Category: Taxpayer goodies

70 MEN held in Australian offshore detention will soon be told if they are moving to Anytown, USA

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

It is truly insane.  You really must unload on the White House and on your members of Congress and Senators to stop this awful “deal” with Australia.
If you are new to RRW, see my post here last week and be sure to read Nayla Rush’s (CIS) detailed accounting of the insanity, here.
From Today Online:

SYDNEY – The United States will tell dozens of refugees held in an Australian-run offshore detention center whether they will be offered resettlement in America within six weeks, two detainees told Reuters on Friday.

The deadline marks the first concrete timetable for a U.S.-Australia refugee swap arrangement that sparked tensions between the strong allies after President Donald Trump described it as “a dumb deal” for America.

So whose brilliant idea was this? According to Nayla Rush at CIS, it was Anne Richard, Obama’s Asst. Sec. of State for PRM who said this: Richard told reporters she was approached by the Australian embassy in Washington, D.C.: “When the Australians first came to us my motivation was let’s do this, let’s make this happen, we have got to get these individuals to a better place.”

U.S. officials representing Homeland Security this week returned to Papua New Guinea’s Manus Island, home to one of two Australian-administered detention centers in the Pacific, to conduct medical examinations on 70 men.

Extreme vetting involved six hours of questioning (oh boy, that is rough)! Any chance they used lie detector tests?

The men last month completed “extreme vetting” interviews that lasted up to six hours, with in-depth questions on associates, family, friends and any interactions with the Islamic State militant group.

After completing the medical tests, refugees were told to expect a decision on their resettlement applications within six weeks, two of the Manus Island detainees told Reuters.

[….]

It is not clear how many of the 70 men vetted will be accepted for resettlement in the United States. The refugees include men from Pakistan, Afghanistan and Myanmar. [These from Myanmar, aka Burma, are likely Rohingya Muslims.—ed]

[….]

In exchange, Australia has pledged to take Central American refugees from a center in Costa Rica, where the United States has taken in a larger number of people in recent years. [A ‘deal’ implies that both sides get something. Again, why are any mostly economic migrants who got to Costa Rica our problem?—ed]

The swap is designed, in part, to help Australia close one of its offshore centers that is expensive to run and has been widely criticized by the United Nations and others over treatment of detainees.

[….]

Australia’s hardline immigration policy requires asylum seekers intercepted at sea trying to reach Australia to be sent for processing to camps at Manus and on the South Pacific island of Nauru. They are told they will never be settled in Australia.

So Australia has a hardline immigration policy and we bail them out???  And, to add insult to injury, you won’t be told if any of Australia’s illegal aliens (they are not refugees!) will be placed in your towns!
Illegal aliens (or legitimate refugees) who get to Australia are Australia’s problem, not ours!  Imagine a scenario where some Africans came across our southern border, asked for asylum (although there is no way of screening them) and we asked Australia to take them.  Would that ever happen? No!
And, remember this!  Australia needs us more than we need them!
Continue here.
President Trump’s first instinct to call this a “dumb deal” was right, the only thing dumber is to know that and go ahead with it anyway!
For my complete Australia archive, go here where this becomes post #204.
Photo:  Anne Richard was the Asst. Secretary of State for the Bureau of Population, Refugees and Migration (PRM) for Obama. She came to that job from the International Rescue Committee (I wrote about them yesterday, here). She represents the classic revolving door since she worked earlier in her career at the DOS, then went to the private contractor job, and then back to dole out refugees and your money to her contractor comrades.  Click here for my archive on Richard.
The Deep State is running PRM! (probably with the help of the Obama shadow government, including Richard, in DC).

One of Trump’s great failings is that he has put no one loyal to him in a leadership role in PRM, so they are outmaneuvering him on refugees!

IRC gives up plans for new resettlement site in Asheville, NC; write to Congress!

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

This story is from about ten days ago (just getting around to posting it).  What it says to me is that the resettlement contractors are a) pretty worried that the Trump Administration will come in low when it sends its FY18 ‘determination’ to the Hill in September, and b) they aren’t going to push an office where the Congressman for the area is totally opposed to it.
On that last point, I am going to continue to hammer every day that you must hound your member of Congress on the refugee program.
In my opinion, the only way to bring about reform is for the Trump Administration to send a determination for ZERO refugees for FY18 and demand Congress get to work reforming the monstrosity. As it stands now the Republican leadership wants more cheap refugee labor available for big business and the Dems want reliable Democrat voters.  Taxpayers foot the bill!
Here is the news from Asheville (from the Citizen-Times).  And, btw, since 9/11 North Carolina is #13 on the list of states ‘welcoming’ refugees. It received 30,827 refugees in that time (overall, the US admitted 917,639 since FY2002).

ASHEVILLE – A global aid and humanitarian organization announced Thursday it was cancelling plans to make Asheville a resettlement site for 150 refugees.

The move comes six months after the inauguration of Republican President Donald Trump and one year since staff with the International Rescue Committee conducted an exploratory visit in Asheville.

Sean Piazza at linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/seanpiazza

During meetings with stakeholders last June, the IRC received “overwhelming” support to move forward, said Sean Piazza, a spokesman for the large nonprofit.  [LOL! even the reporter here knows this is a large nonprofit!—ed]

But, executive orders issued by the new administration place in question admission of refugees to the United States in 2017 and beyond, he said.

“Unfortunately, in light of these current policies, IRC is not in a position to continue opening an office in Asheville,” Piazza said.

[….]

The IRC is in conversation with the Trump administration to ensure the United State’s commitment to offering a safe haven for the world’s most vulnerable citizens, Piazza said.

“We ask supportive communities to convey this same message to your members of Congress,” said Piazza.

“We appreciate the warm reception and support we received in Asheville.”

Rep. Mark Meadows strong opposition likely played a role in the IRC’s abandonment of the Asheville site.

The IRC helped resettle nearly 10,000 refugees in 2015 including people from Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria.

Even before Trump’s orders, the expansion of refugee services into Western North Carolina was challenged some of the region’s more conservative residents.

U.S. Rep. Mark Meadows, R-Buncombe, opposed the IRC’s plan in August.

More here at the Citizen-Times.

Meanwhile in Montana another IRC office is limping along

The International Rescue Committee is responsible for opening Montana to refugees (there was a small resettlement program there years ago), but against strong opposition, they convinced the US State Department in 2016 to let them open a new site in Missoula.  At present, Montana is #47 on the list of states ‘welcoming’ refugees (only Hawaii, Mississippi and Wyoming received less).
Here is recent news on that program.  See my Montana archive by clicking here.

So where else is the large, very rich and powerful IRC working?

Here is a list of the cities where the International Rescue Committee is planting third-world poverty (their effort to get a foothold in NC has failed for now):

 
And, since I hadn’t checked the IRC’s finances lately, I figured it was a good time to check a recent Form 990. (BTW, this is the first time I am using this ProPublica website. Try it out!) The IRC is about 67% funded by taxpayers (yesterday we learned that EMM is 99.5% funded by you, the American taxpayer!)
In addition to the income in my screenshot (below), they have another $1,451,183 listed as IOM Loan Collection Fee.  This is your money too. The contractors are the collection agencies for the loan given to refugees for their airfare to your town and as the collection agency they get a cut of what they collect from the financially struggling refugees. (LOL! this is justified as teaching refugees how to handle their money and their debt!).
 

 

Doing well by doing good!

Miliband center with George Soros and Soros Jr.

Editor: Let me be clear! If this was a private organization raising private funds, I wouldn’t care what kind of salaries they pay, but since approximately 67% of their annual income comes from taxpayers, this becomes our business!
The most fun part of reporting on the refugee contractors*** finances is always the salaries page of the Form 990.  Here is the page from the same Form 990 I got the income from above.
David Miliband, the CEO of the IRC, is a British national who was the former Labor Foreign Secretary.  He was feted when he arrived in New York City to take the reins of the IRC by the likes of Bill Clinton, George Soros and Samantha Power, here.
See my David Miliband archive here.  He was the first to call for Obama to bring in 65,000 Syrians in one year!
Drum roll please! Here are the top salaries at the IRC (most are higher than most members of Congress/Senators, here).
Look at it this way, you are paying 67% of these peoples’ salaries as they make decisions affecting your neighborhood!
 

 
I know this is getting long, but the more I think about it, if what you have read concerns you, you should consider writing a real letter (not a call or e-mail) to your member of Congress and US Senators and demand that the US Refugee Admissions program be defunded until an effort is made to reform it.
Because of the huge amounts of money sent from the US Treasury to these supposed non-profits for their ‘charitable’ work, there is never any incentive to slow the flow for any reason.  The Refugee Act of 1980 has set up a permanent class of activist lobbying groups who will naturally scream bloody murder if the flow is slowed because it is attached to their budgetary bottom lines.
And, if you do write a real letter, tell your representatives that you expect a letter in response.  Please feel free to take anything from these pages!
*** For new readers, these are the nine federal refugee contractors that monopolize the admissions program (and lobby Congress for more and more refugees!).

Refugee contractor Episcopal Migration Ministries is 99.5% funded by you, will close some offices

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

This is old news from back in April and I don’t know if they have changed their minds about closing offices after it was announced by the Dept. of State on May 26th that the number of refugees being admitted to the US is going to tick up to 1,500 a week.
Since the refugee contractors*** are paid by the head to place refugees in your towns and cities they may feel there is some hope for their finances to pick up with an increase in paying client (aka refugees) arrivals.
(As of June 11th, 47,434 refugees have been admitted to the US in FY17. This is 9,328 refugees since the supposed moratorium began and 17,312 since Trump was inaugurated.)

Rev. Canon E. Mark Stevenson and staff at EMM headquarters in NY city. http://episcopaldigitalnetwork.com/ens/2017/04/04/trumps-immigration-policies-force-reduction-of-episcopal-churchs-refugee-resettlement-network/

However, office closure news isn’t the primary reason I’m posting this news.  I’m posting it because a reader has solved a mystery I’ve been wondering about for years—why is there no Form 990 (the IRS form required of non-profit groups) for Episcopal Migration Ministries (EMM)?
Before I get to the answer.  Here is what the Episcopal News Service reported on April 4th (they are looking ahead to FY18 and even lower numbers of refugee clients):

As a result of changing U.S. policy that lowers the number of refugees to be resettled in this country annually by more than half, Episcopal Migration Ministries will be reducing the size of its affiliate network by six sites in the next fiscal year. Currently, the Episcopal Migration Ministries network consists of 31 affiliate locations.

Episcopal Migration Ministries is a ministry of the Episcopal Church, and is one of nine national agencies responsible for resettling refugees in the United States in partnership with the government.

“We are disappointed that we need to take these steps, but the current situation leaves us no choice,” commented the Rev. Canon E. Mark Stevenson, director of Episcopal Migration Ministries. “We have reduced our national core staff by 22% due to funding cuts and we are now looking at a similar cut in our network of affiliate partners through which refugees are resettled. While difficult, the decision making process regarding these reductions has been carried out carefully and strategically, with the welfare of refugees at the forefront of our minds.”

As Episcopal Migration Ministries prepares for fiscal year 2018, six offices will not be included in the resettlement plan submitted to the government. The affiliates, and the Episcopal dioceses in which they are located, are: Refugee One, Chicago, IL (Diocese of Chicago); Lutheran Social Services of Northeast Florida, Jacksonville, FL (Diocese of Florida); Lutheran Social Services of ND, Fargo, ND (Diocese of North Dakota); Lutheran Social Services of ND, Grand Forks, ND (Diocese of North Dakota); Ascentria Care Alliance, Concord, NH (Diocese of New Hampshire); and Ascentria Care Alliance, Westfield, MA (Diocese of Western Massachusetts).

More here.
Readers this does not mean that the entire refugee program in, for instance, Fargo, ND is closing. Many of these contractors double up in places where the flow coming in is pretty lucrative.  See the page from the State Department’s affiliates directory.  You will see for Fargo, for instance, that EMM shares an office with Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service. Presumably LIRS will stay in business.
 

 
If you are wondering what the DFMS stands for in the lefthand corner of two entries, it is for EMM’s other name Domestic and Foreign Missionary Society.  You see how tricky this gets when trying to figure out what these secretive agencies are doing while using different names and housing their money in difficult-to-find places!  (BTW, I was told by a DOS employee nearly ten years ago that there are no financial audits done of this particular group of federal contractors.)

They are not passing the plate on Sundays for their refugee program!

Take, for example, my quandary about trying to find EMM’s Form 990. Here is what one reader spotted in a lengthier story from Episcopal News Service in April:

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. Its main office is housed at the Episcopal Church Center in New York.

EMM takes the prize!  99.5% of its funding is from you. And, you have no way of knowing where your money is going!

And, come to think of it, where is the ACLU on the issue of separation of church and state?  Hmmmm?
The next highest contractors run at the 97%-98% federal funding level (US Conf. of Catholic Bishops, USCRI and LIRS).
Endnote:  With all of this news about EMM closing offices, one wonders why the DOS is contemplating opening a new EMM office in Charleston, WV?
*** The nine federal contractors that depend largely on tax dollars to do their charitable good works are these:

BIG MEAT wants the cheap refugee labor, no wonder Congress won't reform law

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

But, it isn’t just the Meatpacking industry, it is the Chamber of Commerce, the hospitality industry, other food processing and manufacturing that has become dependent on the refugee labor force that you and I pay to bring to America (and support with our social service dollars!)  See my previous post where CIS refutes a very big lie.

Tyson Foods at Storm Lake, Iowa changing the demographic makeup of heartland towns, paying low wages to refugees and lobbying Congress for more!

In a few days I’ll tell you why I am re-posting this information about greedy companies like Tyson Foods lobbying Congress side by side with the refugee contractors/’religious’ charities who claim they are working for the good of humanity.
Have a look at some of my recent posts on Big Meat (particularly Tyson Foods!):

NYT: How Tyson Foods and its greedy demand for cheap immigrant labor ‘saved’ an Iowa town

Garden City, Kansas to become new poster-city for the joys of BIG MEAT-generated multiculturalism

Bloomberg: Trump’s refugee ceiling of 50,000 could hurt BIG MEAT

Storm Lake, Iowa: Filling America’s “dead spots” with diversity!

Nebraska: Lutherans, Somalis, meatpackers, mosques (and controversy) in small town America

My list is huge and I could go on, but you get my drift. Click here for my complete archive on Tyson Foods.
Big Meat’s desire for cheap labor, in conjunction with the lobbying efforts by the NGO refugee industry, produce a powerful juggernaut working against taxpaying citizens (we have no lobbyists) just looking for reform of the system that would include some say as to what is happening to our home towns and how much it’s costing us—financially, culturally and security-wise!
If you really want to do something (rather than sending angry comments to blogs and facebook pages), call your member of Congress this week and next—tell them to defund the US Refugee Admissions Program, then get to work reforming it.

Refugees do NOT bring in more tax dollars than they consume in social services

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

This news was all over my alerts yesterday morning (one version of the story at Business Insider):

Study finds refugees actually pay the US government thousands more than they get from it

The glowing (and deceptive) report was clearly released now as a run-up to World Refugee Day next Tuesday and has probably been widely distributed on Capitol Hill by the legion of lobbyists for the refugee industry.
My reaction was that the conclusions fly in the face of all common sense.  And, LOL!, I wondered right away whether they included the costs to the criminal justice system.  Imagine how much those life prison terms of some refugee murderers and terrorists cost the American taxpayer!

Esar Met, a Burmese refugee raped and murdered a little girl in his apartment complex shortly after arriving in the US (he had surely not paid in any taxes yet!) and is doing life in prison. Someone with some economic training and the interest should figure out what it costs taxpayers for these expensive trials and life sentences. One of my many posts on Met is here: https://refugeeresettlementwatch.org/2014/01/14/utah-medical-examiner-little-girl-suffered-excruciating-pain-before-dying-from-tear-to-heart/

So, I wondered if  there was a rebuttal and sure enough there is!
If you see the deceptive news published in your newspaper, you must respond with a ‘letter to the editor’ using key points of Jason Richwine’s rebuttal.  You can’t let their propaganda go unanswered.
The Center for Immigration Studies responded here this morning (emphasis is mine):

Refugees do not pay their own way

A working paper released this week by Notre Dame economists William Evans and Daniel Fitzgerald makes the head-scratching claim that refugees, despite below-average incomes and high rates of welfare use, pay $21,000 more in taxes than they receive in benefits during their first 20 years in the United States. Immigration-boosting wonks such as Matt Yglesias and Dylan Matthews immediately trumpeted the findings, and the Washington Post and FiveThirtyEight added favorable write-ups.

They should have been more skeptical. The claim that refugees contribute more in taxes than they receive in benefits is simply implausible.

[….]

So how does the Evans-Fitzgerald paper come to such an implausible result? First, the authors count all (or nearly all) taxes paid by refugees but reduce the services they receive to six social programs — cash welfare, SSI, Social Security, food stamps, Medicare, and Medicaid. All other costs that governments might incur from immigration — housing, infrastructure, education, law enforcement, and so on — do not count.

Second, they fail to adjust for the underreporting of those social programs…

[….]

Third, the paper excludes refugees’ minor children. When refugees cannot afford to provide food, housing, or medical care to their children, taxpayers foot the bill. Most of those costs are omitted.

Fourth, the authors restrict the refugee age range to 18-65, cutting off the analysis just before the age where most people stop working and begin participating in the nation’s costly retirement programs.

By the way, we bring in a significant number of refugees to the US over the age of 65 who immediately draw on SSI.
More here.
Don’t miss CIS’s previous detailed study of the cost of refugees to taxpayers, here.  Middle Easterners are especially expensive!
This is posted in my ‘What you can do’ category (created because new readers are asking).  If you see the deceptive report mentioned in your local newspaper do not let it go unanswered!  Send a letter to your member of  Congress too and tell him or her (in advance) to watch for the propaganda (Big Lie!) campaign about refugees supposedly adding to the US economy. (The cheap labor supply might add to the bottomline at Tyson Foods, but not to the overall economy!).