Category: Taxpayer goodies

Dems put Nebraska voter registration forms in refugee welcome baskets

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Remember dear readers that refugee resettlement in America is not first and foremost about humanitarianism. It is for the Democrat Party a place to recruit Left leaning voters (see my previous post on NC!) while for many on the political Right (and the Chamber of Commerce) a source of captive cheap labor.

Jane Kleeb, executive director of Bold Nebraska and head of the Nebraska Democrat Party wears many hats. Transplanted from Florida via Washington DC to Nebraska. See here: http://www.macleans.ca/politics/the-untold-story-of-the-keystone-pipeline-war/

Thanks to all who sent me this shocking news over the last few days about the Nebraska Democrat Party putting voter registration forms in to new refugee welcome baskets when new refugees won’t be able to vote for at least 5 years!
Chris Pandolfo writing at Conservative Review has penned a really good report on the outrage:

The Nebraska Democratic Party is welcoming refugees with open arms, welcome baskets … and voter registration forms.

A donation drive organized by the NDP collected some 50 gift baskets for refugees. Each contained items like diapers and kitchen utensils, a welcome letter from the Nebraska Democratic Party signed by its chairwoman Jane Kleeb, and a voter registration form, according to a video posted to Facebook by the Nebraska Democratic Party.

The video, posted Saturday March 18, discusses the details of the “Refugee Welcome Basket” project and was recorded at the Nebraska Democratic Party’s Spring Meeting.

[….]

“When [President Trump] put in his racist travel ban we put out a call to action to Democrats across the state saying ‘help us create welcome baskets for refugee and immigrant families who are making Nebraska their home,’” she [Kleeb] says.

[….]

It also includes a voter registration form,” Kleeb states on camera. The baskets were given to two refugee resettlement agencies in Nebraska, the Refugee Empowerment Center and Lutheran Family Services of Nebraska. [These two federal contractors should not be active in partisan political activities. If there isn’t a law there should be!—ed]

Kleeb explains that one of the goals of the NDP is to identify politically active immigrants and make them feel welcome by the Nebraska Democratic Party.

This is so laughable!  A refugee coming from a third world hell hole is going to need to become familiar with voter registration forms on first arrival when they must wait for a minimum of five years before they are eligible to vote:

Reached for comment, NDP Chairwoman Kleeb categorically denied any wrongdoing, stressing that “it is not illegal to be handing out voter registration forms so folks start to get familiar with the forms.”

There is much more in Chris Pandolfo’s story, continue reading here and watch them all twist like pretzels trying to explain what they are doing!  Also, go there to see a link for the video. Do not miss the video! You need to know the opposition!
Go here for our Nebraska archive.  Nebraska is one of the states I toured during my 6,200 mile trek around the country. I was most interested in the meatpacking plants in Nebraska that use the cheap refugee labor.

World Relief building a "new community" in Durham, NC, was there anything wrong with the old one?

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Changing America by changing the people!

This story at WRAL.com is meant to be one of those warm and fuzzy stories about ‘welcoming’ refugees (and diversity) to a southern city and how mean old Donald Trump has slowed their progress in changing Durham.
The last line of the story by reporter Tess Allen is the most instructive:

A new community is being built in Durham, one that is constantly evolving, one with a mix of faces, languages and cultures. And World Relief Durham and its volunteers plan to be there every step of the way.

 

Turning red states blue by seeding diversity. Map showing where all of North Carolina’s refugees came from in 2016. Story here: https://www.carolinajournal.com/news-article/diverse-crowd-gathers-in-durham-to-protest-federal-immigration-policies/

 
 
Here are a few bits worth highlighting:

World Relief depends on federal funding for the majority of their financing. They receive a per capita grant dependent on the number of refugees coming into their area. That money helps support the agencies’ offices, staff and, mostly, the refugees themselves.

See what else Soerens said here: https://refugeeresettlementwatch.org/2017/02/17/panic-button-as-refugee-contracting-agencies-begin-to-downsize-as-they-lose-federal/

With the dramatic decrease in refugee arrivals that would accompany the reinstatement of this order, World Relief’s funding will drop equally dramatically. The Durham office, for example, will lose one-fourth of its federal funding, or about $250,000 a year. Nationwide, five World Relief offices will close and 140 staff members will be laid off.

[….]

Soerens [Matthew Soerens, World Relief’s U.S. director of church mobilization] also said that the loss of funding is why it’s increasingly important for their Good Neighbor teams to help refugees find jobs. World Relief can no longer afford to cover rent for families for more than a couple of months.

Wasn’t finding refugees a job a top priority all along? Or, it didn’t matter so much when they were flush with federal dollars.
Is Soerens saying that, because they (at World Relief) need to pay their staffs and keep offices open, they are going to be stingy about refugee rent going forward? Sounds like it to me.
If you feel like reading all the good news about good neighbors, continue reading here.
For our complete archive on changing North Carolina, go here.  See especially my post on the 2016 Presidential election.
For more on World Relief’s finances, go here.

Maryland judge to hold hearing on Tuesday regarding FY2017 refugee ceiling issue

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

For background, see my post here about the annual refugee admissions ceiling and my contention that the President had (still has!) the authority under the Refugee Act of 1980 to stay under the ceiling set by Obama (110,000) or the new ceiling he has set (50,000).  There is nothing in the Act which compels him to bring in numbers approaching the ceiling.
The judge in Hawaii seems to think the judiciary has the right to set numbers, and apparently the Maryland judge is headed in the same direction.

One of the main plaintiffs in the case being heard on Tuesday is Mark Hetfield of HIAS. See here how much of your money HIAS lives on: https://refugeeresettlementwatch.org/2016/11/13/hebrew-immigrant-aid-society-lectures-trump-never-mentions-its-pecuniary-interest-in-refugees/

(BTW, we reported yesterday that Trump’s Dept. of State is still admitting refugees and another 31 came in since yesterday.)
Michael Patrick Leahy (Breitbart) thoroughly addresses the subject of whether courts can set the refugee admissions ceiling in an article entitled:

Federal Judge Who Blocked Trump Travel Ban Will Rule on Plaintiffs Request to Double Number of Refugees in FY 2017

Leahy explains the role of Congress in appropriating money, but the 1980 Act itself placed most of the power in the hands of the President.  I’m guessing that in 1980, Senators Kennedy, Biden and President Jimmy Carter never envisioned a President like Donald Trump, or the degree to which American citizens would object to admitting such poverty to the country, so it is silent on the subject of how low a Prez can go.
Anyway, here is Leahy:

Judge Theodore Chuang of the U.S. District Court in Maryland, who issued a temporary restraining order on March 15 halting part of President Trump’s Executive Order 13780, has scheduled a hearing on March 28 to consider the merits of a request made by the plaintiffs in their complaint to revoke the section of that exec order that limited the maximum number of refugees authorized to enter the United States in FY 2017 to 50,000.

Several legal scholars and political commentators have questioned Chuang’s impartiality, in part because he served as deputy general counsel of the Department of Homeland Security in the Obama administration, as Breitbart reported.

In the very first sentence of his March 15 decision, Chuang makes an error of fact which may indicate how he will rule on March 28.

“On March 6, 2017, President Donald J. Trump issued an Executive Order which bars, with certain exceptions, the entry to the United States of nationals of six predominantly Muslim countries, suspends the entry of refugees for 120 days, and cuts by more than half the number of refugees to be admitted to the United States in the current year,” Judge Chuang writes. (emphasis added)

With this statement, Judge Chuang makes it clear that he accepts the argument made by plaintiffs HIAS (formerly Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society) and the International Refugee Assistance Project (IRAP) about refugee resettlement numbers in FY 2017. The plaintiffs argue that former President Obama’s September 22, 2016 “presidential determination” that he wanted Congress to fund the resettlement of up to 110,000 refugees in the United States in FY 2017 means that Congress must fund the resettlement of 110,000 refugees this fiscal year, and that President Trump has absolutely no say in the matter.

The facts and the law say otherwise.

Leahy follows here with great detail about the role of Congress in appropriating money for resettlement.  Just a reminder that we argue that 50,000 is NOT THAT LOW when analyzing all years since 9/11.

Congress, however, has, of now, only appropriated funding sufficient to resettle 48,901 refugees in the United States in FY 2017, which is 1,099 below the limit of 50,000 President Trump established in Executive Order 13780.

Officials at the Department of State as well as all the refugee resettlement agencies–including HIAS–are well aware that their funding for FY 2017 is about to run out, and that circumstance is entirely unrelated at this time to President Obama’s September 22 “presidential determination” that set the maximum limit of refugees authorized to resettle in the United States in FY 2017 at 110,000.

[….]

The HIAS/IRAP complaint on which Judge Chuang will hold a hearing on March 28 is all about continuing the flow of federal funds to these VOLAGs who are almost completely reliant on the taxpayers to pay for their operations, and their salaries.

Much, much more here.
Go here to see, in my view, what HIAS is worried about!
This is going to be a week in courts involving refugees, more tomorrow.

Supt. Montgomery County Schools says it is federal govt. that screens unaccompanied minors

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Thanks to Joanne for spotting the answer to our question from earlier this morning.

Montgomery County, MD, Superintendent of Public Schools, Jack R. Smith held a press conference yesterday about the “tragedy.” The tragedy is that the Obama Administration allowed creeps like these to enter the US and with the government’s help be spread out throughout America.

The Conservative Tree House reported the following when describing the press conference yesterday about the  alleged Rockville rapists from Central America:

Mr. Smith does acknowledge during the latter part of the presser that these predator suspects were indeed part of the Unaccompanied Alien Children relocation program.

Go to the Conservative Tree House and watch the video of the press conference led by MoCo Superintendent of Schools Jack R. Smith.
If you don’t want to watch the whole thing, go to 20:10 and see that in response to a question about screening, Smith says they don’t screen those who are part of the “unaccompanied minors” program where the federal government places the children with families.  He implies that the feds screen them.
To get to the bottom of whether they were part of the program housed in the Office of Refugee Resettlement, real investigative reporters should try and get information out of them.
Unfortunately, the place is still being run by Obama bureaucrats, so chances are slim anyone there will fess up to having processed the alleged rapists.

Central American Minors (CAM) program

God forbid that these perps came in through Obama’s illegal expansion of the US Refugee Admissions Program known as CAM where instead of the ‘child’ aliens coming across our southern border on their own steam trying to claim asylum, we go and get them!
I’ve been meaning to report that Wrapsnet has catalogued hundreds coming in from Central America as refugees already in this fiscal year, but will try to get to that later.
THESE ARE NOT REFUGEES.  People escaping poverty or violence do not fit the definition of a refugee who must prove he/she will be PERSECUTED for one of several reasons if returned home. Obama vastly expanded the refugee definition and Trump’s team needs to get to work immediately and rein-in the expansion!

Massachusetts and New Hampshire refugee contractors begin cutback too

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

In my previous post I told you about the reality setting in in Arizona, and now we see that New England refugee contractors are facing that reality too and cutting staff, or shortening hours.
I am delighted to see more effort being made on the part of reporters to get their facts.
Here at WBUR News (NPR Boston) reporter Shannon Dooling actually did some work (emphasis is mine)!
Look at this, right up front—refugee agencies paid by the head!

Immigration lawyer Kerry Doyle admits President’s broad authority to determine refugee admissions. Photo and bio: http://www.gravesanddoyle.com/biographies.html

Refugee resettlement agencies receive funding based on the number of people they anticipate resettling, so the uncertainty around President Trump’s travel ban has serious fiscal consequences. [They are paid by how many they actually resettle as they bid for bodies.—ed]

Jeff Thielman is the CEO of the International Institute of New England, a resettlement agency working in Massachusetts and New Hampshire. His agency expects eight refugees to arrive by March 28.

“It means that we have not filled a number of positions that were open in all three of our offices in the resettlement area,” he said. “It also means that we may have to make further reductions. We’re going to make those decisions in the next few weeks.”

Ascentria Care Alliance, a resettlement agency based in Worcester and operating in both Massachusetts and New Hampshire, announced Monday that as a result of Trump’s travel ban it had laid off or reduced hours for 14 employees.

“Although the orders have been stayed, even the most recent one, we are no longer receiving any refugees in the pipeline and we don’t anticipate receiving any more refugees until maybe four to six months out at the earliest,” said Jodie Justofin, Ascentria’s vice president of communications.

For new readers, see that in 2013, Ascentria’s CEO admitted that refugee resettlement IS A BUSINESS!
Dooling continues….

Despite that temporary freeze, the finances of resettlement agencies are still unstable. But a return to pre-Trump quotas could boost their coffers.

Before he left office, President Obama capped the number of refugees admitted into the U.S. during the current fiscal year at 110,000. Resettlement agencies engineered their budgets through September based on those projections.  [If they did that it was really really dumb because that (110,000) was by far the highest ceiling proposed since before 9/11. The average for most of Bush and Obama years was 65,000.—ed]

[….]

President Trump cut that cap on refugees to 50,000. That’s an action within the powers of the executive.

But since Trump’s cap is part of an executive order, the constitutionality of which is under question, Boston immigration attorney Kerry Doyle says the quota may be challenged in the courts.

Ha! Wishful thinking?

“While the president does have broad authority to set the fiscal numbers, because it’s caught up in a lot of the other problems with this executive order being potentially unconstitutional, the question is whether the 50,000 is also stayed,” Doyle said.

Doyle confirms what we said that Trump did not have to reduce the CEILING or slow the flow through an Executive Order.
And Ms. Doyle does know that the judge can’t order the federal government to spend money and send agents abroad to process refugees. It would be insane if Trump’s people believed that! They should just go ahead and keep the numbers low (or at today’s level, see right hand sidebar, 38,111) ignoring the judge’s unconstitutional assertion.
More here at WBUR.
I want to reiterate another point I have been making. The resettlement agencies (aka contractors) are in a pickle because they have been running a kind of Ponzi scheme where they anticipate certain refugee numbers (paying clients) coming in in the future, but they never have enough private money in their budgets to tide them over if the flow slows. Why? I can only guess they have been operating for so long on mostly federal funding that they have gotten too lazy to do private fundraising.
Or, there aren’t enough private citizens willing to pay for refugee resettlement!