“There is not a Catholic Charities program that has not been impacted in some way…picture is not a pretty one.”
Jim Kuh, Director of immigration and refugee services for Catholic Charities USA
Here we go again, another whinny story about how that mean ol’ Donald Trump is hurting Catholic RELIGIOUS programsby cutting the number of refugees who come with federal funding attached to each one!
Before reading on check out the Capital Research Centertutorial on why it is bad policy all around for taxpayers to fund Catholic Charities.
This is what I think every time I see stories like this: If the Catholic Church and its members want to help the poor throughout the world, they should use their own private charity! And, better still, be brave and go to where the people are suffering and help them there. It is not the role of the US government to fund the church’s good works!
(Editor: as I said yesterday, in order to read the rest of this post, click on the link below!) Continue reading “Catholics close 20 refugee offices, layoff hundreds as federal funding plummets”→
When I saw this Washington Post Op-edpenned by British National David Miliband whose organization, one of nine federal refugee contractors*** (the International Rescue Committee) depends on just short of a half a billion! (see below) from the US Treasury each year, I thought it was kind of dumb to bite the hand that feeds them (and offers him, Miliband, a comfortable annual income of nearly $700,000). Perhaps I am wrong, maybe David Miliband is giving most of his nearly $700,000 annual salary as charitable gifts to the refugees he sends to your towns. Does anyone know?
But, this is what the arrogant and entitled Far Left does because they have come to expect those millions as their just rewards for their ‘humanitarian’ zeal. Of course I can’t resist an opportunity to write about “Moneybags” Miliband either.
From the WaPo(which has never to my knowledge ever looked in to the cushy deals and ginormous taxpayer-funded salaries the resettlement contractors have been receiving over the years). There is nothing more annoying than a British Leftist lecturing us, and Trump, about retreating from our US principles and practices!
David Miliband is president and chief executive of the International Rescue Committee.
At a time of widespread need, the United States is in headlong retreat from the principles and practices that for so long has made it a global beacon. It is no exaggeration to say that if current trends continue, the U.S. government will have no refugee resettlement program at the end of this administration.
In other policy domains, scholars have asked whether the Trump administration is malevolent or incompetent. In the case of refugees the answer is clear: There is animus towards this program and that is being translated into action in a highly organized and efficient manner. It is the worst of all worlds.
[….]
Despite the success of this bipartisan program, it is being slowly and silently strangled. Bureaucratic means are being used to subvert an agreed interagency decision. There have been no hearings in Congress, no accounting for the result.
Here is one of many deceptions Miliband regularly peddles. He says the 45,000 CEILING, the CAP, is a target! It is not! The President only needs to stay under the ceiling he himself set. If he wants to exceed the ceiling he would have to consult with Congress.
It is not too late to arrest the decline. Congress should be calling on the administration to expedite refugee interviews to hit the 45,000 target. Homeland Security should speed up the process for vetting refugees, which already takes far too long. And there is no excuse for the shortfall in issuance of special admissions for brave Afghans and Iraqis who have put their lives on the line for the United States.
More here.
I agree with Miliband that Congress should look in to the UN/US Refugee Admissions Program for other reasons, but frankly they are all a bunch of do-nothings on both sides of the aisle.
Below is a screenshot of the most recent Form 990 for the IRC. Government grants is your money!
(For salaries of officers, scroll past page 9. They are on a ‘continuation sheet’ that follows page 12. Eleven officers are in the 6-digit salary range!) The IRC would have a hard time surviving without the infusion of federal dollars at this incredible level each year!
*** I post the contractor list almost every day because I want new readers to know exactly who is responsible for driving the US Refugee Admissions Program (in addition to the UN!). The IRC is the financially largest of the contractors. However if you add up the US Conference of Catholic Bishops and all the individual Catholic Charities that receive federal funding the Catholics might be getting the most boodle.
The number in parenthesis is the percentage of the nine VOLAGs’ income paid by you (the taxpayer) to place the refugees, line them up with (low paying) jobs in food production and cleaning hotel rooms, and get them signed up for their services (welfare)! From most recent accounting, here.
The newest batch of 50 will join the 233 already here. An Australian official who was originally involved with making the “dumb” deal with Barack Obama predicts the US will take all 1,250 and maybe more!
For new readers who have never heard of this incredibly stupid arrangement, see my entire archive of previous posts by clicking here.
The Trump Administration has selected 50 more for you to welcome to your towns and cities. Where are they being located? It is a secret!
Former Australian Border Force commissioner Roman Quaedvlieg says he is confident the Trump administration will accept its upper limit of 1250 refugees under a deal with the federal government, and said the US might take even more people.
The government yesterday seized on reports a further 50 refugees in Manus Island and Nauru had been cleared for resettlement in the US to argue the government’s border protection policies were working.
Mr Quaedvlieg was removed from his job in March after an official investigation but previously worked on the deal originally sealed with the Obama administration.
It was the subject of a tense phone call between Malcolm Turnbull and US President Donald Trump.
“The US deal to settle refugees from Manus and Nauru was struck throughout the course of 2016 and was achieved through both formal and informal diplomatic channels,” Mr Quaedvlieg told The Australian.
“Many of us called in friendships and favours in relationships that we cultivated through the Five Eyes alliance.
(Click here to learn about Five Eyeswhich I had never heard of!)
“We were fortunate that President Trump honoured the deal that was struck with the Obama administration.”
Under the deal, the US agreed to accept as many as 1250 people as long as they passed “extreme vetting” procedures.
Mr Quaedvlieg, a former senior police officer, said he would not rule out the US accepting more than 1250 refugees.
[….]
Sky News reported 50 refugees had been cleared for resettlement in the US and would move to their new home within a fortnight. This would be in addition to the 233 people who had already moved to the US under the deal.
How ironic is this! The new New Zealand Prime Minister made a big show a few months back of offering to take some of the mostly Muslim men that Australia won’t take to its mainland, but not so fast!
Government papers obtained by the news outlet this month show Australia asked the New Zealand government to keep its offer on the table as a contingency plan in case the US deal fell through.
Interestingly, the government documents suggested there were concerns about detainees passing New Zealand’s own strict screening and security laws.
There is no sense directing you to the whole article (it is behind a pay wall), but take my word for it.
Donald Trump should have stuck with his original instincts and nixed the dumb deal in the first months of his presidency. It is not only dumb, but could set a dangerous precedent. This process is way outside of the norm for international refugee movement. And, if just one of these men (who have been incarcerated for at least 4 years) goes wrong, commits violence of some sort, it will be on the President! Contactthe White House! and tell the President what you think about this “dumb” deal!
Earlier this month Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service announced a transition CEO (you could call him a fixer) in the wake of the sudden departure of former CEO Linda Hartke. Can he save the organization? Linda Hartke resigned amid internal turmoil.
Michael Patrick Leahy at Breitbartreports the story here:
Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service (LIRS), one of the nine voluntary agencies (VOLAGs)*** who, until the current fiscal year, have collectively been paid more than $1 billion annually by the federal government to resettle refugees, has named an interim CEO after the previous CEO, Linda Hartke, resigned abruptly in February.
Hartke’s resignation came after the completion of an internal investigation first reported by Breitbart News.
VOLAGs receive almost all of their funding from the federal government, with revenues tied directly to the number of refugees resettled. Refugee admissions have plummeted under the Trump administration, driving VOLAG revenues down dramatically – placing the ability of several to continue operating in question.
[….]
Pat Nichols is interim CEO hired to straighten out LIRS. http://patnicholstransitions.com/what-i-do/
“(LIRS) is excited to announce the appointment of Pat Nichols as Interim President and Chief Executive Officer, effective Thursday, April 5, 2018.”
[….]
According to his website, Nichols founded Transition Leadership International, LLC “[i]n 1996, after leading two civic sector organizations through major transitions.”
[….]
Neither Rinehart (LIRS board chairman) nor Nichols made any mention of the investigation that prompted his predecessor’s departure.
Critics say that money flowed so freely to the VOLAGs under the Obama administration that many lacked sufficient financial controls.
With the reduction of revenue associated with the decline of refugee admissions under the Trump administration, operational weaknesses that were previously unnoticed, have now come to the forefront in many VOLAGs.
Nichols has his work cut out for him because LIRS business model depended almost completely on federal funding—97% of what they operate on is taxpayer-supplied money last time we checked.
For my ever-expanding archive on Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service, click here.
*** I post the contractor list almost every day because I want new readers to know exactly who is responsible for driving the US Refugee Admissions Program (in addition to the UN!). We are hearing reports that all nine might not survive the year. Is LIRS one that could fail?
The number in parenthesis is the percentage of the nine VOLAGs’ income paid by you (the taxpayer) to place the refugees, line them up with (low paying) jobs in food production and cleaning hotel rooms, and get them signed up for their services (welfare)! From most recent accounting, here.
We knew this was happening, but this article at The Indypendent has some useful nuggets of information on the internal turmoil involving the UN/US Refugee Admissions Program which began in 1980 as a supposed public-private partnership, but has evolved in to an almost entirely publicly (taxpayer) funded industry.
I’m guessing that the average uninformed reader of this story is scratching his or her head and asking, how can the federal government ask non-profits to close their doors?
It is because the ‘non-profits’ are really fake charities and they can’t survive without the continuous infusion of federal dollars.
Here are a few nuggets from the story:
The Trump Administration is Dismantling the Refugee Resettlement System
April 1 marked the halfway point in the federal government’s fiscal year and, so far, the United States has only admitted 10,548 refugees, placing it on track to fall far short of its already record low admission ceiling of 45,000 individuals. Resettlement workers and refugee advocates say that this is further evidence of the Trump administration’s deliberate efforts to sabotage the refugee resettlement system now and for years to come.
“The program is being torn down from the top!”
“The program is being torn down from the top,” says Dr. Shelly Callahan, executive director of the Mohawk Valley Resource Center in Utica, which works to resettle refugees.
[….]
The U.S. government works with nine private nonprofit organizations***, known as voluntary agencies, to assign refugees to host communities around the United States.
Voluntary agencies receive $2,125 in federal funding for each refugee they resettle and administer networks of local offices that provide services directly to the refugees. All of the approximately 320 local offices provide new arrivals with housing and social services including language training, job-search assistance, school-enrollment assistance and help integrating into the community during their first months in the United States. [They can never bring themselves to say they are signing them up for welfare, medical care and food stamps!—ed]
In practice, virtually all resettlement offices also provide a variety of services to other immigrant, minority, and vulnerable communities alongside refugees, and assist refugees beyond the first months of resettlement. [Yes, we know they are providing taxpayer-funded services to illegal migrants too!—ed] They rely on private donations for these programs. [No they don’t! Only small amounts!—ed]
[….]
Erol Kekic of Church World Service says they are trying to find a more sustainable model. Does that mean trying to raise private money now that the easy federal money, doled out on a refugee per head basis, is drying up?
In December, the State Department informed the voluntary agencies of its intention to close all local affiliate offices [aka subcontractors.—ed] that are not projected to receive at least 100 refugees in fiscal year 2018. According to a plan drawn up by the voluntary agencies and obtained by Reuters, some 74 offices are expected to be closed this year.
Eleven new offices that were in the planning phase at the time will not be opening, although some of them may still be able to operate as sub-offices dependent on other offices for cases and funding.
“We’re trying to look into what would be the best make up of our network and how do we change what currently exists into something more sustainable that can still meet its moral and legal commitments,” says Erol Kekic, executive director of Church World Service, one of the national voluntary agencies. Church World Service has closed 17 offices this fiscal year, bringing its total to just 19.
[….]
The layoffs and closures being engineered by the Trump administration will impact the refugee resettlement system for years to come.
More here.
The article references a cool Reuters interactive graph showing how many offices are closing in each state. See the whole thing here. This is just a portion of a screen shot. Hereis where the original list of over 300 subcontractors is archived, but it looks like the list has not been updated for over a year.
Partial screenshot. See full image here: http://fingfx.thomsonreuters.com/gfx/rngs/USA-IMMIGRATION-REFUGEES/010060WC1Q2/index.html
*** I post the contractor list almost every day because I want new readers to know exactly who is responsible for driving the US Refugee Admissions Program (in addition to the UN!). We are hearing reports that all nine might not survive the year.
The number in parenthesis is the percentage of the nine VOLAGs’ income paid by you (the taxpayer) to place the refugees, line them up with (low paying) jobs in food production and cleaning hotel rooms, and get them signed up for their services (welfare)! From most recent accounting, here.
Here we go again, another whinny story about how that mean ol’ Donald Trump is hurting Catholic RELIGIOUS programs by cutting the number of refugees who come with federal funding attached to each one!
