US Catholic Bishops received over $95 million from US taxpayers in 2016 for refugee/migrant care

01/07/2018 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Yesterday we reported on the Bishop’s 2014 dollars received from the US Treasury, see here.
USCCB
Now, thanks to reader Joanne (who did some digging!) we see that the USCCB is approaching $100 million federal dollars for their ‘charitable good works’ on behalf of immigrants of all stripes.
Unfortunately, this data doesn’t show us the percentage of private money raised for their migration program, but I suspect it isn’t much more than 3% of their overall migration budget as it was in 2014.
Buried in the USCCB Financial Statement and audit reports, here:

USCCB 2016 funds

See my archive on the USCCB by clicking here.
My goal is to get the Bishops to admit in media reports that they are being paid handsomely for their good works!
If you are Catholic and looking for something to do, ask your local priest if he is aware of all these millions of federal dollars, especially this week—National Migration Week—when you are made to feel guilty for not being thrilled about the UN/US Refugee Admissions Program!
For new readers the USCCB is one of the nine federal contractors responsible for placing refugees into your home towns. In fact, the Bishops and their extension—Catholic Charities—place the largest number of any of the nine.

Catholics get ready for National Migration Week launch tomorrow….

01/06/2018 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

…..where you will be made to feel guilty if you aren’t interested in the message about helping the (foreign) stranger when you see poverty and homelessness all around you!

I don’t really want to write about this again, but awhile back I said that every time I saw a Catholic publication promoting propaganda about their charitable work for refugees and immigrants without mentioning that they are paid MILLIONS of taxpayer dollars for their ‘religious’ good works, I would write about it.
***Update*** Worse than we even thought! Reader finds 2016 funding. Read all about it here.
This is from a South Jersey Catholic publication. Not a word about the fact that the US Conference of Catholic Bishops (as one of nine federally funded resettlement contractors***) is paid millions annually from the US Treasury.

For nearly 50 years, the Catholic Church has celebrated National Migration Week, which kicks off this weekend, Jan. 7. This year’s purpose takes on a special significance in light of Pope Francis launching the two-year Share the Journey campaign in September 2017.

Share the Journey is a worldwide effort to build understanding and support within local communities for immigrants and refugees who have come to new lands to rebuild their lives. The campaign is sponsored globally by Caritas Internationalis and in the United States by Catholic Charities USA, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, and Catholic Relief Services.

[….]

“National Migration Week, and the Share the Journey campaign in particular, are invitations to people of all ages to engage with migrants in a meaningful way, and to be warm and welcoming of these newcomers,” noted Patrick Barry, director of Refugee and Immigration Services at Catholic Charities, whose mother was a Cambodian refugee who fled the Khmer Rouge regime in the 1980s.

“It’s been amazing to see how many groups, nonprofits and institutions have engaged in this campaign and demonstrated their support,” he said.

[….]

“As Catholics, we believe in the human dignity of all people. And so we are called to stand with refugees and immigrants as our brothers and sisters,” said Kevin Hickey, executive director of Catholic Charities, Diocese of Camden, and Catholic Charities USA Trustee.

And so, why not stand for the human dignity of your fellow Americans (first!) who are struggling with hunger and homelessness?
The answer: there is no money in it!

The USCCB’s Migration Fund is 97% funded by you, the taxpayer.

See my most recent write-up on funding for contractors where I report on the USCCB’s 2014 annual report. After I found this one and first reported on it a few years ago, I have never found a more up-to-date financial statement for their migration fund. I wonder why!

screenshot-671 (1) — Federal grants and the travel loan collection fees are your money! http://www.usccb.org/about/migration-and-refugee-services/upload/2014-MRS-Annual-Report.pdf

I look forward to the day when a Catholic publication reports on the above facts!
Catholic parishioners might be perfectly fine with taking that much federal money, so why are the Bishops afraid of telling them?
*** The contractors. The USCCB resettles the most refugees of the nine that monopolize all resettlement in the US.

Per (refugee) head payment to contractors took huge jump during Obama's tenure

01/03/2018 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

I’m sure readers get sick of hearing me talk about the per head payment the US State Department pays the so-called VOLAGs (aka resettlement agencies, aka contractors)*** to place refugees into your towns and cities, but it is important because that is why you hear the contractors wailing now about the Trump Administration’s refugee slowdown.

LIRS welcome cover — Why is the “welcome” the responsibility of the beleaguered US taxpayer?

Of course these agencies are on the Leftwing of the political spectrum and want to see diversity (and Democrat voters) planted in your towns. They have bought into the UN’s borderless world agenda, and some (maybe more than we know) work directly with global corporations to supply refugee labor, but because they can’t survive without government funding, they are hysterical now.
Thanks to collegue Jim, here is a document from ten years ago, produced by Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service (the one experiencing financial accounting questions) claiming that the $850 per head payment they received at the time (half went to the refugees and half was for overhead) was not sufficient and they wanted a per head raise to $1,500.

Public-Private partnership, my foot!

They actually made the claim repeatedly in their report that the PUBLIC-PRIVATE partnership was too heavily skewed in the direction of private funding responsibility and that the feds weren’t putting up their share.
That claim led me to a Form 990 for 2009 (I couldn’t find 2008) to see if they were indeed putting in more money than the feds. The answer is NO!
In fact only 3% of their revenue from gifts, grants and loan collection fees was private funding. The remainder was GOVERNMENT funding of some sort.
Here is a screenshot of that portion of their Form 990 for 2009:

Screenshot (124) — Obviously government grants are taxpayer dollars as is the loan service fees.

That fact, that 97% of LIRS income that year was supplied by the US taxpayer, completely nullifies the argument they make in their 2008 18-page analysis: The Real Cost of Welcome where they say they are supplying the greater amount in the public-private partnership.
The purpose of the study was to ‘encourage’ an even larger share of the burden for the taxpayer.

Screenshot (125) — In 2008 they complained that $850 per refugee was inadequate and that they were putting in an unfair share of the public-private arrangement.

I thought you might like to see what ‘services’ they provide for refugees (that you pay for). Remember that they only take care of the refugees they place for 90 days.

Much of this could be done with volunteer help and donations. Isn’t this after all supposed to be a charitable humanitarian endeavor?

When did it happen that religious good works were to be paid for by the government?

Screenshot (126) — You can readily see why a refugee designation is the most desirable LEGAL immigration category one could want. American taxpayers give out a lot of goodies, plus the refugees get caseworkers to hold their hands through the welfare bureaucracy!

Conclusion: We want $1,500 per head!

Screenshot (128)_LI

I can report that they got their wish and more! The present rate (climbed steadily over the Obama years) is now $2,125!

$1,125 is to be spent on the refugee and the contractor pockets $1000 for ‘administrative’ expenses. (And the contractor decides how to spend the refugee’s share!).
And, let me be clear, this (State Department payment) is not the only money the contractors receive from the US Treasury, they receive literally millions more through other agencies and grants/contracts particularly from the Office of Refugee Resettlement in HHS.
***These are the nine federal contractors who pass money through to hundreds of subcontractors operating around the country.
Broken record alert!
It is my contention that the UN/US Refugee Admissions Program will never be reformed until these Leftwing community organizers are removed from the federal dole. You get the list twice today (earlier post here)!

Top USCIS refugee official leaving; more evidence admissions slowdown could continue

01/03/2018 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

We reported here on January 1 that the Trump refugee numbers, at the present rate of arrival, would come in at half of the CEILING of 45,000 set for FY18.
By the way, George Bush had two years that saw refugee admissions in the 20,000 range.
Trump will set a record if he comes in below George W. Bush’s two lowest years of 27,070 (2002) and 28,117 (2003).
(Yesterday, Michael Leahy at Breitbart posted a more detailed look at the numbers so far.)

hans van de weerd bald — Hans Van de Weerd of the two hats (IRC and RCUSA) is the go-to-guy for media comments these days. As you know RCUSA is the lobbying arm of the UN/US Refugee Admissions Program. My question: is Hans still a Dutch citizen? Bio here: http://www.phocuswrightconference.com/Whos-Coming/Speakers/2016/Hans-Van-de-Weerd

Here Reuters reports on the retirement of Barbara Strack (hat tip: Joanne):

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – One of the top U.S. government officials working on refugee issues announced her impending retirement on Tuesday, and refugee advocates expressed concern about the fate of the country’s resettlement program which faces mounting pressure from the Trump administration.

Barbara Strack, a career official and chief of the Refugee Affairs Division at U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, did not specify when she will leave her post, but USCIS spokesman R. Carter Langston said it would be in January.

[….]

“It’s something I’ve been planning towards for a long time, and it’s not driven by policy considerations,” Strack said. “I will deeply miss the colleagues and friendships that I‘m leaving behind, and the important mission of refugee resettlement. It’s been a privilege to be part of this community for the last 12 years, working to make the U.S. refugee resettlement program robust and secure.”

Advocates expressed concern at the timing of Strack’s retirement, saying it could further hamper U.S. refugee admissions. It was unclear immediately who would replace her.

[….]

The Refugee Affairs Division, which Strack oversees, includes dozens of officers charged with interviewing refugees abroad for resettlement in the United States.

[….]

Advocates for resettlement and some U.S. officials have expressed alarm at what they see as a slowdown in trips abroad known as circuit rides, in which USCIS officers interview refugees.

“The number of circuit rides has gone down drastically with currently only a few planned,” said Hans Van de Weerd, chair of Refugee Council USA***, a coalition of non-governmental groups working on refugee issues. “Many more will need to be scheduled soon to resettle 45,000 refugees and we don’t have any information about whether they will.”

More from Reuters here.
*** See my recent post on RCUSA the lobbying shop for the nine federal contractors which receive the vast majority of their funding from the US taxpayer. With the reduction in paying clients (aka refugees) entering the US, their budgets are taking huge hits. Go here and see IRC salaries, spokesman Hans does not make the top tier.

Refugee numbers are low for first 3 months of fiscal year; Ohio is top receiving state

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

As promised, below are the stats for the first three months of fiscal year 2018 (it began on October 1, 2017).
Update January 3: More detailed numbers analysis by Michael Leahy at Breitbart, here.
President Trump set the CEILING for the year at 45,000 refugees. That is the lowest CEILING since the Refugee Act of 1980 (Kennedy/Biden) was signed in to law by Jimmy Carter.

Somalis in Columbus — Columbus, Ohio second only to Minneapolis for its number of Somalis. Columbus received 245 refugees from 11 different countries, including Somalia, in the first three months of the fiscal year. It was followed by Akron as the second most ‘welcoming’ city in the state with 139 ‘new Americans’ in the last 3 months.

I capitalize the word CEILING because I want to get it into the heads of reporters that a CEILING is not a target to be achieved. It is a cap that the President cannot exceed without consultation with Congress.
There is nothing in refugee law that says he can’t come in with half of the proposed CEILING.
And, if the present rate of resettlement were to continue for the year, that is about where we will come in.
According to Wrapsnet, as of today, we have admitted 5,323 refugees over 13 weeks.
Extending that same rate out for 52 weeks would put the number at just under 22,000 for the year.
I know, to many readers, that 22,000 is too many, but you can be sure the low number of paying “clients” (refugees) will wreak havoc with the budgets of the nine federal contractors which could (optimistically) in turn force a complete review about why we have such a dysfunctional system where ‘non-profits’ are paid by the head to place refugees (in as much secrecy as they can muster) into towns and cities in 49 states.
There is never an incentive to slow the flow in overloaded communities with such a system where nine contractors*** are literally bidding for bodies.
Here is where the 5,323 have been placed as of today:

Screenshot (118) — Data available at the Refugee Processing Center (Wrapsnet) for October 1, 2017 to December 31, 2017. I know the numbers are a little hard to read, but nothing I can do about it.

The top ten ‘welcoming’ states are: Ohio, Texas, New York, Pennsylvania, Washington, California, Georgia, Illinois, Michigan and North Carolina. California is normally first or second so who knows what that is all about.
Top ten countries from which we admitted refugees since October 1, 2017:

Bhutan (1,535)

DR Congo (1,154)

Burma (655)

Ukraine (487)

Eritrea (428)

Russia (132)

Somalia (128)

El Salvador (113)

Ethiopia (102)

Afghanistan (81)

Iraq (77), which has been in the top three or so for years, didn’t make the top ten.
The percentage of Muslim refugees is way down.
In the final Obama years we were admitting close to 50% Muslim refugees and now (all Muslim sects combined) we admitted 726 Muslims in the last 3 months which amounts to about 14%.
I am concerned to see that 199 of the 726 were Muslims from Burma (Rohingya).
*** These are the nine federal refugee contractors. I like to post this list once a day (if I remember!) so new readers can begin to get the list memorized! They have hundreds of subcontractors working for them. If you visit their websites you can find out which, if any, are operating where you live.