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

06/17/2017 ~ 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

06/16/2017 ~ 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:

Ninth Circuit rules, HIAS crows as Judicial coup is confirmed

06/13/2017 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

It is not a surprise that the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled against the President and his legal Constitutional power to keep America safe.
I’m in a hurry this morning to get to my chores, so just want to give you Daniel Greenfield’s reading of the decision here at Frontpage magazine:

9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals Announces It Is In Charge of Determining National Interests

Here is his opening paragraph:

The Judicial coup against democracy rolls on. The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals announced with its latest ruling that it has the powers of the executive branch. To understand how insane the latest illegal and unconstitutional judicial effort to block common sense migration reform is, here are the powers that the 9th has decided it possesses.

Continue reading his excellent analysis.
As I have said till I’m blue in the face, I regret the fact that the 50,000 CEILING was announced in an Executive Order when the President already had the power to admit any number under the 110,000 CEILING set by Obama last September without even mentioning any cap. He could have quietly slowed the flow the minute he took office. At that time we had admitted just over 30,000 refugees in this fiscal year. Now, the Trump State Department is approaching 50,000 with months yet to go.
But, more troubling is the utter confusion created by proposing a complete ‘travel ban’ from six countries in the same EO as an announcement on refugee admission numbers and a temporary moratorium from across the world (across all nationalities and all religions). What a mess!

Hetfield is so excited! More paying ‘clients’ coming their way!

Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society cheers along with two other federal resettlement contractors which have a financial stake in keeping numbers of refugees high—they are paid by the head to place them in your towns and cities.
HIAS was joined in its amicus brief by the International Rescue Committee and the US Committee for Refugees and Immigrants—all multi-million dollar federal resettlement contractors who have a pecuniary interest in the outcome.
HIAS press release yesterday begins:

WASHINGTON—Today, the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit issued a ruling in the challenge to President Trump’s March 6 executive order barring the resettlement of refugees for 120 days, banning the entry of people from six Muslim-majority countries for 90 days, and cutting the overall number of refugee admissions for the year by more than half. The challenge was initiated by the State of Hawaii on behalf of individuals impacted by the executive order, and supported by HIAS and other refugee and human rights advocates in the public and private sector.

After hearing oral arguments before a three-judge panel on May 15, the court has affirmed the injunction on the parts of the order that would suspend entry of nationals from the six designated countries, suspend refugee admissions for 120 days, and cap the number of refugees to be admitted this fiscal year at 50,000. This ruling will allow refugees to continue finding safety in the United States through the refugee admissions program, unless the Supreme Court chooses to reverse the Ninth Circuit.

The Fourth Circuit case does not address the 50,000 CEILING issue. So, let’s hope that lawyers for the Justice Department are doing their homework and separating the CEILING issue from the ‘travel ban.’
And, HIAS knows they are on shaky ground regarding the President’s power to limit the numbers from all over the world (all religions/all ethnic groups) and so they continue to mix the ‘Muslim travel ban’ issue with the 50,000 cap to confuse their donors and the uninformed public.
If you missed it, see (here) how far below the CEILING other Presidents have gone—even Obama was tens of thousands below some of his earlier CEILINGS.
Also, see that HIAS, a federal contractor dependent on millions of your tax dollars, organized an anti-Trump rally, here in February. There ought to be a law—federal contractors shouldn’t be able to stage anti-government protests! Did they use any federal dollars???
Imagine the outrage if a military contractor was staging demonstrations because they wanted more federally-funded work!

Is State Department refugee data being manipulated? Why are CEILING numbers missing?

06/12/2017 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Bill Frelick of Human Rights Watch: “…there is no requirement that the U.S. resettle a single refugee….” https://refugeeresettlementwatch.org/2017/03/31/confirmed-trumps-department-of-state-is-going-back-to-normal-refugee-admission-numbers/

Readers, more important, in my opinion, than the so-called ‘travel ban’ portion of the Trump Executive Orders held up in our power-hungry court system, is the issue of the President’s power to set the CEILING on refugee admissions for the year.
My contention is that he has the right to set the CEILING and change the CEILING without any Executive Order.
The Refugee Act of 1980 says only that he must “consult” with Congress on an annual determination. If he changes the number throughout the year (the law envisions a wish to increase the number and is silent on the issue of decreasing it) he must notify Congress.
Since the number set annually is a CEILING (not a target), then there would be no need to even announce any lowering of the number during the year, nor would there have been a need to address a procedure for lowering the incoming numbers in the original law. The Dept. of State and Homeland Security would simply just bring in fewer numbers.
The dirty little secret is that for years, the refugee industry has tried to turn the CEILING in to a target, but at least Frelick is honest.
Frelick of Human Rights Watch (a pro refugee organization) knows that this garbage (the Buffalo story mentioned it again) we keep seeing that there is a minimum 50,000 refugees required under the Act is inaccurate, see what he said here.
It’s the media, the contractors, and the bureaucrat holdovers who are busy bluffing the White House by counting on the fact that no one there understands the program and its history!
And, now as for the missing CEILING data…..

I’ve been following the program since 2007 and Presidents have never reached the CEILING in those years. Obama came pretty close several times, but he was under the ceiling—by huge numbers—in two years in particular.
See this chart (below) from Wrapsnet for 2006-2016. Pay close attention to the columns for CEILING and the ultimate admission numbers. See the gap! It varies from year to year under the CEILING.

In FY11 Obama set the ceiling at 80,000 and came in with 56,424 (a shortfall of 23,576).
In FY12 Obama’s ceiling was 76,000 and he ultimately admitted 58,238 (a shortfall of 17,762).
Did anyone sue President Obama for leaving thousands “stranded in war-torn countries”? No!

There were NO lawsuits and no screams (at least in public!) from the contractors!

Look at this same chart for the end of March 2017 (at that point Wrapsnet still lists the last CEILING set by Obama (110,000) his highest ceiling by far). I discussed it here.

Now here is the chart for the end of April 2017. I discussed it here. See the note! **FY2017 ceiling is currently in litigation.

Today, I decided to have a look at Trump’s numbers for May because of my earlier post today about the contractors getting excited by increasing numbers coming in, but what did I find when I checked this monthly update?
Can you see what is missing?

Incompetence or an effort to obscure the facts?
Did you see it? They have removed the CEILING column arguably the most useful number from this particular data base.
Why? Is it a deliberate attempt to hide facts? Or, just some dumb mistake by an underling at the Refugee Processing Center (aka Wrapsnet)? You decide.
And, one last thing, for a chuckle, note how extraordinarily high the numbers were for October, November, December of FY2017 compared to the previous ten years. Do you think the outgoing Obama Admin. was in a hurry to pour as many refugees in to your towns and cities as they could before getting out of Dodge? You betcha!

Buffalo, NY refugee contractors jumping for joy as refugee arrivals pick up

06/12/2017 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

…and they seem especially pleased to announce that they are getting them from those terror-producing countries—a flow that the Trump Administration was trying to curtail.
From Buffalo News:

WASHINGTON – President Trump’s promise to cut in half the number of refugees coming to America – and therefore Buffalo – has turned into a dream unfulfilled.

Buffalo offers proof of it. State Department figures show the city welcomed 376 new refugees between Trump’s Jan. 20 inauguration and last Wednesday. That’s a 32 percent reduction from the 554 who arrived a year before, but nothing close to a 50 percent reduction.

Yippee! More refugees coming to Buffalo from Africa and the Middle East. Ms. Scott works for a subcontractor of Church World Service. http://www.jersbuffalo.org/index.php/news/entries/journeys_end_refugee_services_announces_new_executive_director

What’s more, 149 of those new arrivals come from Iran, Iraq, Somalia, Sudan or Syria – nations subject to Trump’s travel ban before the federal courts ruled it was unconstitutional.

And now, the city’s refugee resettlement agencies are gearing up for a growing wave of refugees under a new State Department announcement that further undercuts Trump’s promise.

“We had a very busy May, and we will have a very busy June,” said Karen Andolina Scott, executive director of Journey’s End Refugee Services, one of Buffalo’s four refugee resettlement agencies.***

Church World Service, the national refugee agency affiliated with Journey’s End, “was able to send us more people than we thought,” Scott added.

[….]

Now Buffalo stands poised to welcome a growing number of refugees in the next few months. That’s because the State Department last month quietly abandoned the weekly refugee admission quotas that had been in place earlier in the year.

[I’m highlighting this (above) because I have readers who still don’t believe this happened.—ed]

Congress fully-funded refugee resettlement for the remainder of FY17 and Trump signed it!

Budgetary constraints previously limited the number of refugees coming to America in the current fiscal year. But a State Department spokesman said the temporary budget bill that Trump signed on May 5, which funds the government through Sept. 30, includes full funding for the nation’s refugee resettlement program.

That returns the annual cap for refugees coming to America the same as the one Obama set: 110,000 for the year ending Sept. 30. [This part is still up in the air, however, a reminder that this number—110,000—is a ceiling not a target!—ed]

Refugee resettlement advocates doubt the nation will receive that number. They said it appears the Department of Homeland Security, which vets prospective refugees, slowed down that process in several countries in wake of Trump’s earlier actions, which in turn could slow refugee arrivals in the United States.

Still, local resettlement agencies expect the pace of new refugee arrivals to grow in the coming months.

Yippee! Their paying “clients” are arriving!
More here.
I have a fairly large archive on Buffalo (here) and its problems (similar to Utica).
*** Go here for the list (not sure if it is complete) of resettlement contractors working near you.

Category: The Opposition