as of today) the US ‘welcomed’ 5,167 Somalis in FY17 (so far).  And, we are supposed to be excited by the removal of 237 of them in that same time frame?  Net gain is 4,930 since October of 2016!

Here is the latest at Voice of America:

Somalia’s ambassador to the U.S., Ahmed Isse Awad, says U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has informed his embassy the agency will no longer arrest illegal Somali immigrants in their homes or at their workplaces. However, federal authorities have not confirmed that there has been any shift in policy.

Awad said the agency reached the decision after his embassy expressed concern to immigration authorities regarding the recent arrests of 11 Somalis in Virginia, Minnesota and Georgia.

“Once we found out that 11 Somalis were arrested from their homes for removal, we thought the arrests looked [like] profiling and targeting Somalis. Then we submitted our concern to ICE and asked clarification,” Awad told VOA’s Somali service. “Fortunately, they came back to us tell us that they would no longer arrest Somalis from their homes or at their workplaces.”

[….]

However officials have previously said that ICE does not have specific exemptions in place for certain groups of people. The agency policy currently directs that anyone in violation of immigration laws may be subject to arrest, detention and removal from the United States.

Authorities say the agency’s policy directs personnel to avoid conducting enforcement activists at “sensitive places” such as schools, places of worship and hospitals, unless they have prior approval from a supervisor.

The U.S. government said almost 5,000 Somali nationals in the United States face deportation orders.

“As of April 1, 2017, there were 4,801 Somali nationals with final orders of removal,” ICE spokesman Brendan Raedy said last week. “As of that same date, 237 Somali nationals have been removed to Somalia in fiscal year 2017.”

[….]

Most of the Somalis facing final orders of removal are not in detention centers and are unlikely to be removed in the near term because their cases are making their way through the system. [I thought they said most had failed their asylum bids?—ed]

Since Somalia’s embassy in Washington reopened in November 2015, the ambassador said, about 170 Somali immigrants who either ran afoul of U.S. law or had their asylum applications rejected have been deported to Mogadishu, the Somali capital.

Most of those previously deported had applied for, but been denied, political asylum in the United States, he added. Another group of Somali applicants whose requests for asylum have been denied are now in detention centers or prisons, awaiting deportation.

Big Whoop!

Fewer than 300 Somalis are scheduled to be moved out in the next couple of months, Awad told VOA, adding that his embassy was awaiting information from U.S. authorities on who the deportees were and when they would depart.

And, as soon as they get that information, they will tell those Somalis to head to Canada ASAP!
See our category ‘Trump Watch’ for more on what Trump has changed and what he hasn’t changed regarding refugees.

Fishy, fishy, fishy! PBS relates tall tales from US to Canada border-crossers!

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

You’ve heard the news, we’ve reported it for months, that fearing the Trumpster, migrants are flooding to the Canadian border into Prime Minister Trudeau’s waiting and welcoming arms.
Here we have PBS interviewing a couple of Africans who feared if they stayed in the US, Trump would be rounding them up to return them to Africa. Their tales of woe are transparently and obviously fishy!
The Somali woman, we are first introduced to, risked a winter trek across the US/Canada border with a small child even though we are told she was in the US LEGALLY.  There are only a few possibilities: She was NOT in the US legally; she is shopping for a better welfare deal in Canada; or she is a nut.  In any case, Canada can have her!
 

Lisa Desai hides face of Somali woman for her “safety”? Why is she unsafe in Canada? She clearly has escaped the grasping arms of Donald Trump’s Justice Dept.

PBS:

LISA DESAI: Much of the four thousand mile American border with Canada is wide open and unsecured. In the first three months of this year, a steady stream of immigrants from all over the world braved the bitter cold to reach a country where they believe there’s less risk of detention and deportation. [Lisa doesn’t report that the upward trend of border crossers began while Obama was still President and the expectation was that Hillary would be the next one, so this isn’t a new phenomenon—ed]

Just north of Minnesota and North Dakota lies the Canadian province of Manitoba. The town of Emerson is a main entry point. An hour’s drive north is the provincial capital, Winnipeg, a city of 700-thousand. That’s where I met this woman from Somalia.

For her safety, we agreed to shield her face and call her “Nasra.” She settled in Minneapolis on a U.S. medical visa to get treatment for her six-year-old autistic son. Her family is part of a minority clan persecuted in Somalia’s civil war.  [So, if she would be persecuted, why didn’t Nasra apply for asylum in US?—ed]

NASRA: I faced a lot of problems in Somalia. During the war, my father and my brother were attacked, and my mother and I endured so much pain — we left and never went back.

LISA DESAI: After President Trump listed Somalia as one of the countries whose citizens would be blocked from entering the U.S. Nasra decided that although she was legal, it wasn’t safe to stay.

NASRA: I heard that they were going to arrest people and take them back to Somalia and that they were going into people’s homes and they were going to separate families, mothers from children.

LISA DESAI: What would happen if you were deported back to Somalia?

NASRA: If I go back to Somalia I won’t stand a chance there, I would be killed.

LISA DESAI: In February, she left Minneapolis and became one of nearly 1,000 migrants, according to the Canadian Government, to cross from the U.S. into Canada this year. She paid a driver to take her and her son most of the way.

NASRA: We walked for hours, the snow was falling, we couldn’t see. It was cold, it was dark and if it wasn’t for God we would have died.

LISA DESAI: Under Canadian law, people like Nasra, who cross the border illegally, are arrested and taken in for a background check. If they don’t have a criminal record, they are often released within 24 hours. They’re appointed a government lawyer to represent them in their asylum hearing which usually takes place in two months. They are also connected with nonprofits that provide food and housing.

Go to the report, here, and don’t miss the story of the FAILED asylum seeker from Ghana. He failed to be granted asylum in Ecuador and in the US, so he took a trip to Canada to shop for a better deal.  How convenient that PBS can blame Trump for scaring him to Canada?

Then it appears that the ‘welcoming’ Canadians are getting sick of it!

LISA DESAI: A poll last month found Canadian support for welcoming refugees is slipping. 48 percent said Canada should send these migrants back to the U.S. 36 percent said Canada should accept them.

See our previous posts on Trump and the Canada border by clicking here.