Catholic Bishop Dolan says that the USCCB is not after more money when defending DACA kids, I beg to differ

09/11/2017 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Bannon and Dolan — Bannon vs. Dolan! If the general taxpaying public had any idea of how many of their tax dollars ‘find their way’ in to the Catholic Church they would be getting out the pitch forks and hitting the streets! Bannon hit them where it hurts!

You can read about all of the back and forth as Steve Bannon maintained that the Bishops want more immigrants because it means more cash in their coffers and more bodies in their pews (see Michael Leahy at Breitbart).

Maybe more cash isn’t reason number one (‘social justice’ is), but it is most assuredly reason number two!

They were discussing mostly illegal immigrants, but you need to know that all of the federal refugee resettlement contractors*** (including the US Conference of Catholic Bishops) supported the Gang of Eight Amnesty back in 2013 because it would have expanded their taxpayer-funded role from resettling refugees (getting them their social services) to helping all the newly amnestied file their paperwork and get their government-supplied goodies.

The Gang of Eight Amnesty contained a “slush fund” for our usual gang of contractors (euphemistically called immigrant-serving organizations) according to an analysis by the Center for Immigration Studies, see here.

Up until this point in time, I wondered why refugee contractors would support amnesty for millions of immigrants who would then compete for limited jobs with refugees that those same ‘non-profit’ groups were tasked to find employment for! It made no sense on a humanitarian level, but it does on an economic level.

Jon Feere for CIS:

Section 2537 of the Schumer-Rubio bill provides “Initial Entry, Adjustment, and Citizenship Assistance” grants to public and private, non-profit organizations that promise to help illegal immigrants apply for the amnesty (p. 384). For example, this includes help with “completing applications”, “gathering proof of identification”, and “applying for any waivers”. But the recipients of these funds are given a lot of discretion, as the funds can also be used for “any other assistance” that the grantee “considers useful” to aliens applying for amnesty. The bill appropriates $100 million in grant funding for a five-year period ending in 2018, plus any additional “sums as may be necessary for fiscal year 2019 and subsequent fiscal years”. (p. 392). There are no limits to the amount of money that may be given out to pro-amnesty groups.

So the Bishops have (and had in 2013) every reason (social justice and money!) to support amnesty (which is what DACA is). The Gang of Eight amnesty didn’t pass, but you can be sure any legislation to legalize the DACA ‘children’ will contain grant money as a pass-through to help them ‘adjust’ their status.

Then there is the payola the USCCB gets every year to resettle refugees.

Here is the USCCB segment of my recent analysis of the nine major federal refugee agencies budgets:

US Conference of Catholic Bishops Migration Fund (97% taxpayer funded)

Now it gets even trickier! The Bishops don’t file a Form 990 and their operations are so vast, I could spend the whole day and still not sort it out. Also, maybe you can find one, but I have not found an annual report for their refugee program since I found this one for 2014.

So we will have to rely on it (again). Keep in mind these funds for their refugee resettlement program do not include millions that go directly from the feds to some individual Catholic Charities and Dioceses around the US. (If you are researching your local CC or Dioceses, you can often find good numbers at USASpending.gov)

“Federal grants” is your money, so is the Travel Loan Collection Fees, so that puts the Bishops’ refugee resettlement program at 97% taxpayer funded. (I am not sure if the Unaccompanied Alien Children fall in to yet another fund!).

I would like to get a more up-to-date accounting for the Bishops, but they must be hiding those reports really well! I suspect they are pulling down even more payola in more recent years.

Obviously we don’t know what salaries are being paid for their Washington, DC lobbying shop. Their previous head lobbyist was Kevin Appleby.

Go here to see how the Bishop’s money compares with the other eight major federal contractors.

And, that isn’t all there is.

You can search individual Catholic Charities (USASpending.gov) and find even more of your money going to local dioceses for migrants. I promise you, you will be blown away by the amounts of money flowing from the US Treasury to your local diocese.

In addition to the US Refugee Admissions Program, Catholic Legal Services gets a vast amount of federal money to pay for lawyers for the ‘kids.’ I’ll leave that research to you.

***For new readers, these are the nine major federal refugee contractors which would have financially benefited from Amnesty in 2013. We can never thoroughly reform the refugee program (or immigration itself) as long as these nine are paid by you to lobby, community organize, sign immigrants up for welfare, and act as head-hunters for big businesses in need of cheap labor.

It is time for all of these quasi-government agencies to raise their own private money for their charitable ‘good works.’ If they give up their federal hand-outs then they will demonstrate that caring for human beings is their first and only concern!

Sob story highlights ORR role in moving unaccompanied alien children around the country

09/10/2017 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

I have too many things piled up to write anything extensive about this subject, but just wanted to be sure that you know that the Office of Refugee Resettlement in HHS is also busy placing tens of thousands of illegal alien youths with ‘families’ who got here illegally ahead of them.

Below is one such story. But, before you go there, here is an ORR fact sheet explaining their legal authority. And, read this, the ‘children’ are eating up ORR’s budget.

From the Sante Fe-New Mexican:

It had been more than 10 years since Gari, an undocumented immigrant from Guatemala who was living in Santa Fe, had seen his younger brother. So he was surprised earlier this year when he received a call from a federal government agency telling him his teen brother had emigrated alone from the Central American country to the Arizona-Mexico border.

Screenshot (824) — The ‘children’ are mostly teens. LOL! and how many of those 17 year-olds are really adults! https://www.acf.hhs.gov/orr/about/ucs/facts-and-data

The boy was in the custody of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, which asked Gari to take legal guardianship of his brother.

At first, Gari was apprehensive because it would require him to give his personal information to a federal agency — something that virtually all unauthorized immigrants try to avoid. But Health and Human Services officials assured him in January that it wouldn’t jeopardize his own safety. The boy just needed a legal guardian as he dealt with his own immigration case, they said.

Gari, 34, was arrested at his home Aug. 14 by federal immigration agents who had used his little brother as bait.

Screenshot (825) — The ‘children’ are mostly boys.

[….]

The Department of Health and Human Services, which runs the Office of Refugee Resettlement, is tasked with reuniting unaccompanied children and youth with relatives in the U.S.

“Our programs encourage reunification of children with their parents or other appropriate adult relatives,” the office’s website says. It doesn’t distinguish between relatives who are U.S. citizens or legal residents and those who are living in the U.S. illegally.

Fascinating isn’t it! ORR is actually placing the mostly teenage boys coming across our borders with illegal alien families (who are in violation of our laws themselves) and you pay millions of tax dollars to help it happen!

If they can’t find a legal family, why aren’t the mostly teenage boys held in detention until they can be returned to their home countries?

To be granted asylum they must prove they will be PERSECUTED if returned home—for their race, religion, political views, etc.

Anyone simply trying to escape violence or looking for work is NOT a legitimate refugee. By administering the program through ORR it sends a message that they are refugees.

I repeat, these are not refugees!

HIAS conference call informative; but appears to be in the dark about FY18 Presidential determination on refugees

09/09/2017 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Of course it’s possible that Melanie Nezer and Mark Hetfield—two of the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society‘s executives and DC insiders—aren’t being completely honest to those on last Thursday’s conference call, but since they were looking for help from supporters, I don’t know what they would gain by being cagey with them.

(I told you about the call here, but you can listen yourself here.)

To save me a lot of work, I’m going to simply list nuggets I learned while listening. Here they are in no particular order:

~Funding the USRAP continues for now at the FY16 level and they say that is enough for 75,000 refugees a year.

Screenshot (730) — The Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society is pushing for 75,000 refugees to begin arriving on October 1st. HIAS is the smallest refugee contractor but appears to have the biggest megaphone. https://www.hias.org/welcome-least-75000-refugees-us-2018.

~75,000 is their minimum target number for FY18 in order to not “undermine [their] infrastructure” (code for keeping the federal money coming so they can pay salaries and rent, but of course they never admitted that to listeners on the call). Less than 50,000 would mean “long lasting erosion” of the program.

~Everything is very confused this year they say. No Presidential Determination (PD) yet. (I expected them to know more!)

~They say the Report to Congress (in advance of the PD) has come in June or July in some previous years. I have never seen it that early. It usually is mid-September because until the last couple of years, Congress didn’t care what the President sent up. Other than a few diligent staffers, it is likely that no members actually ever looked at the report. See last year’s report dated September 15th by clicking here.

~Mark Hetfield likened the PD to another kind of Executive Order. I think he wants to make it sound like its an Executive Order for future lawsuits.

~They admit they have a stable of lawyers ready and waiting for all possibilities from this White House.

~They even suggested there is a possibility that Trump would make no PD! Wow! One of their people remarked that Bush delayed his immediately after 9/11, but that was understandable they admitted (implying the Trump situation is not). So even they are considering the possibility of a suspension of the program.

~A caller asked if there was any way Congress could ‘punish’ the President if he simply doesn’t make a ‘determination’ or initiate a consultation in the coming 3 weeks. No, there isn’t, said one of the HIAS experts. But, their stable of lawyers is looking at all the legal angles.

~Until Trump was elected, they (contractors) were in “expansion mode” opening new offices in new towns. Bringing in more communities now is impossible.

~There was a lot of discussion about what refugee advocates could do. Top of the list was to tell their Congressmen and Senators that they want to “welcome” more refugees. Interestingly, I believe it was Hetfield who admitted the President sets the number not Congress, but important to try to get Congress to pressure Prez.

~They asked listeners to set up meetings with their Washington Reps in their own districts. But, surprisingly, could not give a caller the names of specific reps to target.

Hetfield and Nezer — See Mark Hetfield and Melanie Nezer in action this time last year. https://www.hias.org/blog/video-hias-mark-hetfield-and-melanie-nezer-brief-foreign-press-members

~Some other action ideas included getting rabbis to sign their letter in support of more refugees. They have 48 states represented but no one from North and South Dakota.

~They want people to show up to demonstrate on the steps of the Supreme Court when it hears the so-called ‘travel ban’ case on October 10th. A caller asked how the timing of the case and the decision announcement (could be May or June) would affect refugee admissions, and the experts on the call could not say. As I said in my earlier post this morning, their own lawsuits have made such a hash of the program they have probably done more damage to refugee admissions than if they had simply let the 120 day moratorium run its course.

~They want people to plan demonstrations and to use social media to get the pro-more-refugees message out. And, they want donations.

~There were several mentions of all the eager volunteers who want to help resettle refugees, but alas they may be disappointed with few new ones coming. I felt like shouting—-put them to work helping your previously resettled refugees who are struggling, or better still tell them to help American refugees of Harvey and soon-to-be refugees from Irma.

There is a lot more, those of you in ‘pockets of resistance’ should listen to the 43-minute call, here. Then…..

Tell the President and Congress that the US Refugee Admissions Program should be suspended for fiscal year 2018!

Boulder,CO: Doctors Without Borders brings propaganda campaign to town

09/05/2017 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

When did it happen that decent-sounding NGOs became Leftwing advocacy groups?

And, why can’t this group stick to taking care of the medical needs of poor people around the world?

Did someone (Soros?) give them a pile of money to do this propaganda event to soften up the public?

From the Daily Camera:

The United Nations refugee agency reported in 2016 that more than 65 million people were displaced from their homes worldwide — more than had been reported in 2015, which had seen the highest number of global refugees since World War II and its aftermath.

Doctors Without Borders is bringing a large simulated refugee camp to Boulder’s Pearl Street Mall beginning Monday to offer a glimpse and hopefully a deeper understanding of the plight of a person forced from his or her home.

“The reality is quite complex,” said Mark Leirer, a nurse with Doctors Without Borders who recently spent time on a search and rescue vessel that patrolled the Mediterranean Sea to look for people fleeing Libya.

“The point of the exhibit is to raise awareness,” Leirer said. “It is complex, and people leave home for many reasons, and people leave in many different ways.”

The 10,000-square-foot “Forced from Home” exhibit features an hour-long guided tour with a field worker who will show visitors the numerous obstacles a person fleeing home is likely to encounter, be it medical problems, the amount of water available in a refugee camp or the feeling of a cramped rubber raft.

Refugee is a broad term, and Leirer said people might flee their country or be “internally displaced,” possibly fleeing their village and hiding out in neighboring village. Refugees come from various economic backgrounds, and while one person might be rescued in the Mediterranean wearing no shoes, someone else might have luggage and an iPad.

“Being displaced is the equalizer,” he said. “They are all in the same situation.”

Being displaced does not make one a legitimate refugee who must be able to prove he/she is a victim of persecution!

As those of you who follow twitter know, I’ve been saying we need to take care of American “refugees” first in the wake of Hurricane Harvey. I’m guilty of using the ‘refugee’ label wrongly in that case—but it is to make my point.

So imagine my surprise to hear this spokesperson at Doctors Without Borders say that the victims of Harvey are refugees too.

Lierer said all one has to do is look to Houston and south Texas, where thousands of people have been displaced because of Hurricane Harvey, to see refugees in this country.

“It could be your sister, your best friend or your wife going through this,” he said. “It’s not always a tangible reality, but right now is a crucial moment. All we have to do is look down at south (at Texas) to see that reality happening.”

Okay then! With our tax dollars, let’s take care of America’s refugees first!

Continue reading here, there is a lot about what they were doing off the Libyan coast.

No one to blame but themselves for “job jeopardy” as refugee numbers drop

09/03/2017 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Why?

Because the refugee agencies have failed over the years to raise private money for their ‘charitable’ good works (to tide them over) and have become completely dependent on you—the US taxpayers—to pay for their ‘humanitarian’ hobby.

Scratching your head and wondering why these non-profits (during this slowdown) can’t just take better care of (and give their love to) the refugees they have resettled over the previous years?

Margaret O'Sullivan — Margaret O’Sullivan is waiting to see how this is going to go! http://archive.constantcontact.com/fs166/1102467260055/archive/1115993366111.html

Then you need to know that federal dollars flow to these quasi-government ‘non-profits’ on a per refugee head basis. The love stops when the money does!

No refugees=no payola. You might even liken it to a ponzi-scheme.

If there was so much public support for refugee resettlement, why couldn’t ‘charitable’ organizations like those whining in Philly have done all the normal activities that legitimate non-profits do to raise PRIVATE money—hold fundraising events, galas, bake sales, telethons, solicit corporate donations, etc.?

The answer is that it became too damn easy to dip into taxpayers’ wallets….

(And evidently the general public isn’t that interested in supporting this type of charity!)

Now we see headlines like this one at the Philadelphia Inquirer:

Trump’s travel-ban casualties: Laid-off refugee workers

philly loves refugees

Here are a few snips of the story meant to make it look like Trump is the meany while no mention about how groups like these are funded:

President Trump’s travel ban stalled the hopes of thousands of refugees overseas, and now it’s taking something crucial from workers who help the world’s most vulnerable people.

Their jobs.

Resettlement agencies in the Philadelphia region have laid off staff and left positions empty as the flow of refugees slows to a trickle. One organization cut half of its specialized staff, and another has asked senior employees to take unpaid time off.

“It’s a tortuous situation,” said Margaret O’Sullivan, executive director of the Nationalities Service Center in Philadelphia. “We’re all waiting to see which way this is going to go.”

Ms. O’Sullivan (Nationalities Service Center)*** is referring to the decision expected at any time now from the Trump Administration about how many impoverished refugees (aka paying clients) the US will ‘welcome’ to American towns and cities beginning October 1. We have been advocating suspending the program, see here.

Job jeopardy:

“We’re struggling,” said Peter Gottemoller, director of Pennsylvania refugee programs for Bethany Christian Services.

Bethany has laid off more than half of its 20-person resettlement staff in offices in Allentown and Lancaster and in Montgomery County, “and there probably will be other layoffs coming down,” he said, “because we’re not going to get in the expected number of folks.” [And, the reporter must never have asked, so what is the connection, can’t you keep helping those already here?—ed]

More here.

*** Nationalities Service Center is an USCRI affiliate. A recent Form 990 shows that $2.9 million of their total gifts/grants of $3.7 million came from the government (you).

Below are the nine major contractors that are in most cases completely dependent on your tax dollars.

USCRI is approximately 98% funded by you (from the US Treasury).

The only way for real reform of how the US admits refugees is to remove these contractors/Leftwing activists/lobbyists from the process.