Category: Testimony for 5/1/2012 State Dept. meeting

Shake-up at Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

The longtime president of the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society (HIAS), one of the top nine federal contractors resettling refugees in our cities, resigned this month.   Hat tip: Friends of Refugees.

He says it’s for family reasons (that is what they all say!), but this article suggests that the agency was being criticized for not focusing on Jews in trouble around the world.  To tell you the truth from the earliest days of writing RRW I wondered how HIAS justified resettling Muslims.  But, I will bet if they didn’t agree to resettle everyone, the feds would cut them off financially.

You can read all about it here.  Aronoff confirms that in order to keep the organization going you need to resettle as many warm bodies as possible—not just Jews—because their funding is dependent on a per capita payment from you, the taxpayer.

The interim President, Mark Hetfield, testified at the May 1 State Department meeting among other things to lighten up on the security restrictions and to get the P-3 program completely up and running.   He specifically, sensibly, says, “The terror which refugees fled must not follow them to the United States,” then goes on to say we are being too strict with our security screening.  Go figure!

We have written about HIAS and Aronoff previously, here is one post where we learned that Aronoff was letting staff go in 2009 while holding on to his quarter of a million dollar salary.

Learn more about HIAS!  Check out our archives with all the posts in which we mention this contractor here.

Rohingya connection to terrorist groups being searched here at RRW

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Just an interesting bit of information I noticed yesterday in looking at our stats—-lots of people are looking at a 2009 post about the State Department having identified Burmese Rohingya people as being connected to Islamic terrorist groups.   For some reason that three-year-old post is getting a lot of attention.   Unfortunately, the State Department has removed the link for the terrorist group list.

There is another post in 2009 here that also mentions the Rohingya connection to Islamic extremists.

As I’ve mentioned before, we’ve written over 100 posts on the Rohingya, categorized here.  My primary interest over the years was whether we would bring Rohingya refugees to the US, but now that we are and no one is paying attention it doesn’t matter much (until something goes wrong!).

By the way, several of those testifying at the May 1 State Department meeting were pushing Rohingya resettlement, including Anastasia Brown, the US Conference of Catholic Bishops representative.

An afterthought:  I have New Hampshire on my mind (next post) and I wonder if NH got its contingent of Rohingya this past year?

California citizen: refugee program a fraud!

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Russian:

“Who would not tell a white lie in order to get everything for free”?

Readers, I haven’t forgotten that I plan to continue to post testimony from that May 1 State Department meeting which was ostensibly to give you an opportunity to voice your opinion on how many refugees the US will take in FY 2013 and from where.  But, the Refugee program head honcho, Lawrence Bartlett, said at the meeting that they wouldn’t make the testimony available on-line (those in attendance received the testimony in hard copy).   All of the testimony I’ve posted so far is here in our special category for the meeting.

This is what one California citizen had to say (emphasis mine):

I have been in the photography business since 1973 in a town called Rancho Cordova, California. It is a suburb of Sacramento. We do not need any more refugees in our community. We have been the destination point for over 150 thousand alleged religiously persecuted refugees from the former Soviet Union. It is nothing more than a scam against taxpayer. It is under the Lautenberg act of 1989. There is no religious persecution in Russia. And if there was, is it our duty to support them?

The churches are behind it in order to receive free money for putting phony refugees on public assistance. I cannot describe in words the resentment of my customers who work in the banks, grocery stores, and in the medical field who are extremely resentful of this largesse.

The women who work at the banks and grocery stores are witnesses to the scams and the fraud that is committed on a daily basis. As my friend who works at the bank states if I cash one more social security check for someone who has never paid into the system and is drawing more than my parents who worked all of their lives I will scream. The resentment is palpable.

Particularly when the community found out there is no religious persecution in Russia. That it is nothing more than a scam to obtain a middle class life on the backs of someone else.

I have proof it is all fraud and not even my congressman Lungren [Dan Lungren] will discuss it out of fear of being destroyed politically. I have brought the fraud to the attention to ICE. They responded with they know it is fraud. They said they would be sued if they dare try and stop it.

I am a Viet Nam Vet as is my brother via the law in those days. My brother’s neighbors from Cambodia never worked a day while they lived next to my brother. He and his wife worked to support them. How can you justify that. The nice folks from Cambodia received section 8 housing and their kids went to college at my brother’s expense.

If we took that money and spent it on the black community maybe there would not be cities full of Ghettos?

We cannot afford it period. We need to follow the original law. Meaning they cannot be a burden on taxpayers. They are supposed to have sponsors who support them. It is shameful the only reason the churches are interested in resettling is money for themselves.

You forget the domino effect in our community such as crime and gangs in the Russian community. I had a Russian friend who worked for me, by the name of Alex Sukonof tell me “Who would not tell a white lie in order to get everything for free”?

Alex also told me that he thought “It was ok that his in laws claimed religious persecution like the others.” That they only receive about $1300.00 between them, including free health care that we pay for. Apparently as alleged Refugees: they are entitled to SSI for 7 years. If they become citizens within that time, it is now a lifetime entitlement. Even though they have never worked a day in their life here.

The real sad part is that according to Alex they are allowed to take the Citizenship test in their native language. I know for a fact his in laws do not speak a word of English, as I have called their house looking for him several times.

The bottom line is: by telling a little white lie about religious persecution, they are allowed an income for life that they did not earn. That is persecution of hard working taxpayers. This entire Refugee program is an upside down cake.

Furthermore: even if it was all real as there are others that are real, this directly affects Americans who are in need of a job. We need to shut it down totally until we become flush with cash again as a country.

We need to eliminate the entire program and operate it on an individual basis with true volunteers.

The reason you do not hear from the public is fear of losing their job or demonized as a racist.

Comment worth noting: large contractors like ECDC monopolize refugee funding

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

This is a comment I received in response to my post last week about how the Ethiopian Community Development Council (one of the big nine cabal of federal refugee contractors) testifying at the US State Department May 1 meeting, here, asked that the funds keep coming even if the refugees aren’t.

Readers not familiar with the situation in St. Louis with the African Mutual Assistance Association of Missouri, might wish to first read this article (for background) in St. Louis Today from earlier this year.

From Gedlu B. Metaferia (emphasis mine):

Although I differ in views from you [at RRW] because of my former status as a refugee with liberal background I still appreciate your blogs because you expand our horizon of dialog and understanding from various angles. I know where you are coming from.  I am with you on many posts of waste of Government use of tax payer dollar. I was sick to the stomach when I saw the $13-14 million ECDC 990 to resettle less than 300 refugees every year.  I am not envious person by nature, and I expected honesty from non-profits, foundations and our government. Now I know better.  I did not want to write this post because I have stopped writing on ORR-“VOLAG” related issues temporarily because I do not want to offend very few genuine contractors who help refugees, although I believe that change is coming soon.  I am also outspoken on ORR and the crony like racket because the grant (contract) awardees are always the same personalities and organizations. I have also stopped writing temporarily because I believe that the worst offenders of a malfunction of a system are those refugee workers who keep quite and turn their just eyes the other way instead of fixing it.  I will be having a web site of advocacy in refugee issues pretty soon.  As you may probably know ECDC has given me hard time by cropping ad helping another agency (AIRS) in St. Louis, the effect has contributed to AMAAM [African Mutual Assistance Association of Missouri] to close early. We were beaten hard here in St. Louis by ORR money which was obtained on behalf of AIRS by ECDC from 2002-2004.

ORR does not consider million of resources that VOLAGS have before distributing $600 million- $1 Billion a year.  This why small genuine organizations are wiped out  especially in this recession.  One refugee  specialist friend made me laugh when he commented that ‘If some of these rich share volags  contribute at least 1% of their net income  for agencies like AMAAM life will not be difficult for many”. I know that this will not happen. The resettlement lobby is very strong. It does not tolerate differing opinion. It is a kingdom  that uses refugees to enrich itself. I am not writing as a self-serving issue, but I was providing services for more than 500 refugee families without including other categories of legal immigrants for less than $100K with 3-7 employees.  These refugees are often given support 2 years after arrival because resettlement agencies have to concentrate on new arrivals. There are also secondary migrants (who stay in St. Louis from 1 week to 5 years). It is not self-serving to say that I have the blessing of respect, well wishes and love as I walk on the street from African immigrants. That is the only beautiful capital and gratitude I get and it is a blessing from God.  When I saw the $14 million figure in the 990 of ECDC it just makes me sad.  I am not against making wealth. I strongly believe that tamed capitalism is the best system because I had seen vestiges of 3 systems in Ethiopia which are very horrible. I am not against if VOLAGS make billions by their hard work. But this one is not right by capitalisms standard, by Gods standard, by true charitable standard, by any standard, by conservative standard, by liberal standard, by American standard.  There has to be a way to reform refugee resettlement, non-profits and foundations. I do not want the name refugee to be associated with making profits, it is immoral and unjust.

Well said!

So what is going on in Lancaster, PA? More refugees than the city can handle?

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Update May 20th:  Church World Service—thousands upon thousands resettled to Lancaster, here!

You know Lancaster—the home of the Amish.  Not!

I’m going to tell you about one of my favorite testimonies sent to the US State Department two weeks ago for the May 1 scoping meeting to hear from “stakeholders” (that is government talk for contractors) on how many refugees and which ones to bring to the US in FY 2013.  Obama will make a “determination” and send it to Congress in September where Congress will rubber stamp it just in time for the October 1st opening of fiscal year 2013.

But… before I tell you more about the testimony, a little background:  In 2007, we in Washington Country Maryland were just minding our own business when several incidents occurred with new immigrants that got the attention of the authorities and finally the newspaper.  We learned that the Virginia Council of Churches (Virginia! mind you) was resettling third worlders in Hagerstown (our county seat).  Some of us just wanted to better understand how this was happening—WHAT WAS THE GOVERNMENTAL PROCESS that allowed a supposed non-profit from Virginia to drop off people in Hagerstown.  Where would they work?  Who was paying for this?  Who was responsible for their health, their housing, their education?

To make a long story short, we had a public meeting for all those involved which included the primary federal contractor Church World Service (they subcontract to Virginia Council of Churches), our state refugee coordinator, and some representatives of the US State Department.  The public asked a lot of questions—many were answered in let’s just say a not straightforward fashion.  We were lectured about how we are a ‘nation of immigrants’ and probably not even two weeks later the program was closed in Hagerstown and we were labeled “unwelcoming” —I suppose because we asked too many questions.   This is how this blog was born—out of annoyance with government officials who keep information from the public!  (For anyone interested in more on what happened in Hagerstown we have a category, unused lately, here, in which we told our story in the early years.)

So how does Lancaster fit in?

We were told in 2007 that the majority of refugees we were getting were Meshketians (Russian Sunni Muslim Turks) who were originally destined for Lancaster, PA about 100 miles away.  However, somehow there was a glitch in the plan for Lancaster (we heard a crime problem had cropped up) and that Church World Service (one of nine federal contractors who monopolize the program) had to quickly find a place to take the next batch of Meshketians.  I think they just looked at a map and picked Hagerstown—fresh territory for refugee resettlement and close enough to Lancaster so the Meshketians could visit back and forth.

And, by the way, we heard that some Meshketians had homes to sell in Russia and were able to buy homes here—so were they even real refugees?  Or, were we using this program (again!) for some foreign policy political reason involving Russia and Turkey?

Here is what Church World Service (CWS) told the State Department on May 1 (Oh, and by the way, CWS is the “crop walk” group, some of you may know them from participating in their fundraising project.—ed):

In the United States, communities, schools, religious congregations, and employers welcome refugees and help them integrate in their new homes.  In turn, refugees bring their innovative skills, diverse cultures, dedicated work, and other positive contributions to their new communities, enhancing the quality of life for all parties. Refugee resettlement showcases the best virtues of the United States—community, opportunity, hard work, diversity, caring for one another, and courage to start a new life.

Now, here is what a citizen of Lancaster, PA says of Church World Service (I won’t publish the woman’s name, but apparently she has been trying to help refugees who are struggling in her community—in other words she is not a bigot and xenophobe like we are here at RRW!).  This is not the first time we have heard of refugee volunteers trying to do the best for refugees and running into problems with arrogant resettlement contractors.   For the record, I don’t know this woman.  [Emphasis below is mine—ed]

From a refugee volunteer in Lancaster, PA:

Why do organizations like Church World Service make unilateral decisions on how many refugees get settled into an area?

CWS and Lutheran Social Services have settled at least 2500 refugees (that’s probably a low guess as they refuse to give out totals, but only list how many of one nationality that they have settled in a past year) in Lancaster in the past 3 years without any approval process required from our mayor, our city council or without any consultation with our school board. The city of Lancaster population is approximately 56,000. In the past 2 1/2 years, these two organizations, who have no accountability to voters… have made the population approximately 4% refugee. I help refugees here in Lancaster and I am aware that in the short term, they are a very heavy financial burden on the city. Surely it is reasonable and right for our elected officials to have some say in how many refugees are settled into the city within a certain time period?

I work with families, I see the neglect:

I work with three refugee families in an informal support system through the Unitarian Social Justice committee here in Lancaster. I work with refugees who are hard working, serious people. They will eventually be a great asset to the city. But in the short term, they are a great financial burden on the city.

Every member of these three refugee families arrived with health issues. Many continue to have serious health issues and use the free clinics for health care, for surgery, for extensive testing, for dental work.

Each family has one or more grandparents who are permanently disabled in some way and need financial aid and city services.   [Elderly refugees may receive SSI even if they never paid into the system—ed]

Because of language and educational difficulties, earning power is low. In spite of their very low income, there are cultural issues, which lead the young women to marry early and start families right away and stay home with their babies. They do not work outside the home. I know this because… within a year… my three families, including newly married older daughters and married cousins who share the same buildings… had four new babies… and another baby is due this month. They are good families and the Nepali refugees are wonderful parents. But, each low income family needs government services and financial aid to insure that there is good food and good medical care for the moms and babies. It’s a significant cost to the community.

There are other cultural difficulties that present challenges and sometimes dangers for the refugees and for the city, which are not addressed by the two Lancaster settlement agencies.

CWS officially works with the families for 3 months but their orientations are neglectfully inadequate.

I could quickly list 10 very serious incidences of neglect by CWS, but to save time here, I will tell only one story and a few bullet points. Please contact me if you would like more information. I could write many pages based on my notes of the past 2 years.

The testimony goes on to report problems with the orientation of refugees, safety issues and bed bugs.

“CWS is dumping refugees on to the city”

Many Lancaster people that I talk with…who also try to help refugees here… use the word “dumping”… CWS is dumping refugees on to the city… taking a payment to settle the refugees and moving on to the next group of refugees who will bring in more money to pay for CWS salaries, office space and fund raising events. This is the impression of many compassionate, frustrated people here in Lancaster, who are then accused of being part of a racist or anti-immigration backlash. We are not anti-immigration. We are expending our own personal time and money and pressuring our churches to spend time and money, picking up the pieces that CWS drops into our community. We now want a say in how many refugees can be settle here.

[New readers, see this 2010 story from Greensboro, NC and see the same problem—local church volunteers crying out to stop the flow of refugees at least for awhile!]

The commenter then goes on to make recommendations and mentions the State of Tennessee’s efforts to get some local control into the program.   How much do you want to bet the State Department won’t follow-up and ask her for her proposals.  Nor is the State Department making any of this testimony available to the public.   She needs to send her testimony to her Congressman and US Senators and ask that they publish it in the Congressional Record!  The buck stops with Congress!