Category: The Opposition

Northampton, Mass. to hold two "welcoming" public "conversations" this month

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

We told you the other day that Northampton, Massachusetts was ready and eager to “welcome” Syrian Muslims (99% of Syrians being admitted to the US are Muslims) this coming fiscal year which begins in only a few weeks, on October 1.
Catholic Charities, the primary resettlement agency there is holding two meetings this month to find support and help for the refugees because they do admit that after 90 days Catholic Charities’ (taxpayer-funded) help ends.  At that time the refugees become dependent on the goodwill of the city and the welfare that Catholic Charities has signed them up for.

mayor-of-northhampton-mass
Mayor David Narkewicz is apparently on board with his city becoming a “host” city for Syrians and impoverished Congolese refugees. Do they have jobs for them in Northampton? Or, does Northampton just want some poor people because diversity is beautiful.

Here is the news at Masslive.com.  Our earlier post on the new refugee program for Northhampton is here.  How is the housing in this upscale city? A shortage of housing seems to be a growing problem everywhere.

Northampton residents are invited to attend two public conversations on the upcoming resettlement of 51 refugees into the city.

Catholic Charities of Springfield***, the agency contracted with the State Department to facilitate the resettlement, will host the sessions along with a “welcome home” steering group of local leaders.

The first, to be held Sept. 19 from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. in the JFK Middle School cafeteria, will be attended by Mayor David Narkewicz. The second will take place Sept. 24 from 2 to 4 p.m. at the Northampton Senior Center.

Susannah Crolius, the Catholic Charities coordinator of outreach and resource development, said the conversations are part of an effort to build a long-term support and integration network for the refugees.

[….]

The State Department typically provides funding for 90 days of services after refugees relocate to the United States….[Catholic Charities gets a cut of that for administering the program—ed]

[….]

Catholic Charities is adopting a small-scale, carefully planned approach, Crolius said; 51 is the minimum number of refugees a host community can accept.  [The following year CC will ask for 100 until like Lancaster, PA, the city could get up to 900 a year.—ed]

The is more at Masslive.com.
***Readers who live in this area should read all of our posts on Springfield, Mass where the mayor has been begging for years for the flow to be slowed as the city was overloaded with poor refugees.  LOL! the top post at that archive is about hungry refugees in Springfield being arrested for killing and eating the small wildlife in the public park. Does Northampton have a public park?
I’m going to bore readers to death with this, but if the Republican Congress does not increase funding (and maybe even cuts what the contractors like Catholic Charities have been getting!) for the massive numbers of refugees proposed for FY17 these new sites will not be opened. Catholic Charities does not have the money on its own to do this, it requires funding from the US taxpayer to administer this program.

The federal resettlement contractors plan September 15th postcard dump on Hill

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

The nine major federal resettlement contractors*** which are largely funded by you, the taxpayer, understand the process for getting money (for them) out of your wallets! The millions of dollars they depend on to run offices, pay rent, pay salaries and travel comes from Congress not from passing the plate at worship services or holding fundraising events.

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I first told you about the postcard campaign here: https://refugeeresettlementwatch.org/2016/08/16/washington-dc-august-28th-rally-for-refugees-planned/

The process works like this: The President sends a “determination” to Congress in late September with how many refugees he wants to be placed in your towns in the coming years. (BTW in earlier years of the program, which is 36 this year, the President sent the determination letter during the summer to give Congress a little more time).  But, heck in recent years they sent it almost on October 1st because Congress didn’t care what the President sent, they rubber-stamped the plan and gave him the money without a required hearing.

Obama’s last determination….

Obama will be sending his determination probably after he does his dog and pony show at the United Nations on September 20th and we expect (and will be demanding!) that the House and Senate Judiciary Committees hold hearings on his proposal before October 1 (as required by law). More on that later.
During this month, the House and Senate Appropriations Committees will be deliberating about next year’s budget (next year starts on Oct. 1, 2016). What matters will be how much of your money they appropriate for the Department of State and the Department of Health and Human Services for the resettlement of Obama’s last refugee wishlist (which will probably come in around 200,000).

The contractors get it! 

They understand that their futures depend on this—on how much the Republican Congress gives them!

If they get gobs and gobs of (your) money they will continue to open new offices at newly targeted sites for the expanded number of refugees Obama will propose.  If Congress slashes their funds they have to let staff go, and possibly even close offices.

So, they plan a rally and a dump of their postcards on September 15th on Capitol Hill!

Notice they are not focusing on governors, state legislatures, or local elected officials, or on the White House, their lobbying effort is directed at one place right now—Congress.  You should be too!  (I don’t want to hear how useless they are, the buck stops with them!)

That is not to say you shouldn’t continue pressing all other elected officials at all levels of government since they might in turn put pressure on your US Reps, but now is the time—September!—to do whatever it takes to get your US Senators and Congressmen focused on this one issue!
This is from the US Committee for Refugees and Immigrants website (I wrote about them yesterday):

Sign the Postcard: Urge the U.S. to Lead by Example on Refugee Protection & Resettlement
Fill out this form to electronically sign the postcard that is also available for downloading and printing at www.refugeesarewelcome.org/get-involved/. After you sign, encourage your friends, family, coworkers, and social media networks to do the same. You can also print out a few copies to gather signatures at your upcoming events! All signatures must be collected by COB Monday, September 12, 2016. We will deliver all of the postcards together at a press conference in front of the Capitol Building on Thursday, September 15th.

 
I’ve been writing about this for about 2 weeks, see my tag ‘Where is Congress’ for more background on the Appropriations process and the players, more today and every day going forward.
***These are the nine major resettlement contractors that monopolize all refugee resettlement in America, under them are 350 or so subcontractors:

This federal refugee contracting agency is 97% taxpayer funded

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

I’m talking about the US Committee for Refugees and Immigrants (USCRI) which is the contractor responsible for refugees arriving in Twin Falls, Idaho. USCRI is also the agency embroiled in the controversy about bringing Syrian Muslims to Rutland, VT.

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This is Lavinia Limon, CEO of USCRI, sharing the stage with Mr. Chobani (Hamdi Ulukaya) at the same Clinton Global Initiative gathering where Bill Clinton and Ulukaya thought it was a great idea to repopulate Detroit with Syrian refugees. Chobani Yogurt actively seeks refugee employees for their yogurt plants in New York and Idaho. Ms. Limon supplies the town of Twin Falls with refugees. Cozy huh? Watch here: http://livestream.com/CGI/events/4386105/videos/100644641

This is the second in my series on the US State Department’s nine major resettlement contractors***.  I told you about Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service (LIRS) here a couple of days ago.  I’ve reported on the nine (really quasi-government agencies) many times over the years, but it’s been about 2 years since I examined each of their financial statements closely, and since we have so many new readers I figured it was time to do it again.
The information on USCRI is from its 2014 Form 990 to the IRS:

They had a total revenue that year of $51,524,570

Of that $46,560,452 is from government grants (that is you).

They had another $3.4 million from various fees and contracts.  $1.9 million of that was from those air fare loans I told you about in the post on LIRS. I expect that most of the $3.4 comes from government sources of funding.

Run those numbers and you will see this means that 97% of their funds are from federal, state and local tax payers.
Forget that warm and fuzzy spin about charity and “humanitarianism!”

They couldn’t exist without your money and without Congress shelling it out to them!

 
Here is page 11 of this 2014 Form 990:
 
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Go to page 10 and check out the salaries:
USCRI’s head honcho is Lavinia Limon (Breitbart told you about her recently). Formerly Bill Clinton’s director of the Office of Refugee Resettlement, she pulled down a salary and related income package of $302,519 in 2014.  Another Limon (family member?) collected $159,344.
Dear critics, if you find it outrageous that we report this information, remember this: If these were real charitable organizations raising private money I would not care how much they take in or how much they pay their employees, but these are in effect quasi-government agencies and therefore we are entitled to know where our money goes! By way of comparison, go here and see that federal elected officials and judges do not make nearly as much as Ms. Limon because they are accountable to you, she isn’t! Yikes! She makes more than Vice President Joe Biden!

Wow! I just went back to the accounting I did using the contractors 2012 Form 990s.  Go here and see how much their revenues have jumped in two years!
Is USCRI working in your town, go here and find out!
***These are the nine major resettlement contractors that monopolize all refugee resettlement in America, under them are 350 or so subcontractors:

First refugees to arrive in Missoula, MT are homeless; time for local do-gooders to step up

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

They aren’t on the street, but live in temporary housing (what! some motel?).
I can’t believe this! After all the hoopla and excitement about shoving refugees down the throats of Montanans who don’t want the poverty and cultural disruption third worlders bring to communities, the mighty International Rescue Committee (IRC) headquartered in New York City doesn’t have homes and apartments lined up for the former camp-dwelling Congolese whose arrival has been predicted for months!

Miliband and Soros
That is David Miliband in the middle giving George Soros and his son the IRC’s top award in 2013. LOL! It is called the Freedom Award. Miliband, a British citizen, runs the major US resettlement contractor with a salary of almost $600,000 a year. Maybe he, or Soros, could co-sign leases for the poor Africans being brought to Montana.

Where is Missoula’s R & P Abstract, did the IRC lie to the US State Department about the availability of reasonably priced housing for large families?
Didn’t the IRC sign a contract with the US State Department that said the refugees must have a home (with a requirement for a certain number of bedrooms for family members) to go to from the airport with the refrigerator stocked with culturally appropriate food?

When do-gooders don’t do good!

I’m going to rage a bit before I give you some snips from The Missoulian (Missoula Refugees face housing issues).
The International Rescue Committee is a behemoth in the Refugee Industry. It is the richest of the nine federal contractors with an annual income in 2014 of $688,920,920 and $454 million of that comes from YOU, the taxpayer. Its CEO, Former British Foreign Secretary David Miliband*** is making $591,846 annually and probably lives in some swanky digs in Manhattan!  (See recent Form 990 here)
But, the IRC refuses to co-sign the housing rental agreements with the refugees they are dropping off in Missoula!
It is an outrage! They expect local landlords to waive their rules for the refugees that obviously have no credit and no background checks and no job prospects and take a gamble on them that they can pay the rent for months and years to come!  Not to mention the fact that over the last nine years I’ve heard many stories, especially about refugees who have lived in camps, that they do not know how to use modern appliances and often trash them in the process of learning how to operate dish washers, stoves, etc.
Here is the story that got my blood boiling this morning!

Congolese refugees and the people trying to help them get settled in Missoula are facing a housing crisis.

Five families from refugee camps in East Africa will be in town by the end of September, none of them with a source of steady income or credit history.

It’s the job of the local resettlement agency, the International Rescue Committee, to help them secure both as quickly as possible, said IRC director Molly Short Carr.

But record home sales prices in Missoula have placed rentals at a premium. And in a town that swells this time of year with university students – many with no credit ratings themselves – property managers and landlords can afford to be picky about who they rent to.

“We’re kind of hitting a bit of a brick wall,” Carr admitted.

[….]

Missoula has been approved [Why were they approved by the Dept. of State if housing was not available?—ed] as the destination for families of five, four and three people – 25 refugees in all – in the next few weeks, so the hunt for housing is becoming critical.

What a bunch of B.S. this is! We are expected to believe that local landlords should carry the burden of helping teach refugees how to be self-sufficient! Continue reading:

The IRC doesn’t allow its offices to co-sign for refugees.

“Our focus is really on getting them self-sufficient,” said Carr. “Co-signing is kind of a contradiction to self-sufficiency and being able to guide their own lives.”

Hey, here is an idea! maybe Mary Poole and other members of her group could take on the responsibility of co-signing rental agreements with landlords for the families they have ‘welcomed’ to Montana! Maybe put a little of their own skin in the game!

Readers!

If your town is contemplating ‘welcoming’ refugees, please pay attention. The uber-wealthy resettlement contractor will be out of the refugees’ lives in only a few months and the burden of these third world families will be on you—the taxpayers, the landlords, the social services, the school system and the health services of your town!

***David Miliband is a pal of the Clintons, click here for many posts we have written about him in recent years. BTW, Miliband was the first of the resettlement contractors to call for 65,000 Syrians for America before Obama leaves office and he subsequently joined the chorus for an even larger number.
Addendum: After I posted this I thought you might be interested to know that Anne Richard (Asst. Secretary of State for PRM) and Robert Carey (Director of the Office of Refugee Resettlement) were both former Vice Presidents at the IRC pulling down 6-figure salaries and are now the two top officials responsible for the entire US Refugee Admissions Program (the revolving door between government and contractor on full display).
Update: Soros spent $600,000 on a pro-refugee PR campaign in Europe (see here). How many refugees might he have helped personally with that kind of money? Or maybe Miliband would forego that huge salary and help needy refugees with it! Nah, he needs it to maintain the jet-setting lifestyle!

41 NGO's send letter to Obama: We want 200,000 refugees admitted to US in FY2017

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Remember that Obama signaled last fall that he was shooting for 100,000 refugees for FY17 (it will be his last year to make a Presidential ‘determination’ under the Refugee Act of 1980).
InterAction logo
These non-governmental organizations, part of yet another umbrella, this one called InterAction (a united global voice for change), include some of the nine major federal resettlement contractors we always talk about. They need money—your money—to build their offices, their staff and their political power base!
Resettling refugees takes a lot of money!
Sorry to keep repeating this but I want you all, and especially new readers who arrive here every day, to understand what the game plan is—to change America by changing its people—and Obama has one more shot at it.  He will do his PR stunt at the UN on September 20th and then go to Congress with his final plan for 2017 before October 1 (the 2017 fiscal year begins October 1, a little over 4 weeks from now).

However, Congress will have the final say as Congress holds the purse strings.  Congress can limit (or cut out completely!) funding for refugee resettlement into your towns.

Mitch_McConnell_Paul_Ryan_eR_151231_12x5_1600
It won’t be Obama making the final determination for 2017, it will be these two—Republican leaders in the House and Senate!

So please, please, focus your energy on Congress right now and through the fall (in addition to making sure Hillary loses).  It will be Speaker Paul Ryan and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell deciding your town’s future not Obama (or these progressive NGOs)!

In a letter dated last Thursday here is what the 41 non-profits affiliated with InterAction are telling Obama to do.  BTW that fizzled rally on the mall on Sunday is all part of this same propaganda push where they are trying to create the illusion that everyone in America is behind this.

Expanding and facilitating resettlement in the U.S.:

Over 80% of refugees are hosted in developing countries. Resettlement gives wealthier nations an important opportunity to demonstrate their commitment to global responsibility sharing. We urge the administration to commit to 200,000 refugee and humanitarian admissions in FY2017, including at least 140,000 through traditional refugee resettlement and 60,000 through other creative solutions such as expansions of family-based, employment, and student visas.

This 100% increase in resettlement and alternative admissions pathways would demonstrate that the United States, the world’s largest recipient for refugee resettlement, is willing to be as ambitious as it is asking others to be. [Maybe it’s time for all  those other countries to step up first and offer PERMANENT resettlement for a change!—ed]

Read the whole letter here.
And, here are the signators (federal resettlement contractors in red, 4 of nine are here).  What about America’s own poor people?

ADRA International
Alliance for Peacebuilding
American Refugee Committee
AmeriCares
Better World Campaign
CARE
Center for Women Policy Studies
ChildFund International
Church World Service
Concern Worldwide US
Disability Rights Education & Defense Fund
Episcopal Relief & Development
Global Campaign For Education-US
Global Communities
Global Links
Handicap International
Heart to Heart International
Helen Keller International
HIAS, Global Jewish Organization for Refugees
Inside NGO
International Catholic Migration Commission
International Medical Corps
International Rescue Committee
Jesuit Refugee Service USA
Keystone Human Services International
Lutheran World Relief
Mennonite Central Committee U.S.
Mercy Corps
Mercy-USA for Aid and Development
Pathfinder International
Save the Children
Seva Foundation
Stop Hunger Now
Syria Relief and Development
U.S. Committee for Refugees and Immigrants
United Nations Association of the USA
Women Thrive Worldwide
Women’s Refugee Commission
World Concern
World Hope International
Zakat Foundation of America

Addendum:  I learned about this letter here at the International Catholic Migration Commission (a signator of the letter).