The Chinese Virus crisis has caused legitimate concern to European frontline countries which have been the target of migrant boats launching from Libya.
In recent weeks, Malta and Italy have been forcing ‘rescue’ boats backtoward the Libyan coast infuriating ‘aid’ agencies and the UN which claim that, “departures from Libya during the first quarter of the year rose four-fold over the same period in 2019.”
It’s been awhile since I reported on the Mediterranean route to Europe from the north African coast, primarily from Libya.
Hillary and her gal pals are directly responsible for the hell hole that is Libya today.
Just a reminder that the chaos that is Libya today is a direct result of the Obama Administration’s policy then crafted by Hillary Clinton (with Rice and Power) that brought down the government of Muammar Gaddafi in 2011, not exactly a decent guy, but his absence opened up the sea route, a fast lane, for the invasion of Europe.
UN urges EU member states to disembark rescued migrants
Two UN agencies on Thursday called on Malta and other European countries to speed up efforts to bring to dry land some 160 rescued refugees and migrants from Libya, who remain at sea aboard two private vessels after two weeks, Anadolu Agency reports.
Earlier this month, Italy impounded the German rescue ship, Alan Kurdi, after its latest batch of migrants was quarantined offshore for two weeks due to the virus crisis in Italy. https://news.un.org/en/story/2020/05/1063592
Middle East Monitor continues:
The UN Refugee Agency and International Organization for Migration (IOM) warned that direct or indirect state involvement through the commercial Captain Morgan vessels in the return of the rescued migrants and refugees to Libya might violate international law.
“UNHCR and IOM unequivocally reiterate that no one rescued at sea should be returned to Libya,” said the statement.
“The misery and risk to life posed by intensifying conflict, arbitrary detention, and widespread human rights violations, amongst other factors, meaning it cannot be considered a place of safety.”
Necessary health measures undermine reception capacities in some Mediterranean States due to the novel coronavirus pandemic, prompting the UN agencies to offer support for the effective and speedy processing of new arrivals.
[….]
The UNHCR and IOM noted that the Mediterranean countries had been at the forefront of receiving sea arrivals in recent years and that their efforts, along with non-governmental organizations’ search and rescue vessels, had prevented many tragic deaths.
“However, the UNHCR and IOM are also deeply concerned about reports that States have been ignoring or delaying responses to distress calls, especially amid a sharp decrease in state-led and NGO search and rescue capacity,” said the statement.
Tomorrow is the previously stated date for refugees to begin arriving again in large numbers. They have been trickling in, probably a couple of hundred in the last two months since refugee travel was halted by the United Nations, but the US Refugee Program is largely shut down.
Special Immigrant Visas do continue to arrive from Afghanistan by the hundreds, but I’ll leave that discussion for another day.
Meanwhile the only news coming out of the mainstream media about refugees in America are sob stories about how they are struggling, out of work, fearful of being evicted, and trying to cope with COVID (like all of America!).
Some are working in essential services like meatpacking (Yogurt making?), others like those in the hospitality industry are out of work in large numbers.
Hereis one such story from Twin Falls, Idahowhere controversy over refugee resettlement has been muted after years of public protests about how the program was changing Idaho.
‘It’s like we’re living a half life’ — For refugees, COVID-19 impacts depend on where they live
The star of this story, a refugee from the DR Congo, says he is more worried about his brother in a refugee camp in Africa.
However, so far, the Chinese Virus has made no significant impact on refugee camps (although as I have reportedit isn’t for the media’s lack of interest, they expect catastrophe momentarily).
The article mostly discusses how challenging it is for refugees to live here in America these days (especially as many can’t speak English) and how the refugee agencies are short of funding and also cannot help refugees in person. (Why not? Where are their masks?)
They really aren’t short of funding as I pointed out here. The nine major contractors that send money down to subcontractors are getting nearly as much as they did during the Obama years (some are getting more!) when thousands upon thousands arrived every month!
The motherships must be holding on to the cash in order to pay salaries of their top execs. Besides, letting the low level staffers go makes for a better media story anyway!
Here is one little snip from this publication (these Idaho papers are prickly, they once sent me a letter telling me I couldn’t snip their stories).
Director Zeze Rwasama College of Southern Idaho Refugee Center in Twin Falls, Idaho. CSI is a subcontractor of the US Committee for Refugees and Immigrants.
The federal government pushed the date resettlements would restart from May 1 to May 15, but resettlement centers anticipate it will be pushed again.
“For that to happen involves the coordination of many government agencies to allow a refugee to travel,” Rwasama said.
“Many of those agencies are working with limited staff. I don’t see how we can receive refugees during this time.”
Coping with reduced budgets:
Now that refugee resettlement is halted in the wake of COVID-19, federal funding coming to resettlement programs will be drastically reduced…
Then there is an AP storycirculating mostly about Arizona Afghans you can read yourself entitled:
New refugees struggle to find footing in US during pandemic
Coping with reduced budgets! Not!
The College of Southern Idaho Refugee Program is a subcontractorof the US Committee for Refugees and Immigrantswhich is almost 100% funded by taxpayers. Its chief executive officer makes at least a quarter of a million a year in salary (last we checked) that YOU are paying.
Here is how they are doing financially from USA Spending….
The $90 million in the left hand corner is the amount of federal funding they have received in the last 12 months!
The International Rescue Committee, also mentioned in the Twin Falls sob story, has seen little change in its financial position from the Obama years. Its CEO, David Miliband, is pulling down a salary approaching a million dollars annually.
How about if they pony-up some of their federal funding to directly feed and house refugees they have distributed around America for years.
Why should taxpayers first pay for the resettlement and now pay for refugee care during the virus crisis?
$215 Million in the last twelve months!
This is no time to resume admitting more poverty to America!
Just now as I read this latest salvo against HIAS (one of nine refugee contractors that monopolize all resettlement to the US) charging that the ‘Jewish’ group has been snuggling up to Islam-first groups like CAIR and Islamic Relief, I went back to the Refugee Council USAmembers page that I had partially screenshot only a week ago when I wrote about the growing storm over the leadership of the Conference of Presidents—an organization that brings together groups that support Israel and the Jewish people.
I took this screenshot only a week ago of the membership page of RCUSA which is the lobbying arm of the refugee industry in the US.
There were 29 groups listed as members. Islamic Relief USA was one.
But somewhere between Monday and Friday this past week, Islamic Relief USA was removed (or removed itself) from the membership roster. See a screenshot today! There must be a story here!
Just to be sure I wasn’t hallucinating I went to the Wayback Machine and found that on April 27 Islamic Relief was still there and that RCUSA touted 29 member groups. Today it is 28 members.
So, the question is, did Islamic Relief quit or did they get the boot!?
We will likely never know because RCUSA is a secretive organization I’ve been trying to learn more about for years.
On the day a few weeks ago when my internet went down I was planning a post about them. They have a paid staff, they have a Washington, DC office, they are active ‘educating’ Congress about the need to bring in more refugees, they reach out to grassroots open borders activists to give them instructions, etc.
Yet….
They are not incorporated (as far as I can tell), they are not a 501(c)3 charitable organization, but supposedly their banker is Church World Service.
However, when I searched through CWS’sForm 990s I found no mention of money that passes through CWS to RCUSA.
News on refugees is pretty sparse these days involving mostly stories about how refugees (including illegal immigrants) don’t have work and are scrabbling to get their government bennies. Stories like this one from New Hampshire where my message to the Open Borders movement activists is this—you now need to step up and personally help (with your own time and money) all of the migrants you have helped bring to America.
However, I’m delighted to see that there is a spotlight shining on HIAS (aka the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society) from within the Jewish community.
HIAS, formerly known as the Hebrew International Aid Society*** until 2014, is in the news following a firestorm over the prospects of Dianne Lob, formerly the chair of its board of directors, becoming the chair-elect of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations.
The increased attention on HIAS provides an opportune time to scrutinize its work in resettling refugees. Unfortunately, a close examination leads to the conclusion that HIAS knowingly promotes policies that endanger Jews, as well as aligns with those linked to Islamist terrorism.
Rather than debating whether a former HIAS executive should head the big tent of all big tents of mainstream Judaism, the Jewish community should instead begin discussing how to show HIAS the door, just as it would for any other organization that enabled dangerously racist communities.
[….]
….the company HIAS keeps is telling. It has been unapologetic in its partnership with the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR). The ADL has raised serious concerns about CAIR, citing the fact, among others, that it openly delegitimizes Israel.
Because it is all over the news these days, I figured this might be a good time to repost some stories that you might not have seen or have long since forgotten. Like this one from 2017 (sure is good we were able to recover RRWwhen it was removed from the web last summer!):
Foreign-owned Big Meat hires Lutherans to help them find and retain refugee labor
That is the crux of this story and not in my wildest dreams did I think that money was directly changing hands between the meat industry and a federal refugee contractor, in this case Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Serviceheadquartered in Baltimore, MD.
I always assumed it was an informal relationship where the largely federally-funded ‘religious’ charity (LIRS is 96% funded by you and not via the collection plate) just happened to be bringing immigrant workers to small town America.
Now we learn that there is a formal (secret!), contractual arrangement planned for pilot projects in four states with JBS USA a Brazilian-owned company.And, it makes me wonder if this isn’t new and whether similar arrangements are being made with others of the nine federal refugee contractors.***
For those of you in places like St. Cloud, MN frustrated that you can’t get local elected officials to listen to you, remember their seemingly illogical resistance to slowing the flow of refugees has nothing to do with humanitarianism and everything to do with changing America for the almighty dollar!
Global meatpacking giant goes all in for refugee labor
A Lutheran resettlement agency that places United Nations refugees into dozens of U.S. cities and towns is working with the world’s largest meatpacking conglomerate to train refugees for work in four American states while also softening up the local natives to be more “welcoming.”
JBS Headquarters in Greeley, CO Photo credit: me
The secretive pilot program between Baltimore-based Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service and the U.S. subsidiary of JBS Swift aims to pump more refugees into Georgia, Texas, Iowa and Michigan to work in the company’s meat plants. If successful, the pilot program could be renewed for a second year and replicated at JBS meat plants across the U.S., WND has learned.
JBS Swift, the Brazilian-based global meat-processing giant, has agreed to pay Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Services, or LIRS, $155,000 to implement the pilot program over the next year in the four states, according to a draft of the partnership agreement obtained by WND from a person with inside knowledge of the deal.
“The shock here is to find out that a religious agency is being paid by a foreign global corporation to train refugees and ultimately transform the demographics of small towns in America’s heartland,” said Ann Corcoran, an expert on the international movement of refugees and the nine volunteer agencies that resettle them for the U.S.
The deal between the global meat producer JBS and the Lutheran agency has been dubbed “Rebuilding Dreams,” and is described in the draft document as a “grant and collaboration agreement” between JBS USA and LIRS in the four states.
“The primary goal of this agreement is to improve the capacity of JBS USA and local resettlement agencies to support and improve the hiring and retention of refugee employees at four pilot sites in Michigan, Texas, Iowa, and Georgia,” according to the document.
The following are the cities in those states where JBS has meatpacking plants:
Iowa – Council Bluffs, Marshalltown and Ottumwa, mostly pork production
Michigan – Plainwell, mostly beef
Georgia – Elberton, Douglas, Athens, Ellijay, Canton and Carrollton, mostly chicken
Texas – Waco, Lufkin, Nacogdoches, Pittsburg and Mount Pleasant, mostly chicken
“Rebuilding Dreams will achieve this goal by creating customized trainings and resources for key stakeholders, building stronger relationships through communications and technology platforms, enhancing the collection and evaluation of data, and improving the overall quality and culture of the workplace experience for refugee employees,” the agreement states.
The agreement also calls for improving the local “welcoming culture” in the cities where the refugees will be placed.
Part of United Nations agenda for sustainability
JBS is a transnational, global corporation that beats the United Nations “sustainability” drum on its website, and it also cashes in on the globalized “labor mobility” concept pushed by the U.N.’s 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.
Read more here.The story is a detailed must-read about how a global corporation and a supposedly religious charity are changing America by changing the people.
And as a side reading project, see this 2006 articlefrom the Greeley Tribune involving Swift (JBS bought Swift) explaining how the meat industry went from being a desirable place for Americans to work to their model today that is increasingly reliant on the global movement of labor—-middle America be damned!
Don’t miss Bloomberg: Big Meat worried about Trump’s reduced refugee flow,here.
For Republicans it’s about money!
We know the Dems are pushing refugee resettlement in order to boost the number of Democrat voters, and if you are wondering why the Republicans aren’t doing enough to get the program controlled—look to the Chamber of Commerce and GLOBAL Corporations that have convinced the Republican leadership that the free flow of cheap and captive (uncomplaining) labor across borders is the future.
The jig is up!
Big Meat gets cheap labor, the Dems get voters, and you, the taxpayer, get to subsidize it all (including welfare for workers paid insufficient wages!). If you complain you are a hater, a racist and an Islamophobe!
LIRS is headquartered here in Baltimore. This is their own description: The Lutheran Center (LIRS headquarters) is a six-story structure constructed in 1999 on property owned by Baltimore’s historic Christ Lutheran Church. The building is located near Baltimore’s Inner Harbor in the historic Federal Hill neighborhood, a charming area rich with history and an eclectic array of eateries and shopping venues.
Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Serviceis the lead federal contractor for the following list of subcontractors.
Making it clear!
LIRS, in Baltimore, is not a separate group from the others on the list!
LIRS is the lead contractor that deals directly with the US State Department and divvies up incoming refugees between the agencies below—LOL! it is the ‘mothership’ to the following:
(Update: Since this post is from 2017 some of the subcontractors listed may no longer exist. I didn’t bother checking. See if the one near you is still up and running and let me know!)
So what do you do? Go tothis postI wrote earlier this month and get to work where you live!
For more on meatpackers and cheap immigrant labor, go here.
*** For new readers, these are the nine major federal refugee contractors largely funded by you, the taxpayer. Refugee resettlement is not first and foremost about humanitarianism so don’t let them shut you up!
In 2017, we learned that
