Chobani yogurt tycoon, Hamdi Ulukaya, gets Global Citizen award from DC think tank along with Cindy McCain (update)

10/01/2018 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Editor’s note: As I reported here last week, I received a letter at my home from a Washington, DC lawfirm representing Chobani, LLC and its principal shareholder Hamdi Ulukaya. The letter also references Mr. Ulukaya’s foundation (The Tent Foundation).

They claim that several points I made in a post below are false based on information published by the New York Times, Bloomberg and CNN.

After considering how best to address their many concerns with my post, I determined that it would be most efficient and transparent to simply present their point of view.

So here it is:

~They say that Chobani and Mr. Ulukaya support diversity of opinion.

~They say that Chobani and the Tent Foundation have not advocated bringing more refugees to the US. (They do not say whether Mr. Ulukaya has called for an increase in refugee admissions to the US, only that the Chobani company and Tent have not.)

~They say that Chobani, the Tent Foundation and Mr. Ulukaya have been clear about their objective to provide opportunities for refugees. (Ed—That transparency includes having the Tent Foundation publish a refugee hiring guide jointly with a US refugee resettlement contractor, see here.)

~They say that private companies like Chobani are not involved in selecting refugees or the number of refugees to be admitted and that only the federal government plays that role. (Ed.—of course Chobani cannot make, or be involved in, federal decisions on refugee selection, numbers, and their placement. Any such involvement, if shown would be the proper subject of an Inspector General investigation. But, as evidenced by the refugee hiring guide, the Tent Foundation has become an important vehicle for Mr. Ulukaya to show support for the the federally-funded resettlement contractor community.)

~ They say that the Foundation, Chobani LLC or Mr. Ulukaya have not lobbied to influence the refugee resettlement work of the federal government. (Ed.—Even without lobbying, as shown by the hiring guide prepared by the largely federally-funded Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service for the Tent Foundation, the Foundation has shown support for the federal resettlement contractor community.)

~ They say they do not approve of my discussion about a business model built on a steady supply of cheap legal immigrant labor that must rely on welfare to supplement inadequate wages.

~And they clearly disagree with my opinion that it isn’t humane to remove people from their cultural comfort zones to supply the labor needs of large global corporations. (Ed—they say they support diversity of opinion.)

~ They report in the letter that they told World Net Daily to remove a false statement about Chobani pledging to hire more refugees. (Ed.—I assume that means they want it to be clear that Chobani has not pledged to hire more refugees, but isn’t that what the Tent Foundation is all about?)

~Taking offense at my inference that refugees are at the lower end of the pay scale, they cite several media outlets reporting that Chobani employees are paid well above state and federal minimum wages, receive group health benefits and participate in a retirement plan.

A 2016 report from CNN (cited in the letter as documentation of salaries) mentions that Chobani is proud of its starting hourly wage that is in the $11-$12 per hour range (below the presently accepted living wage of $15 an hour), but that Mr. Ulukaya says he is planning to move gradually to the $15 an hour wage. That sounds good, but the CNN article is more than two years old so it would be useful to know if clear progress toward that higher wage has been made in keeping with Mr. Ulukaya’s “Humanity First” solution to immigration.

~They state that Chobani has never tried to exploit wage discrepancies between American workers and the refugee workers at the Chobani plants. (Ed.—In case you are wondering how many refugees are employed by Chobani, a 2016 report at the Huffington Post says the company employs refugees at 30% of the work force. I have seen other reports with up to 40%. https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/chobani-ceo-refugee-immigrant-hamdi-ulukaya_us_58189ac4e4b0990edc336cab )

We will be seeking more information from primary sources to make our own assessment of the issue of wages. As for welfare utilization, perhaps Chobani LLC in both New York and Idaho, seeking to set the record straight, would undertake a survey of their refugee employees use of social services including food stamps, housing subsidies and medical care, etc. and make public that information.

More later…..

Below is the original post that prompted the October 2, 2018 letter to me from the law firm representing Chobani LLC. The post should now be read with the additional context provided above.

The original post follows:

What does this have to do with refugees?

Everything(!) because Chobani CEO Hamdi Ulukaya is the primary pusher, through his Tent Foundation***, for global corporations to promote bringing more refugees to the US (and to move others around the world) to provide them with a steady supply of cheap LEGAL immigrant labor.

We have written a lot about Chobani Yogurt and its hiring practices in New York and in Twin Falls, Idaho. See my Chobani files here.

Chobani was back in the news this week because he received a Global Citizen Award along with the ‘maverick’s’ widow. I suspect if someone researched the Atlantic Council you would find George Soros lurking somewhere in its background!

The gang is all here…..

global citizen awards

I laughed to see the headline at Breitbart, thanks to Richard @highblueridge for sending it:

Chobani CEO Pleads with Corporations to Hire Refugees: U.S. Needs ‘Humanity First’ Immigration Policy

LOL! Humanity first! really!

Is it humane to bring more low-skilled workers to the US, yanking them from their cultural comfort zones around the world so they can work menial jobs in the food industry (think Meatpackers! and of course Yogurt manufacturers) via refugee contractors (aka head hunters) who then help the refugees sign up for all of their welfare services (because wages aren’t high enough, they need to be subsidized by you!).

You have to hand it to them! They have figured out a great business model.

I swear that these big global companies must send everyone to some sort of Public Relations 101 class where they are taught to fit the word “humanity,” “humanitarian,” or “humanitarianism” in to every public utterance they make.

Note that the word ‘humanity’ is never applied to impoverished, job-seeking, Americans!

Read my lips: It is about cheap compliant labor!

(With the Democrat’s side-benefit being that they get more socialist-leaning voters from the refugee arrivals.)

Read John Binders story from Breitbart.

Then, you can have even more fun if you follow the link to the CNN report about Ulukaya’s big award—awarded to him by no less than another of our old favorites from the Obama Administration—Samantha Power (see my many posts on what one writer called Hillary, Susan Rice and Power—Obama’s “humanitarian Vulcans!”).

Here is CNN:

US yogurt billionaire’s solution to immigration: ‘Humanity first’

(CNN) Hamdi Ulukaya, who built yogurt empire Chobani after immigrating to the US in the mid-90s, is challenging Americans to rethink the way they view immigration.

“I have nothing against America first, but ‘humanity first too,'” said Ulukaya in an exclusive interview with CNN on the sidelines of an event for his nonprofit, called Tent Partnership for Refugees.

Staying out of politics but taking a whack at Trump (ROFLMAO):

lavinia and chobani — Above the political fray? Here is Ulukaya at the Clinton Global Initiative with refugee contractor Lavinia Limon. It was her resettlement agency responsible for the refugees being placed in Twin Falls. Did they have a deal even before his plant was built? Imagine where we would be today if Hillary or John McCain had ever become President!

Ulukaya has sought to keep his mission of assisting refugees above the political fray. But on occasion he has denounced the administration’s immigration policies and the way it enforces them. The issue is deeply personal for Ulukaya — a self-made billionaire who grew up tending goat and sheep in rural Turkey.

Ulukaya started recruiting immigrants and refugees to work at Chobani in 2010 — a strategy that drew vicious attacks from far right-wing conspiracy theorists who have spread lies about the company, including allegations Chobani embarked on a secret plot to increase America’s Islamic population.

About 30 percent of Chobani’s employees are immigrants or refugees. He says his employees and suppliers are worried.

[….]

Ulukaya, who launched Tent in 2016, has successfully urged companies to develop solutions by “mobilizing resources, innovation and the entrepreneurial spirit of the business community.”

“They [companies] all know that if you don’t find the way to solve this problem, or make it easier, this human tragedy is going to turn into one of the biggest problems for our children going forward,” he said.

This week, Tent added 20 brands to a growing list of partners pledging to hire refugees or help them build a better life. The latest companies to commit to the cause include Hilton, pasta maker Barilla, Microsoft and Uniqlo. In total, Tent has secured promises from more than 100 companies.

Samantha-Power and obama — Samantha Power, one of Obama’s “Humanitarian Vulcans” responsible for the destruction of the Libyan state and consequently the migrant invasion of Europe. https://refugeeresettlementwatch.org/2012/05/31/white-houses-power-doing-rinkey-dink-do-gooder-stuff/

[….]

“Even if governments were stepping up to do the right thing, which many, including the US government, are not, the crisis is too big for government,” said Samantha Power, the former US ambassador to the United Nations from 2013 to 2017, as she presented Ulukaya the Atlantic Council’s Global Citizen Award this week.

[….]

In 2005, Ulukaya bought a defunct food factory in upstate New York with a small business loan to start making cheese. He eventually grew that into Chobani, which has become the top-selling Greek yogurt brand in the US. Several years after opening his factory, he started hiring refugees who lived in nearby areas.

He tapped the refugee community again in Idaho when Chobani opened a plant in Twin Falls, which is close to the dairy farmers who supply the raw material for his yogurt. Because of his efforts to hire and help refugees, Ulukaya has become the target of far-right websites and bloggers. One site accused Chobani of “call[ing] on [the] biggest American companies to join [an] Islamic surge.”

Laughing again! So will Chobani threaten to sue CNN for bringing all this up again???

More here.

Do not miss my post about how the Tent Foundation hired the Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service (one of nine federal resettlement contractors) to write a refugee hiring guide.

***Go here and have a look at the global corporations supporting the movement of refugee laborers around the world. Notice Twitter is one of Tent’s corporations. And, I am sure you will find others that you might not have suspected.

P.S. Why has no one written a book on Samantha Power, a dangerous woman who will be back if the Dems regain the Oval Office?

Refugee program costs US taxpayers $125 billion over ten years

09/29/2018 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

“The costs are staggering. The costs are truly staggering!”

(Don Barnett, Fellow at the Center for Immigration Studies)

I reported a few days ago on the ‘Report to Congress’ released by the US State Department as part of the consultation with Congress requirement of the Administration when determining how many refugees will be admitted to the US beginning on Monday.

cover fy19 report

Here LifeZette analyzed a portion of that report about what you pay for the program (actually only a small portion of the costs!).

America’s refugee program cost taxpayers more than $125 billion over a 10-year period, according to a Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) report to Congress on a proposed cut in the émigré cap.

The report accounts for refugees resettled from abroad, foreigners in the United States granted asylum, and people participating in special programs set up for Iraqis, Cubans, Haitians, and Amerasians from Vietnam.

The cost to federal taxpayers for refugees and individuals granted asylum in fiscal years 2005 through 2014 came to $74.7 billion, plus an additional $21.9 billion for state matching funds for programs available to refugees.

The total cost was $96.65 billion. Including spouses and children, the overall cost to state and federal taxpayers rises to $125.696 billion.

That total includes the cost of relocating refugees, services provided by the Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR), child care subsidies and three main welfare programs — Medicaid, Medicare, and Temporary Assistance to Needy Families.

In a speech to the U.N. General Assembly on Tuesday, President Donald Trump alluded to the cost in arguing that U.S. generosity is better demonstrated near locations from which refugees come.

[….]

The nearly $126 billion estimated cost over 10 years, however, represents but a fraction of the total taxpayer investment. It does not include more than a dozen other programs, such as Social Security, various tax credits, education spending, and other welfare.

[Other welfare supplied by federal and state taxpayers would include food stamps, and other costs include federally required interpreters for courts, medical care and schools, the criminal justice system and most often ignored—remittances—money the refugees send home and out of our economy.—-ed]

[….]

Don Barnett, a fellow at the Washington-based Center for Immigration Studies (CIS), told LifeZette that it makes sense to take a comprehensive approach to assessing refugee costs that go beyond just the relocation expenses.

Unlike other immigrants, who must wait five years before they are eligible for government-assistance programs, refugees and individuals granted asylum immediately can receive welfare.

“The costs are staggering. The costs are truly staggering,” said Barnett.

[….]

nowrasteh-aljazeera-10-25-13 — The Libertarian CATO Institute has been talking about reform that would include private citizens sponsoring refugees. It does have its appeal. But, he knows that not enough sponsors would be found especially if they were on the hook for all of the care of a refugee or refugee family, so CATO is not proposing abolishing the present contractor system of resettlement. **CATO wants both systems at the same time—the same as Canada!**

The government report estimates that in a typical year, major HHS programs cost about $3,300 per refugee.

A 2015 study by CIS, which favors lower levels of immigration, attempted to account for a broader range of costs imposed by refugees. The study found that the five-year cost of relocating refugees from the Middle East came to $64,370 per person and $257,481 per household.

[….]

Alex Nowrasteh, an immigration policy analyst at the libertarian Cato Institute, did not dispute the government’s cost estimates.

[….]

A better approach than a bureaucratic, taxpayer-funded refugee system, Nowrasteh said, is to allow private citizens and organizations to sponsor refugees and take financial responsibility for them. He said Canada has such a system and that the United States has had similar policies in the past.

More here.

Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society launches election year campaign

09/29/2018 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

They call it…. VOTE FOR WELCOME!

As a non-profit federal grantee they need to be especially careful about lobbying and getting in to electoral political activities. See here.

If the Refugee Admissions Program survives, the most important reform we need is a prohibition (in the law itself) on federal refugee contractors***, like HIAS, from political organizing and advocacy/lobbying while being funded by you and me, the taxpayers.

Better still, take all nine contractors out of the resettlement business completely!

HIAS received over $186 million from the federal Treasury since 2008, here. And, they have been organizing rallies like this one (with Keith Ellison) against President Trump.

Now this….

Screenshot (1464)

Screenshot (1466) — This is a screenshot so link is not hot. Go here: https://www.hias.org/election-campaign?utm_source=hias.org&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=election_campaign&utm_content=09_28_18

***Here below are the nine federal refugee resettlement contractors.

You might be sick of seeing this list almost every day, but a friend once told me that people need to see something seven times before it completely sinks in, so it seems to me that 70, or even 700 isn’t too much!

And, besides I have new readers every day.

The present US Refugee Admissions Program will never be reformed if the system of paying the contractors by the head stays in place and the contractors are permitted to act as Leftwing political agitation groups, community organizers and lobbyists paid on our dime!

And, to add insult to injury they pretend it is all about ‘humanitarianism.’

The number in parenthesis is the percentage of their income paid by you (the taxpayer) to place the refugees into your towns and cities and get them signed up for their services (aka welfare)! And, get them registered to vote eventually!

From my most recent accounting, here. However, please see that Nayla Rush at the Center for Immigration Studies has done an update of their income, as has James Simpson at the Capital Research Center!

Monday a big day for refugee contractors, expect more stories like these….

09/27/2018 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

What is Monday? It is the beginning of the federal fiscal year. It is the first day of FY19. It is the day when the writing will be on the wall for many refugee resettlement offices around the country.

Screenshot (1457) — Dumb way to run an organization! Did no one in the refugee industry ever question a business model where some non-profits are 97% and up federally funded?

Why? Because in 1980 Jimmy Carter signed the Refugee Act of 1980 in to law and set up a house of cards that needs to fall now. Originally (supposedly!) designed as a public-private partnership, the federal government and ‘humanitarian’ non-profit groups were to share equally in the costs of admitting tens of thousands of refugees to the US each year.

But, over the years, because Congress has been so remiss in overseeing the program (the Rs want cheap labor!), those non-profit groups (aka federal contractors) have gotten fat and confident (like Aesop’s grasshopper) on ever larger amounts of federal funding and too lazy to raise sufficient amounts of private money to see them through if for any reason the number of paying clients/refugees declined.

(An aside: The inability to raise enough private money is also indicative of the fact that there isn’t enough interest by average Americans in financially supporting the program in the first place.)

So here we are with one story after another about what Monday will bring to dozens of resettlement contractors around the country.

From Austin, Texas we learn that a Catholic contractor—Caritas—is closing its refugee program.

The Statesman:

EXCLUSIVE: As refugees dwindle, Caritas will end resettlement program

Since 1974, the organization has helped thousands of people fleeing war or persecution find a new life in Austin. But after 44 years, Caritas is ending its refugee resettlement program and as of Monday, it will no longer serve new refugees.

“It’s really a tragedy that this program has to go away,” said Jo Kathryn Quinn, executive director for Caritas.

Screenshot (1459)

[….]

For the past two years, Caritas has seen a sharp decline in the number of refugees arriving in Austin, and the development has made the program “financially unsustainable,” Quinn said. Between 2010 and 2016, Caritas resettled an average of 576 refugees each year. Since last October, Caritas has resettled 151 refugees, but the nonprofit has not received any new refugees since April.

“Having zero refugees arrive in two months was unheard of for us,” Quinn said. “It was the final alarm bell that told us that we couldn’t continue this way.”

[….]

In June, Caritas’ board of directors voted to close the program at the end of the fiscal year at the recommendation of the nonprofit’s executive leadership.

When fewer refugees arrive, less federal money comes in to support them as well. Refugees receive a one-time amount of $1,125 from federal funds for resettlement needs, including housing and food, said Adelita Winchester, Caritas’ director of integrated services. Caritas would supplement federal funds with about $1 million annually in philanthropic donations,Winchester said. [The reporter has missed an important piece of information. The refugee gets $1,125 and Caritas gets another $1,125 for themselves per refugee.—ed]

“We didn’t have any excess philanthropic dollars to shift to aid this program,” Quinn said.

More here.

Now to California…..

From KPBS San Diego:

Budget Cuts, Layoffs And Closures Hit Refugee-Serving Organizations

Donna Duvin is executive director at the San Diego office of the national nonprofit International Rescue Committee, or IRC, one of nine federally funded resettlement agencies in the U.S. Duvin said the local office’s VESL funding dropped by 34 percent this year forcing the agency to replace some paid instructors with volunteers and interns.

miliband-in-manhattan — Red meat for readers! I love running this photo of the IRC’s David Miliband outside their Manhattan office. He is the Brit who is compensated at nearly $700,000 annually as he calls the shots about who will be placed in your towns.

“As the numbers began to fall, the support that we had from the county that passed through dollars from the federal government, those declined as well,” Duvin said.

Duvin said in past years more than three-fourths of the agency’s budget relied on government dollars, causing a loss of millions as the office’s arrivals dipped by 85.5 percent since 2016. She said the budget changes during that time forced the agency to eliminate 15 positions.

Apparently the IRC is trying to raise private money to keep some functions going. LOL! Maybe CEO David Miliband could give up some of his nearly $700,000 in annual salary to keep some low-level staffers in a job!

The IRC is not alone.

A representative for the national resettlement agency Church World Service estimated it lost possibly hundreds of staffers when it closed 10 offices after it was forced to merge operations with other organizations in some U.S. cities. And a spokesman for World Relief said it laid off 140 employees after shutting down five offices across the U.S.

More here.

Expect more stories over the coming days.

What you can do….

If you are looking for something to do, go to this list from last year of the resettlement agencies working in your towns and cities and call them. See if they are still in operation, or plan to close soon.

Reminder!

The 1980 structure of the US Refugee Admissions Program is still in place and the Trump Administration must push now for a complete reform of the program or in 2021 or 2025, it will be full steam ahead for these contractors. They will quickly staff-up and a new President could say—We must make up for the lost Trump years and quadruple the numbers of refugees coming in.

Trump Administration to prioritize Africans in FY19 refugee admissions to US

09/25/2018 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

For years we have been flying Africans to America and placing them in hundreds of US towns and cities, and President Trump’s State Department will continue that trend as its number one refugee admissions priority!

Congolese-refugees (1) — The UN asked the US to take in 50,000 Congolese over 5 years and we are doing just that!

Frankly, as I said just yesterday if Africa doesn’t soon slow its population growth and get the Islamic extremists under control, Africa is going to sink first Europe, and then us under the weight of millions of needy (mostly unskilled) people in the not too distant future.

Based on current trends, Africa as a whole is projected to double in [population] size by 2050. Between 2050 and 2100, according to the United Nations, it could almost double again.

(from 1 about 1.3 billion in 2018 to over 4 billion in 2100!)

Yikes! See the Africa ticking (time bomb) population clock, here.

Trump to prioritize Africa…..

cover fy19 report

Although the US State Department has announced a greatly lowered refugee cap (30,000) for the coming fiscal year which begins this coming Monday! the administration will place a priority on Africans according to the just released ‘Report to Congress’ that explains why the President is setting the level where he is.

The full report released yesterday is here.

This year it is a slimmed-down version of a report I have handy for FY16 (Obama’s last full year) which is 71 pages. The Trump report, at a mere 39 pages, does not go in to the great detail that Obama’s did.

I encourage serious students of the US Refugee Admissions Program to read it (LOL! I haven’t read it all yet, but I will!) because it is a very useful educational tool even if it is discouraging.

Here (below) is a screenshot of the Trump priorities. At least we can cheer about the dramatic slowdown in the Near East and Asia (where most of the Muslim countries, besides Africa, are found).

Screenshot (696)

And it is an improvement on Obama’s last full year when he set the ceiling for Africa at 27,500 and came in at 31,624!

By contrast, from October 1, 2017 to September 1, 2018 (11 months of the fiscal year), Trump admitted 9,007 Africans.

But, what on earth makes anyone in the Western World think we can save Africa by serving as their population pressure valve.

There is no way, even if we wanted to, to take enough refugees to keep up with their exploding population growth.

Let’s look at the DR Congolese

Anne richard and UNHCR smile — Anne Richard and then UNHCR Antonio Guterres who is now Secretary General of the United Nations. By the way, Trump is still without an Asst. Secretary of the Bureau of Population, Refugees and Migration

I reported here in 2013 that then Asst. Secretary of State for Population, Refugees and Migration, Anne Richard, told the United Nations (told UNHCR Guterres) that we would ‘welcome’ to America 50,000 UN Camp-dwelling Congolese over 5 years.

I just checked Wrapsnet and although we were bringing these people prior to FY14, since Richard’s announcement we have admitted 45,667 from that fiscal year up until today.

(In fact, from FY08 to the present day, we have admitted 56,106 from the DR Congo.)

And, by the way, I checked numbers for this month and in a little over 3 weeks we admitted 684 DR Congolese refugees, followed by Burma (290) in second place. In case you are wondering, most Congolese are not Muslims but there are a few in the flow to your towns and cities.

So by my calculation we have 4,333 DR Congolese to go to fulfill a promise we never needed to make!

But, do not hold your breath that it will end at 50,000 because our track record is that we just keep taking them long after the supposed cut off number has been reached—see Burmese, Bhutanese and Somalis for starters!

Endnote: I did a quick check and am not seeing anything about prioritizing persecuted white South Africans. Let me know if you see any mention.