Category: The Opposition

Will the US Conference of Catholic Bishops ever be honest with parishioners?

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Update September 20th: See here, the Bishops received almost $100 Million from taxpayers in 2016 for their migration/refugee fund “good works.”

I know I’m dreaming to think that one day the Catholic Church would explain to parishioners and the public at large that they depend on millions of taxpayer dollars every year to run their migration program.

Cardinal DiNardo
President of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, Cardinal Daniel N. DiNardo of Galveston-Houston. Let’s make a deal, tell the public and your parishioners how many millions you receive each year from the US Treasury for your migration campaign and I will shut up. Not holding my breath!

Here we have one more story where the Bishops are whining about how that mean old Donald Trump might slow the flow of refugees to America.  BUT NOT ONE WORD ABOUT HOW THE BISHOPS’ BUDGET WILL BE IMPACTED!

They want the Administration to admit 75,000 impoverished third worlders to the US beginning October 1, but NOT ONE WORD THAT THEY RECEIVE TAXPAYER DOLLARS ON A PER HEAD BASIS (and the Bishops resettle the largest number of refugees each year).

Maybe many Catholics will think that is all hunky-dory, but they should at least be informed.

Here is the latest from Catholic News Agency:

Washington D.C., Sep 17, 2017 / 04:07 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- The Trump administration is reportedly planning to further reduce the number of refugees the U.S. will accept in the coming fiscal year, drawing concern from the U.S. bishops and others.

“We’re strongly urging the administration, the President, to set a Presidential determination of at least 75,000 [refugees],” Matt Wilch of the Office of Migration and Refugee Services at the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops told CNA of reported changes to the number of refugees the U.S. plans to accept in the 2018 fiscal year.

The New York Times reported Tuesday that the Trump administration is planning to further reduce the number of refugee admissions for the 2018 fiscal year, “according to current and former government officials familiar with the discussions.”

[….]

Now the administration may be reducing its refugee quota even further, to below 50,000. [Eeek!  I hope it is far below that!—ed]

The Executive Committee of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops said in a written statement Tuesday that they were “troubled and deeply concerned” at reports that the administration was considering the reduction, which they called “inhumane.”

“We implore the administration to show mercy and compassion for those seeking refuge, and to advance the American value of freedom through providing safe harbor to those fleeing tyranny and religious persecution,” the bishops said.

The conference proposed a goal of 75,000 refugees instead. “We think it’s really time to get back to the serious business of saving lives, and we urge the administration to have the total this coming year be 75,000,” Wilch told CNA Thursday.

By the way, the nine contractors (see how much each of them gets from you, here) agreed that 75,000 was the number for this year and have coordinated their lobbying efforts around that number. It is no where near what they asked last year (200,000), but…

I’m guessing they think that is the best they can do and still keep their taxpayer-funded budgets from imploding.

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Did taxpayer dollars pay for this pamphlet?

Now, pay attention Catholics!

The Bishops have launched a propaganda campaign described in this American Thinker article (Catholic push for multicultural utopia gets weird) (hat tip: Julia).  I have no time to go in to it in detail, but I strongly recommend that you—Catholics—read it.

Let me be clear!  The Bishops and the church can do whatever they want to ‘educate’ their people, or welcome illegal aliens and refugees as long as they do so as a private entity.

A very simple concept!

The minute the USCCB takes your money and mine (taxpayers!) it becomes our business how they spend it.

Senate Dems want law followed on refugee Presidential determination

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Rumors were rampant that President Donald Trump would announce on Friday the Presidential “determination” on how many refugees could be admitted (it is a CEILING number) to the US beginning on October 1 (for FY18).  Nothing happened.

Just looking around this morning I see that mid-week last week Senators Dick Durban and Dianne Feinstein (founding members of the ‘Jihad caucus’ who wanted 65,000 Syrians in addition to the usual 60-70,000 from other regions in Obama’s final full year), sent a letter to Trump asking him when this years’ ‘consultation’ could be expected.

The House and Senate, for the last 10 years (the years I have followed the program), could not have cared less about what the law said were the steps required in the consultation and Presidential determination (I outlined those steps here recently).

LOL! But all that changes now that Trump occupies the White House.

It is maddening to know something about an issue and see the complete disdain by elected officials for the laws they themselves wrote!

Sighing…

So here is the Reuters story about Dick and Dianne getting all uppity about something (the legal process) they didn’t care about during Obama’s years.

WASHINGTON/NEW YORK (Reuters) – Two high-ranking Democrats in the U.S. Senate asked the Trump administration on Wednesday to provide information on any plans to cut refugee admissions to historically low levels, saying Congress had not yet been consulted as required by law.

Dianne Feinstein, Dick Durbin
Suddenly Dick and Dianne are concerned with the steps laid out in the Refugee Act of 1980 for determining each years refugee admission ceiling.

“To date, we have not received a proposed refugee admissions plan for fiscal year 2018 or received any cooperation from your agencies in scheduling the refugee consultation,” Senator Richard Durbin and Senator Dianne Feinstein wrote in a letter seen by Reuters.

The letter was sent on Wednesday to Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, Acting Secretary of Homeland Security Elaine Duke, and Secretary of Health and Human Services Tom Price.

“We request that the proposed refugee admissions report be transmitted to Congress promptly and that we immediately begin the process of scheduling the consultation,” the letter said.

By law, the president is required to consult with members of Congress about the number of refugee admissions before the start of each fiscal year, which is Oct. 1.

Gee, for once we see a mainstream media outlet give some information on the ceiling vs. actual admissions numbers:

Since the U.S. Refugee Act was signed in 1980, the ceiling has never been set below 67,000 and in recent years has hovered around 70,000 to 80,000. The number of refugees actually admitted to the country can fall below the cap, and dropped to its lowest level in the fiscal year after the Sept. 11, 2001 terror attacks with only around 27,000 admitted.  [No one went bonkers on Bush—ed]

Pay attention to the RAISE Act.

The proposed RAISE Act, which the White House has endorsed, calls for lower immigration overall and a statutory limit on the number of refugees offered permanent residency to no more than 50,000.

Reports that the 2018 cap might be set below 50,000 raised alarm bells for Democrats in the House of Representatives and the Senate.

More here if you want to read it.

Final thought:  Trump goes to the UN this week.  The federal refugee contractors have been yammering for 75,000 refugees for FY18.  Any number less than that announced this week will surely bring out screaming protesters and media hysteria. IMHO Trump should have announced numbers weeks ago (assuming they will be low!).

As you know, in light of American homelessness from Harvey and Irma, we have been advocating for a suspension of the program or at least a many-months delay in making a Presidential Determination.

High paid Brit lectures us about the American story…

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

This is rich!

I’ve told you about David Miliband in many previous posts.  He is the former UK Labor Party Foreign Minister (his brother is known in the UK as “red Ed”) who came over to New York to head up the fabulously wealthy International Rescue Committee where he is sucking down a salary of $591,846 annually.

miliband laughing
David Miliband: Have I got a cool gig or what? Living in Manhattan, deciding which third world migrants will be seeded into American towns, hobnobbing with Hillary, schmoozing Soros, smacking down Donald Trump, weighing in on British politics and being handsomely compensated by American taxpayers! Wow!

(The IRC is the wealthiest monetarily of nine federal refugee contractors, although we are told that the US Conference of Catholic Bishops handles a higher volume of refugees each year.)

Btw, if you follow Miliband even tangentially you will see he is still busy mucking around in British politics.

Here is some Lefty website called Death and Taxes on British national Miliband and that meany, Donald Trump:

“It’s not an exaggeration to say the very existence of refugee resettlement as a core aspect of the American story, and America’s role as a global leader in this area, is at stake,” David Miliband, president of the International Rescue Committee said.

I’m willing to give up our supposed “global leader” role, aren’t you?  (But, wait, didn’t we just hear from Human Rights Watch that Jordan, Turkey and Lebanon are the global leaders giving protection to refugees?).

Here is erudite reporter Tosten Burks at Death and Taxes on Trump White House aid Stephen Miller (LOL! this was my tip-off about the nature of this ‘magazine’):

During a meeting at the White House on Tuesday, Homeland Security officials proposed a 2018 cap of 40,000, the Times reports. Racist booger Stephen Miller has pushed for an even lower cap of 15,000, sources said. No final decision has been made.

This post is filed in my ‘Laugh of the day’ category, here.

Human Rights Watch spinning the news to make America look bad on refugee admissions

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

The Open Borders Left is working overtime this week to make sure the public knows that America is mean and being led by the meanest president in history.

Here is Human Rights Watch spewing forth on something you need to counter every time you hear it.

eleanor-acer

But, before I get to that:  In the first part of this excerpt (below), I learned something that makes sense.  Apparently the administration is arguing that we need to clean out the asylum backlog before bringing in more permanent refugees.

It is the second half of  the long paragraph that includes a major talking point of the leftwing open borders advocates and refugee contractor groups.

They say that Lebanon, Turkey and Jordan are ‘welcoming’ more refugees than we do.

But, you need to know this:

We give permanent residence and ultimately citizenship (VOTING rights) to those admitted to the US as refugees (or approved asylum seekers), while….

Those migrants housed (“hosted”!) in Lebanon, Turkey and Jordan have no legal citizenship rights; many can’t even work.  They only live there temporarily.

So the next time someone throws out this half truth, please correct him or her (LOL! It could be your US Senator or Congressman trying to spin you!).

The administration has sought to justify the decrease in refugee resettlement by arguing that the United States has a backlog of asylum cases. While Human Rights First has documented the negative impact the backlog has on asylum seekers, the organization notes that even if one combined the number of asylum seekers held up in the backlog and the number of refugees proposed today by the administration, the United States’ overall refugee acceptance per capita would pale in comparison to the numbers of those being hosted in front line states. Turkey hosts 35 refugees per 1,000 individuals, Jordan hosts 89 refugees per 1,000, and Lebanon hosts 173 per 1,000. If the United States were to admit only 50,000 refugees, the rate in the United States would only be less than 1 per 1,000, even when including the asylum office backlog, a dismally small number given the worldwide need.

Here is the truth:

The United States takes more permanent refugees/future citizens than any country in the world!

(2015 numbers because this particular news, where America is shown in a favorable light, is hard to find)

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See my post on World Refugee Day for links to this data: https://refugeeresettlementwatch.org/2017/06/20/today-is-the-un-designated-world-refugee-day/

 

Trump is bad for Muslims….

Bill Frelick
Nothing new! The US has had a religious test for refugees—Jews and some other groups— since 1990, and Frelick knows it!

Also, Human Rights Watch is reporting this week, that the Trump Administration is bad for Muslim refugee admissions.

They are particularly angry with Trump because they claim he is promoting the idea of a religious test (that might favor persecuted Christians!) for admission to the US (gasp!).

Yet they themselves were more than happy to do that very thing—have a religious test—when it came to admitting thousands of Russian Jews and Russian Muslims to the US for over 2 decades!

Here we have Bill Frelick trying to gloss over that fact by suggesting religion was not how they justified their persecution claim. Give me a break!

Here is Frelick:

Historically, the U.S. admissions program has responded to refugees persecuted because of their religious beliefs — recall Soviet Jews, Iranian Baha’is, and Christian “lost boys” of Sudan — but a refugee’s specific faith was less relevant to a person’s rescue than the seriousness of the threat they were under. [What a crock!—ed]

He can’t intellectually (or legally) justify his criticism of a religious test when he and others have been supporting the Lautenberg Amendment since 1990.

Is the Heritage Foundation selling you out on UN/US Refugee Admissions Policy?

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Sure looks like it!

On the morning we are getting news that the President is selling out American workers and sacrificing the safety of US citizens by soft talk on the border wall and DACA, we see this announcement.

First, readers may remember that the Heritage Foundation published a dreadful report, here, on the Refugee program demonstrating a total disconnect from what is happening in communities where refugees are secretly dropped off, and now this….

Here (below) we have a panel of bureaucrats and policy wonks who will discuss a bunch of esoteric BS in the Washington swamp about “reforming” the program.  I don’t see one serious critic on the panel and not one person who knows what is happening in communities where the refugees are placed.

bartlett with map
This is Larry Bartlett from the US State Department who is responsible for admitting refugees to the US.  He is standing in front of a map showing more than a hundred resettlement towns and cities. That map from 2015 has since disappeared from the State Department’s WRAPSNET website.

There are several very very good spokesmen for our point of view in Washington who could get over to the Heritage Foundation in a heartbeat—at FAIR, at the Center for Immigration Studies and at NumbersUSA—why isn’t one serious critic of the program on the panel?

“Reform!”

These people will suggest tinkering, or worse!

And, to top it off the program is headlined by Larry Bartlett, pro-refugee bureaucrat extraordinaire.   Just two of many posts on Bartlett you should review are here and here.

In the first post Bartlett went to Twin Falls, Idaho and told the audience a whopper—that they don’t place refugees in communities that don’t want them—and he went on to say that was not because of sympathy for the townspeople, but for the refugees (he feared for them, that some local yokels might hurt them!) (go here for more).

And, here, we see Bartlett tell Senator Jeff Sessions that communities are consulted, but failed to mention that citizens everywhere were being blocked from attending the “stakeholder” meetings where plans were being made for the community, while representatives of ethnic groups could attend.

Here then is the Heritage panel lineup scheduled for next Wednesday:

 

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This is a screenshot, so links are not ‘hot.’ Here is the 800 number for them: (800) 546-2843

 

Readers are always asking what they can do. Here is something you can do….

Call Heritage and tell them to stop the propaganda about the UN/US Refugee Admissions Program. Or, better still tell them to have a follow-up panel of experts who know what real reform should look like! (Don’t hold your breath!).

Because Heritage touts itself as a “conservative think tank” that tells Congress what to think, it is up to you to tell Heritage what you think!

If you have been frustrated where you live about how the US Refugee Program is working (about the lack of transparency, crimes, the cultural upheaval going on, and the cost to taxpayers of welfare, etc) tell Heritage what you think!

Here is the Heritage Foundation contact page if you prefer to comment on line:  http://www.heritage.org/contact