As you should all know by now, nine federal refugee contractors including the US Conference of Catholic Bishops receive a large chunk of their income from you, the US taxpayer, based on the number of refugees they place in your towns and cities.
So it is no surprise that their revenue is dropping as the President reduces the number of refugees being ‘welcomed’ to America by the UN and the US State Department.
In a story about the Bishops upcoming budget year at theNational Catholic Register (h/t Joanne) we learn that the biggest drop in funding comes from their so-called Migration and Refugee Services Office budget.
Bishops OK 2020 budget; numbers inconclusive for 2021 assessment hike
BALTIMORE — The U.S. bishops voted to approve the budget for 2020 for their conference headquarters in Washington but did not register sufficient numbers to determine passage of a proposed 3% increase in the diocesan assessment for 2021.
Both votes took place Nov. 11, the first day of their Nov. 11-13 fall general assembly in Baltimore.
The bishops approved a budget nearing $22.69 million for next year.*** Budget approval required a majority of bishops present and voting. The vote was 211-11, with one abstention.
Archbishop Dennis Schnurr of Cincinnati
The proposed 2020 budget projects a “marginal” surplus of $49,261, about 2% of the total, according to Archbishop Dennis Schnurr of Cincinnati, treasurer of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.
The figures include increases of 3.6% for policy and advocacy, 3.5% for the administrative offices, 2.7% for the general secretariat, 1.2% for the bishops’ conference staff house in Washington, and 0.4% for pastoral ministries.
The biggest budget decreases come within the Migration and Refugee Services office, which relies on federal grants for much of its revenue.
MRS operations “continue to be impacted by the very dynamic changes in the federal immigration and refugee policies and programs,” Schnurr said in a message sent to bishops prior to the meeting.
MRS administration is being cut $6.6 million “due primarily to the reduction in refugee arrivals which directly impacts pass-through funding to the dioceses for local administration and direct assistance to clients,” Schnurr said. [LOL! pass-through funding after a huge slice is taken out for salaries!—ed]
MRS’ resettlement services office is being scaled back by $2.6 million “largely due to the closure of the Cuban-Haitian program by the end of 2019,” he added. MRS’ executive office is cutting its budget $178,00 for 2020, and its special programs office will be down $53,000 from 2019 levels.
Overall the numbers of refugees admitted to the country who are helped by MRS “continue to track downward,” Schnurr told his fellow bishops.
Rarely do we see reports on the number of refugees any of the nine contractors resettled.
In fiscal year 2016, MRS settled about 4,200 refugees. In 2017, the number swelled to 7,800 refugees, but last year MRS resettled 6,350. And as of Sept 30 of this year, the number of refugees settled was 4,350.
Interesting that in 2016 the Bishops had a smaller share (only 5%) of the incoming refugees than they do now (14%). It can only mean that as the overall number of refugees drop, the Bishops are getting a bigger cut. I wonder why that is?
Or, it could mean the Catholic Bishops received a lot more federal money because they also contracted to take care of the mushrooming numbers of ‘Unaccompanied Alien Children,’ funding for which comes under the federal Office of Refugee Resettlement.
“Staff remains vigilant and where possible, proactive” in pushing for higher federal intake numbers, he said.
You can bet they are proactive and lobbying for more refugee paying clients and ultimately Democrat voters!
***But, here is what I don’t get. The Bishops reported a substantially higher income in 2018. Yes, they had more paying clients, but did they have so many fewer last year and expect even less in the coming year that their budget dropped by half from 2018?
That would be a great headline—-Under TrumpCatholicBishops lose at least $20 million in two years!
Maybe someone with accounting experience can jump in and explain—could they have lost half of their federal money in just two years?
BTW, in 2018 93% of their Migration Program was funded by US taxpayers!
From their consolidated annual reporttheir Migration and Refugee Services Program for calendar year 2018 shows over $48 million from the feds. So what I want to know is if their budget for the coming year will be only $22 million (as reported above) that indicates a enormous drop in federal funding over two years. Again, could that be true?
Only a little over $3 million was raised from private charitable giving by parishioners! page 38
Doing well by doing good!
Check out that 2018 financial report and notice that over $8 million went to SALARIES to compensate for their good works to benefit refugees. So much for ‘religious’ charities!
See myprevious post this morningabout the numbers of refugees admitted over the last ten years. I needed some of that data to figure what percentage of incoming refugee clients the Bishops are getting—I’m guessing they are getting the biggest chunk of the flow into your towns and cities.
A few days ago the Washington Post ran a lengthy feature story about how the Brazilian-owned meat giant—JBS—was getting federal taxpayer dollars as part of an agricultural bailout from the Trump Administration.
Of course the premise of the story, which featured the obligatory photo of the President, was that Trump was somehow responsible for a foreign-owned company ripping-off the US consumer by consolidating its holdings in America and creating a monopoly.
This is JBS headquarters in Greeley, CO Photo credit: Me! Taken on my 2016 tour of US meatpacking towns that have been changed by refugee labor.
It sure does look like JBS has a growing share of the meat industry.
The Washington Posttells us that JBS’s growth has been rapid following its first purchase of a US meatpacking business in 2007:
In 2007, JBS bought pork and beef producer Swift and Co. In 2008, it purchased the beef operations of Smithfield Foods. In 2009, it acquired poultry producer Pilgrim’s Pride. In 2015, JBS bought Cargill’s pork division. And in 2017, the company purchased poultry producer GNP Co.
But in the extremely long and damning expose there is not one word about JBS’s voracious appetite for immigrant labor that includes refugee workers provided to the company by the US State Department’s resettlement contractors!
As longtime readers know I have been interested in the role BIG MEAT plays in changing the character of American towns with its use of low wage immigrant labor since I saw a report in 2008 about how Bill Clinton brought refugeesto Iowa to make his meatpacker pals happy.
Lobbying for labor
And, I need to mention that thenSenator Jeff Sessions fingered meatpackersin the lobbying gang pushing for that ‘Gang of Eight’ so-called Comprehensive Immigration Reform bill that passed the Senate in 2013.
As I had reported at the time, the refugee resettlement contractors were also pushing for passage of the ‘Gang of Eight’ amnesty bill that ultimately failed to make it through the House of Representatives.
Lutherans were being paid to find refugee labor for JBS!
Then I got the shock! I had always assumed that it was just happenstance that some of the nine refugee resettlement contractors hired by the US State Department to place refugees in US towns and cities had a casual relationship with industries looking for cheap and compliant labor, but I never dreamed there was a direct financial connection until this news broke in 2017.
(LOL! as I write this I sure am glad RRW has been recovered.There is a lot of history filed here!)
Foreign-owned Big Meat hires Lutherans to help them find and retain refugee labor
That is the crux of this story and not in my wildest dreams did I think that money was directly changing hands between the meat industry and a federal refugee contractor, in this case Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service headquartered in Baltimore, MD.
LIRS is headquartered here in Baltimore. This is their own description: The Lutheran Center (LIRS headquarters) is a six-story structure constructed in 1999 on property owned by Baltimore’s historic Christ Lutheran Church. The building is located near Baltimore’s Inner Harbor in the historic Federal Hill neighborhood, a charming area rich with history and an eclectic array of eateries and shopping venues.
I always assumed it was an informal relationship where the largely federally-funded ‘religious’ charity (LIRS is 96% funded by you and not via the collection plate) just happened to be bringing immigrant workers to small town America.
Now we learn that there is a formal (secret!), contractual arrangement planned for pilot projects in four states with JBS USA a Brazilian-owned company. And, it makes me wonder if this isn’t new and whether similar arrangements are being made with others of the nine federal refugee contractors.
The four states targeted for pilot projects in 2017 were Georgia, Texas, Iowa and Michigan.
Read it all! An insider at LIRS had revealed internal documents obtained by Leo Hohmann at World Net Daily.
To make a long story short:
A foreign company buys up major meat producing companies in the US then lobbies for and obtains refugee laborers with the help of a fake ‘religious’ charity funded largely by you, the taxpayers.
The immigrant laborers aren’t paid decent wages so they depend on welfare to make ends meet all the while disrupting the social and cultural make-up of small US towns and cities.
And, you, the US taxpayers, are paying for it all as they change America, one small town at a time.
Someone should write a book!
Heck, a lot of the research is done already! See my enormous archive on Meatpackers here.
Editor: This is a guest post by David James who recently explainedhow the Trump Executive Order will not do what we had all hoped.
Knoxville City Council has voted unanimously to beg Republican Governor Bill Lee for cheap refugee labor and directed their open borders mayor Madeline Rogero, “to send a letter to the U.S. secretary of state to share the city’s plans to participate “’in this very worthy program.”’
Will Governor Lee go-along-to-get-along with local city officials such as Mayor Rogero and join a small number of governors (only three!) who have told the White House that they want more refugees for their state?
BTW, Rogero is a BIG supporter of the anti-American TN Immigrant & Refugee Rights Coalition (TIRRC).
Governor Lee would be well advised to not go down the “compassionate conservative” route, remember who put him in office, and carefully study the issues raised in the Tennessee lawsuit.
He should pay particular attention to the long-arm reach the federal government has made into his state budget to pay for the federal resettlement program.
Federal reports have admitted to shifting costs associated with the refugee resettlement program to state and local governments.
Of course these urban lefties see no irony in the fact that the director of the federal contractor who heads up Bridge Refugee Services, was a refugee herself and now gets paid by taxpayers to bring refugees to Knoxville and Chattanooga.
Bridge Refugee Service*** contracts with national VOLAGs Church World Service and Episcopal Migration Ministries and like all contractors involved in the resettlement industry, relies on federal cash flow to keep their pipeline flush. [Church World Service recentlyjoined forces with CAIRto demand that the White House admit more refugees to the US.—ed]
Bridge’s financial reporting has been spotty, but what is available shows what they are really worried about – contractors are paid for each individual refugee they drop into your community – so the fewer the number, the lower the federal payouts. The combined federal and state grants in 2017 and 2018 likely reflect a much lower federal contribution resulting from Trump’s annual lowered refugee arrivals.
The state grants likely refer to money funneled from USHHS to NGO Catholic Charities of TN (CCTN), which USORR designated to replace the state of TN after TN withdrew from the refugee program. Best guess is that CCTN has decided to help keep Bridge afloat knowing that both Knoxville and Chattanooga are true blue cities where open borders groups rule and local governments agree.
2008 – $682,158
2009 – $641,801
2010 – $902,445
2016 – $1,329,939 – 155 new refugees for Chattanooga and 267 for Knoxville
2017 – $839,583 (combined federal & state grants*) – 48 new refugees for Chattanooga and 65 for Knoxville
2018 – $945,165 (combined federal & state grants) -150 new refugees for Chattanooga and Knoxville combined
The reports also show that on average, 50% of the new arrivals are under age 18 – meaning all state taxpayers are paying for their English learner services in school.
You’ll also be heartened to know that Bridge works to make sure that their clients don’t become like backward, hateful, prejudiced conservative Republicans in Tennessee.
Bridge collaborates with an Adventist Muslim Friendship Association which helps arriving Muslim refugees (like Whahab and Jinanprofiled in the 2018 report), “overcome differences in language, faith, and culture as well as the prejudice in the community. ‘“We learned you don’t have to change yourself to be like Americans or change Americans to be like you,” says Jinan.”
Wahab has already joined Bridge’s board and no doubt it won’t take long for him to connect with the TN American Muslim Advisory Council which is doing its level best to force its desired change on Tennessee communities.
CCTN well understands that refugee resettlement MONEY is the lifeblood of not only Bridge, but its own organization as well. Take a look at their latest available financials – almost 50% of its operating budget for the entire organization is based on money flow from refugee resettlement program. At the same time, they have drastically reduced services to needy American citizens.
That’s the pattern with the open borders, moralizing lefties – needy and worthy American citizens – people with intellectual disabilities, the homeless, and veterans, step aside.
***Editor endnote: Interesting thatBridge first came to the attention of RRW in 2007 when we first learned that it refused to give information to the FBI about two Iraqi refugees it had resettled. In 2003, Bridge joined the ACLU and Muslim groups to sue the federal government to block the use of the post 911 Patriot Act.
It is extremely rare for an entire month to pass with no refugee admissions and needless to say the refugee industry spokesmen are not happy.
No refugee arrivals means no per head payments for the contractors!
We reported earlier that two different dates were given for resumption of taxpayer-funded flights of refugees to arrive in the month of October. CNN is now reportingthat the first refugees of FY2020, which began on October first, might not get here until November 5th.
No refugees will be resettled in the US in October, leaving hundreds in limbo around the world
Washington (CNN) The United States is on track to not admit any refugees in October, after already canceling around 500 flights this month, CNN has learned.
A pause on admissions that was expected to lift on Tuesday will now extend into November, leaving those who expected to resettle in the US in limbo. It also means additional travel will need to be canceled and re-booked at the expense of federal taxpayers.
That previous line gave me a chuckle—they are worried about taxpayer expenses! Since when? And, by not bringing any refugees in October taxpayers were spared at minimum a quarter of a million to a million dollars in just the cost of resettlement, let alone the initial cash handouts and social service (aka welfare) expenses the refugees incur upon arrival.
CNN continues….
Danielle Grigsby interim Director of the refugee industry’s DC lobbying office and PR firm, Refugee Council USA, told CNN that the delay was “unconscionable.”
The moratorium will run through November 5, according to a State Department spokesperson. “We will work with our implementing partners to plan for a resumption of refugee arrivals, including rescheduling travel for those affected by the extension,” the spokesperson said in a statement.
It’s the third time this month that the State Department has delayed refugee admissions. Travel for refugees who were told they could come to the US was postponed through October 21, and then later to October 28. There’s usually a pause in arrivals the first week of October.
The Trump administration has proposed capping the number of refugees allowed into the US at 18,000, a historic low. But in order for refugees to be admitted in the new fiscal year, President Donald Trump has to sign off on the refugee ceiling. The consistent delays in travel suggests Trump has not signed it yet.
The latest travel delays come as the humanitarian crisis in Syria worsens.
I never got a chance to post it, but this seems like a good time.
Trump gave a speech on October 23rd about the US pulling back in Syria and here is what Rush Limbaugh saidabout Trump and his comments.
Right on!
He gave a mini-barn-burner here. He ripped into Obama. He ripped into previous presidents for a bunch of basic dishonesty in committing American troops around the world. He pointed out that the Middle East has become more unstable as more troops have been deployed. The wars have never ended.
And he made a great point, that as we have continued to send troops to these areas of the Middle East and as the chaos in these areas has ratcheted up, guess what else has happened at the same time? We have opened our borders to more refugees and more immigrants. And Trump says these days are over.
We’re not gonna go sponsor chaos and then say out of compassion, “Well, come here,” and open our borders. We’re not falling for this anymore.
This is exactly why Trump got elected.
He made it very clear what the game has been.The State Department, the permanent Washington establishment commits American troops to little skirmishes here and skirmishes there, and nobody ever wins because they never end. We recycle troops. We sell more ammunition and more weapons. The areas become war-torn and unlivable and the people that live there flee, and they go to Europe and some want to come here.
At the same time, we open our borders, we open our borders to more illegal immigrants, and we open our borders to more refugees, and he said these days are over, this is not gonna happen any longer in announcing this permanent ceasefire.
Over and over again the media spreads the gushing news (fed to it by the refugee industry) about how refugees benefit the economy by helping rebuild cities, paying taxes, and opening businesses (at faster rates than American slugs!).
So, how can refugees be living in a cycle of poverty?
They are, says the new study from the University of Colorado and guess what the answer is to lifting them out of poverty? You guessed it!
Taxpayers need to pony-up and give them more financial support, build new housing for refugees and not make them go out and work menial jobs as soon as they get here.
Senators Ted Kennedy and Joe Biden designed the Refugee Act of 1980. They promised we wouldn’t be importing poverty! But, they knew that their industry pals needed cheap labor and that people in need of welfare vote for Democrats!
But, supplying cheap labor is why they are here in the first place especially in places like Colorado with its meat packing facilities dotting the state, and Big Meat’s voracious appetite for a steady supply of unskilled labor.
When now deceased Senator Ted Kennedy with the help of ‘Uncle Joe’ pushed through the Refugee Act of 1980they promised we wouldn’t be importing poverty! They lied.
Colorado’s Refugees Can Become Trapped In Chronic Poverty, Study Finds
(No kidding!)
Between the high cost of housing and shrinking federal funding for local organizations, many refugees resettled in Colorado find themselves stuck in chronic poverty. That’s according to new research from the University of Colorado Boulder, which studied refugee communities across the Front Range.
Xiaoling Chen, a geography doctoral student,wanted to understand why refugees became trapped in low-wage jobs, despite the state and federal resources intended to help them succeed.
The Refugee Industry will not be happy with Xiaoling Chen’s analysis that says refugees are trapped in poverty!
“So we (wanted) to find out why and in order to help the federal government address these challenges,” Chen said in a recent interview.
In her study, published this fall with support from the University of Colorado Denver, Chen explains that, despite their level of education or English proficiency, refugees in the US tend to have lower incomes compared to American born citizens; 50 percent of the refugees she surveyed said their first job in the US did not match their education level.
According to data from the Colorado Refugee Services Program, refugees in Colorado tend to find low-skill jobs in light manufacturing and hospitality, where they earn a monthly household income of around $700 to $999 in their first year.
By their fourth year, their earnings have hardly increased and many said it’s not enough to support their family.
In her research, Chen aimed to identify the barriers faced by refugees in their first eight months in Colorado. What she discovered is that the high cost of housing in cities like Denver have forced refugee agencies to get clients employed faster, often within their first three months in the US. Even though refugees are given financial assistance for the first eight months, those funds are quickly consumed by rent according to several agency workers interviewed for the study.
You can go read the complaints about the lack of taxpayer funding. Then here (below) we see it is once again Trump’s fault.
Notice Chen does not clearly spell out the fact that the resettlement contractors are paid by the head to place refugees.
LOL! Larger budgets for the resettlement contractors doesn’t trickle down to refugees, but fuels fat cat salaries at the CEO level! The International Rescue Committeehas offices in CO and its CEO is raking in a salary of over $900,000 a year. See here.
But, the mainstream media never reports on those exorbitant salaries.
KUNC continues….
Since Chen began her research in 2016, budgets for local refugee agencies have been further restricted as the overall number of refugee arrivals has plummeted under the Trump administration. For the year 2020, the annual cap was recently set at 18,000, the lowest number since the refugee program was created by congress in 1980. These restrictions have reportedly triggered layoffs while other agencies have closed down completely.
Among her policy recommendations, Chen suggests Colorado develop affordable housing for refugees and that the federal agency, Office for Refugee Resettlement, adjust the definition for “economic self-sufficiency***” to reflect actual living standards. In the end, said Chen, these investments would benefit everyone.
Really! Everyone! Even the taxpayers who must shell out more money to a program that already exceeds a billion dollars at the federal level and surely that much or more across 49 states.
“We can see that if the federal government and the state government can give more support to the resettlement community … those refugees can enrich the culture in the US and help to establish our economy,” Chen said.
“Enrich the culture!” “Establish our economy!” Says who? A PhD candidate at at Colorado University! No wonder we are sick of the mainstream media!
Ms. Chen has confirmed what you knew intuitively—that refugees are not bringing economic boom times to your towns and cities! Her prescription for solving the problem of refugee poverty, by throwing more of yourhard earned money at it, must be resisted!
***You need to know that presently a refugee can be getting food stamps, housing help, medical care along with a low wage job and be considered “self sufficient” by the federal Office of Refugee Resettlement. The contractors take every opportunity to tell the public the big lie—-that refugees are self-sufficient in only a few months.
