Episcopal church vote to remove George Washington memorial is just outward sign of a politicized church

10/29/2017 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

It is everywhere on the news in the last 24 hours!

In case you happened to miss it, here is Daniel Greenfield on George Washington’s Virginia church and the vote. (hat tip: Ed).

Christ Church Alexandria — Christ Church in Alexandria, Virginia where both Washington and Robert E. Lee worshiped. More details: https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2017/oct/27/george-washingtons-church-tear-down-memorial-honor/

So what does this have to do with refugees?

It is a news hook to tell you about Episcopal Migration Ministries!

We tell you daily that there are nine federal resettlement contractors*** placing third world refugees in to unsuspecting American towns and cities. Six of those, depending almost completely on taxpayer dollars, are supposed to be ‘religious’ church groups largely controlled now by the political LEFT. (The Socialists and Communists understand that in order to bring down America they need to control the churches and break up the family.)

The one federal resettlement contractor surviving almost exclusively on federal tax dollars is Episcopal Migration Ministries (EMM) that admitted in its own publication recently that it is 99.5% funded by the federal government.

And, it gets worse! The other eight federal contractors at least have set up separate legal entities as non-profit groups to receive their federal payola, not so EMM. The federal money destined to EMM goes directly to the Episcopal Church (USA) making it harder than normal to follow the (your!) money! See my post here.

I had always wondered why I couldn’t find an IRS Form 990 for them! Churches don’t have to tell the feds about their money (apparently even if it is the feds’ money!).

Screenshot (1027) — Check out this recent annual report from EMM. Have you ever seen an annual report that does not mention their income and spending at all? https://episcopalmigrationministries.org/wp-content/uploads/AR2017.1.pdf

Let me be clear, this Virginia church and the Episcopal Church (USA) can be political all they want to be, but not with taxpayer dollars!

From an April 2017 article in Episcopal News Service:

The executive order’s impact on EMM’s bottom line is especially drastic because EMM is a unique ministry of the Episcopal Church, both structurally and fiscally. While not separately incorporated, as is Episcopal Relief & Development, EMM receives very little money from the church-wide budget, instead receiving 99.5 percent of its funding from the federal government.

(By the way, if you are still an Episcopalian, you do need to either speak up or find another faith group! Just saying!).

Are federal dollars propping up the Episcopal Church (USA)?

This is not the only place I’ve heard this over the years, but here is one writer who believes the money the church gets from the feds for refugees, helps prop-up the failing church. Read the article which is focused on the US State Department’s travel loan repayment plan where the non-profit, in this case EMM, acts as a loan collection agency and pockets some of the money it wrings out of the refugees.

The Episcopal Church (USA) has two primary sources of income: according to its latest audited financial statements for the calendar year 2013, it received a little over $27 million from its member dioceses, and it received half as much again, or $13.8 million, from the federal government.

Where is Congress?

So why isn’t the House Immigration Subcommittee holding “oversight” hearings on the rackets these ‘church’ contractors have going for them?

***The nine federal refugee contractors who live off the taxpayer’s dime. Go here to see if EMM is operating a refugee resettlement office where you live.

Federally-contracted resettlement agencies do hold secret refugee planning meetings

10/29/2017 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

We have been over this ground so many times I want to barf.

St. Cloud council meeting (2) — If the program is so wonderful for St. Cloud, OPEN THE MEETINGS!

US State Department contractors (non-profit groups paid with taxpayer dollars and hired to resettle refugees in your towns), hold quarterly “consultations” where they meet with other government agencies and sometimes representatives of ethnic groups they serve to discuss problems with refugees and to make plans for the next batch they are bringing in.

The US State Department in Washington says such “stakeholder” meetings are open to the public, but apparently that message hasn’t reached the arrogant contractors.

A picture is worth a thousand words and I am surprised this one is being used to illustrate an otherwise mealymouthed editorial in the St. Cloud Times.

Taxpaying citizens in St. Cloud have been barred from federal contractor Lutheran Social Service’s “quarterly consultations.”

By the way, federal law requires the consultations, but they only started following the law in about 2013.

(I have links for everything above… search RRW for “stakeholder meetings.”)

See my ever-growing archive on St. Cloud, Minnesota by clicking here.

Shame on the House Immigration Subcommittee for never getting to this huge and growing problem (citizen anger in refugee-saturated cities!) with the US Refugee Admissions Program in its rare “oversight” hearing this past week.

What you can do!

LOL! Have some fun in Minnesota and complain about closed meetings to your US Senator Amy Klobuchar who was running her mouth about more openness in government earlier this year! She wants increased government transparency and accountability. Tell her to start here! We are told after all, that this is a federal program!

Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service trying to raise $5 million from private funding sources

10/27/2017 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

It’s about time!

And, if they raise $5 million privately this year it will be an all-time high for the CEO Linda Hartke who took the reins in 2010 of a refugee contractor that is on average 95% taxpayer funded.

As the refugee numbers decline under Trump, LIRS, like all of the nine contractors*** are facing financial woes because of laziness and maybe mismanagement (there is a rumor along those lines at LIRS!) having become so dependent on taxpayer funding that most have made little or no effort to raise PRIVATE money for their charitable ‘good works.’

I notice that at LIRS website they have launched a campaign to raise a whopping $5 million in private money.

Screenshot (1021) — If LIRS raises $5 million this year from private funding it will be the highest in the last 6 years, maybe ever!

I’m wondering if those meatpacker contracts reported here recently are part of that $5 million goal? Foreign-owned BIG Meat hires LIRS!

Again, if they manage to raise $5 million in private money they will be doing better than any year under the stewardship of CEO Linda Hartke who arrived there in 2010.

Going back to Form 990’s beginning with the tax reporting document for 2011, this is what I noticed:

(By the way, I’m rounding numbers to make this easier on me and I didn’t get into side income/contracts including their travel loan deal with the State Department. Form 990’s (except for 2016) can be found on LIRS website, here. )

Most salary information is on page 7 or 8 and income on page 9.

Form 990 (2011)

Total gifts and grants (inc. government grants) $31.6 million, $1.3 million private money raised. Most of the other funding from the US Treasury (roughly 95% taxpayer funded)

Hartke’s salary: $182,000 plus $21,000 from other compensation

Form 990 (2012)

Total gifts and grants (inc. government grants) $40 million, $1.5 million private money. Most other funding from the US Treasury (roughly 96% taxpayer funded)

Hartke’s salary: $191,000 plus $23,000 from other compensation

Form 990 (2013)

Total gifts and grants (inc. government grants) $43 million, $2 million private money. Most other funding from the US Treasury (roughly 95% taxpayer funded)

Hartke’s salary: $203,000 plus $24,000 from other compensation

Form 990 (2014)

Total gifts and grants (inc. government grants) $57.8 million, $2.5 million private. Most other funding from the US Treasury (roughly 96% taxpayer funded)

Hartke’s salary: $210,000 plus $25,000 from other compensation

Form 990 (2015)

Total gifts and grants (inc. government grants) $53.8 million, $3 million private. Most other funding from the US Treasury (roughly 94% taxpayer funded)

Hartke’s salary: $274,000 plus $33,000 from other compensation

Form 990 (2016)

Total gifts and grants (inc. government grants) $67 million, $2.5 million private. Most other funding from the US Treasury (roughly 96% taxpayer funded)

Hartke’s salary: $293,000 plus $34,000 from other compensation.

Screenshot (1023) — LIRS headquarters building in Baltimore’s Inner Harbor neighborhood

Think about this, CEO Linda Hartke went from making $182,000 in 2011 to making $293,000 in 2016 running a RELIGIOUS charity funded largely by the US taxpayer. Stunning isn’t it!

This year, because the number of paying clients (aka refugees) will be lower than normal they HOPE to raise a whopping $5 million (to tide them over?).

For those of you feeling squeamish about reporting salaries, remember this is not a private corporation or a true non-profit, it is a quasi-government agency which we all pay for.

Government salaries are known to the public for members of Congress ($174,000 for example) and even your local elected officials, so it is our right to know and comment on salaries being paid to the nine federal refugee contractors.

If you are a Lutheran, check out the LIRS leadership page here. See if there are people you know! Let them know how you feel.

See LIRS subcontractors here. Is there one near you? Remember they work for LIRS in Baltimore! LIRS in Baltimore is sending refugee cases to your towns and cities! Hello St. Cloud!

*** The nine federal refugee contractors that monopolize all refugee resettlement in America are here. Hartke’s salary isn’t even the highest of the nine. That honor goes to David Miliband of the International Rescue Committee whose salary is approaching $600,000! Doing well by doing good!

Did you watch the Congressional hearing this morning? Are you as enraged as I am?

10/26/2017 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

I don’t want to say I wasted an hour and a half watching the Congressional “Oversight” hearing on the US Refugee Admissions Program put on by the House Judiciary Committee Subcommittee on Immigration and Border Security because it wasn’t a complete waste.

I learned that we are in more serious trouble than I even imagined!

And, I’m not going to give you a blow by blow account because frankly I’m going out to work outside shortly (in nature) to clear my head and calm down!

Screenshot (1019) — The wimpy male witnesses were no match for the pro-more refugees, pro-abortion Democrat women like Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-WA) who monopolized the hearing, changing the subject!, over the issue of the Constitutional right (they say) for illegal aliens in the care of ORR to get abortions.

When the hearing began with a good, strong, promising opening statement by Chairman Raul Labrador and a shorter statement by full committee chairman Bob Goodlatte, I still thought there was hope, but alas there wasn’t any hope that serious problems (of concern to you!) with the refugee program would be revealed in the next hour and a 15 minutes or so.

Go here and here for my previous posts on the hearing to see what we expected to happen and other details about the committee.

Here, briefly, are just some of my observations:

First, where the HELL were Republicans?

Besides Labrador, only Steve King and Mike Johnson asked any questions.

Where were Reps. Jim Sensenbrenner, Lamar Smith, Jim Jordan, Ken Buck or Andy Biggs? Or, any Republicans from the full committee?

(If more Republicans were present they would have been able to dig in to other lines of questioning.)

The Dems were out in force with three women Reps who ate up the milquetoast men witnesses for the Administration.

Reps Zoe Lofgren, Pramila Jayapal, and Sheila Jackson Lee pounded the clearly nice guy (meek!) Scott Lloyd who is Trump’s Director of ORR over abortions for illegal alien children in ORR’s care. They were cheered on and supported by the rambling and obviously senile John Conyers.

The other day I joked about not throwing shoes at the computer screen, but I had to control myself from doing just that! Those tough you-know-whats totally destroyed the men testifying and monopolized the hearing with their pro-abortion line of questioning.

And, there was no line of questioning by anyone about local and state community involvement and consultation in the issue as promised!

We did learn a few things….

Yes, there was some discussion of fraud in the refugee program mostly centered on wannabe ‘refugees’ fraudulently getting in to the US through Resettlement Support Centers (RSC) run by non-profit contractors for the State Department around the world.

No one mentioned fraud by resettlement contractors operating in the US!

The GAO witness (a woman who escaped the wrath of the witches on the committee) did say they found cases of fraud where screeners (or interpreters) for these non-profit groups were asking for bribes to move cases along.

And, Rep. Johnson (R-LA) did ask the State Department witness about the travel loan repayment by refugees. The acting Asst. Sec. of State for PRM, Henshaw, said the repayment rate was 75% and when asked what happens to those 25% who never pay up he said something about how they would have a lousy credit score! OMG!

Oh, and Rep. Lofgren submitted testimony for the record from a whole host of refugee contractors (who depend on government payola) and groupies including (but not limited to): HIAS, LIRS, the US Conference of Catholic Bishops, CWS, the Cato Institute, the Episcopal Church (that’s all I heard of the list as she rattled it off).

The record is open for 5 more days, if you feel like you want to contribute something, go back here and see the contact information for the committee and ask how to submit testimony.

But, frankly, I am sorry to conclude, Congress/the swamp is a waste of time…..

And, if Trump is going to permit such milquetoast men to represent his administration before Congress then he will be a one-termer! (But, that looks like the Republican leaderships plan!).

Put your limited energy and finances into local organizing like I said here.

Rare oversight hearing on refugee program in Congress today, watch it!

10/26/2017 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

As I told you yesterday, the House Subcommittee on Immigration and Border Security (full Committee is the Judiciary Committee) will hold an oversight hearing on the US Refugee Admissions Program this morning.

Screenshot (1014)

We had little notice of the hearing with a press release only sent out late in the day on Tuesday (the 24th).

So there was little time for you all to get information in to the committee. However, it isn’t too late, go to my post, here, and see the contact information and take a few minutes to send your concerns to the committee staff whose names were in the press release. If your member of Congress is on the subcommittee, please send comments to the member and to the staffers listed.

Leo Hohmann, at World Net Daily, has a very informative article this morning on the hearing that we are told will address fraud in the program and the lack of community involvement and consultation regarding the decisions that result in targeting Anytown, USA for refugees.

As I told WND, I will be surprised if those two important concerns are addressed in any depth. Watch for the bureaucrats to spin and flat-out lie, especially about community consultation.

Here is what I said:

“If these congressmen get anywhere near touching on these issues of fraud and abuse, I will be amazed,” says Ann Corcoran, a government watchdog who blogs at Refugee Resettlement Watch. “I’ve been following this program for 10 years and I can assure you, I have never heard Congress address fraud and abuse or the lack of consultation at the local level.”

WE will be watching!

Again, see my post yesterday for more details including who is on the Subcommittee. It will be fun to see who shows up at the hearing!

Go here for the Subcommittee hearing schedule for today. They say it will be webcast here. https://judiciary.house.gov/

Filed in my ‘Where is Congress’ tag! It is also filed in my ‘What you can do’ category here. For new readers who ask, check that category because almost every day I suggest things you can do where you live!