Category: The Opposition

Washington Post highlights refugee contractor Church World Service’s role as employment service for big business

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Recently the Center for Immigration Studies released a report on Tennessee (we reported on it here) about how immigrant employment was responsible for most of the job growth in that state, and then today I see they have another study out, this time on Florida.  Here is how a piece by Ryan Lovelace at National Review Online begins:

A new report from the Center for Immigration Studies finds that the majority of the net increase in employment among Florida’s working age population since the first quarter of 2000 has gone to legal and illegal immigrants. Florida ranked second in the nation in employment growth among 16 to 65 year olds since the first quarter of 2000, CIS says, but still ranks 34th nationwide in labor-force participation of its native-born population in the same age range.

They need to do a study on North Carolina if they haven’t already!

One of the quasi-government/quasi-religious groups, Church World Service, is busy supplying refugee laborers for North Carolina companies and now they are whining again about cuts in taxpayer dollars that allow them, a non-profit ‘church’ group, to bring in workers to compete with native workers.

CWS CEO Rev. John McCullough (left with scarf) and other “faith” leaders pushing for amnesty in Washington. http://www.interfaithimmigration.org/2013/04/12/nationally-renowned-faith-leaders-speak-at-a10-time-is-now-immigrants-rights-rally/

Here is the Washington Post helping Church World Service get its cry heard for more money (from the US Treasury’s money tree), in the wake of the unaccompanied minors’ border invasion:

“We measure our success as a company by the number of rice cookers we have,” Lindsay Hancock, Creative Snacks’ director of business administration, says only half-jokingly. The company has four now.

All 30 full-time employees on the plant floor are refugees. Many came through the Church World Service resettlement agency and its Greensboro employment training program. But that program’s future remains uncertain because, in the world of immigration and refugee policy, it turns out that the Mexican border and all its politics can run right through a North Carolina snack plant full of refugees.

File this under unintended consequences: The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of Refugee Resettlement allocates funds to programs for refugees and unaccompanied alien children. Earlier this year, when the number of children fleeing Central America and Mexico for the United States started skyrocketing, the office reallocated more money to help address a mounting crisis at the border. That money — $94 million — came directly out of refugee programs and services. Taking the hit were grants that help refugees with employment, preventative health services and adaption to America and its school system.

Don’t make us choose between refugees and illegal immigrants! WE want money for everybody (our salaries too)!

For state refugee coordinators and immigration advocates, the crisis at the border has meant walking a tightrope: Do not make refugees bear the cost of Congress’s refusal to provide more funding. Do not pit refugees against immigrant children. Do not make us choose one or the other.

State refugee coordinators have been scrambling to figure out how to avoid layoffs and keep their health-care, educational and employment services intact.

Then this (below) is what jumped out at me!  “Creative Snacks” DEPENDS on Church World Service to supply it with workers and the owners have NO REAL ANSWER AS TO WHY THEY DON’T HIRE AMERICANS.

I have a few theories and one is that there are tax breaks of some sort for the employers when they hire refugees and what the refugees can’t afford through their salaries comes to them via various social services and training supplied by you!  (There are even special savings plans for refugees for such things as cars, homes and education where the government matches their savings.) So, the company can keep salaries low—you take care of everything else.  And, most importantly, refugees are basically trapped employees with nowhere else to go.

The WaPo continues (We want to know why is this the responsibility of the US taxpayer?):

“We depend upon Church World Service to help us find people,” Hancock says. “The loss of funding would have an immediate impact on our business.”

Yes, Hancock says, the company could hire the native-born, but Creative Snacks’ owners, Marius and Hilary Andersen, are committed to providing opportunities to refugees, who, by definition, have been wrenched from their homelands and who, in that loss, must place their faith in a new country.  [So, they have been wrenched by the UN and Church World Service from their homeland, what does that have to do with answering the question about why the Andersens don’t hire native North Carolinians?—ed]

Read the whole article, it is pretty informative.

Church World Service’s Form 990

CWS isn’t as bad as some of their fellow contractors*** in terms of the percentage of federal dollars they gobble up in any given year (most contractors are up in the 90% range).   Their 2013 Form 990 says they took in $74,101,599 and that $43,999,257 came from you as government grants.  That’s about 59.3 %.

Doing well by doing good!

Their CEO, Rev. John McCullough makes a cool $285,830 in salary from CWS (and related activities).  Five other employees are in the 6-figure salary range.  Maybe if the shortfall continues they could cut those salaries down a bit and help the refugees more.  (just saying!)

You should know that CWS lobbied for so-called Comprehensive Immigration Reform which we all know helped inspire the border surge.

***The federal refugee resettlement contractors (I suspect grant recipient big dogs Baptist Child and Family Services and Southwest Key Programs  are now devouring all the federal cash):

Our complete archive on ‘unaccompanied minors’ goes back several years, click here for all of those posts.

Is the “remittance culture” driving the “children” to America?

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

“Why work when money just pours in from Western Union regularly?”

Update August 12th:  More on remittance culture in Breitbart article about illegal Hondurans in US.

A few years ago when I was researching a story on “temporary protected status” I came across a comment by George Bush, or someone in his State Department, saying that they had to extend TPS for Salvadorans because the money they sent home kept the country afloat.

That money being sent out of the US by immigrants is known as remittances.  Indeed, we have lots of posts here over the years about remittances to Somalia and the problems with it.

MD Del. Ana Sol Gutierrez in front of Salvadoran Money transfer business. Photo credit: Greg Dohler/The Gazette http://potomacteapartyreport.wordpress.com/2013/02/14/maryland-delegate-money-is-a-principal-driver-of-the-foreign-governments-interest-in-immigration-reform/

But, I hadn’t noticed much written about whether the three major countries (Honduras, Guatemala, and El Salvador) sending their ‘unaccompanied alien children’ to America were turning a blind eye and actually condoning the illegal migration because they know money (a lot of it taxpayer dollars!) would soon flow southward.

In fact when Rush Limbaugh was making fun of Obama and saying why was he so willing to steal the best and the brightest of Central American youths and thus rob those countries of a future, I wondered then why the leaders of those countries weren’t angry at the loss of their children.  Is it because the lure of easy money now is greater than any concern for the future of their countries?

So I looked around and found this really good article by Seth Daniel at the Chelsea Record (Massachusetts) entitled: Influx Has Everything to Do with Remittance Culture.

The gist of it is that the “children” will send money ‘home’ and that the flood of easy money ultimately destroys those poor countries, and it destroys local economies in the US as well.

After a lead-in about men coming to America to support their families and finding things tough, Daniel says this:

But make no mistake, they did and still do send money.

The Record reported last year that in 2012, nearly $250 million cash left the communities of Chelsea, Revere, East Boston and Everett in the form of remittances (money sent back to one’s home country). Some $2 billion left the state of Massachusetts alone in 2012. That’s a fortune, and most of it went to Central America – specifically El Salvador and Guatemala. The paper is still waiting to get those same numbers for 2013 from the state, but early reports are that even more was remitted.

Consulates from those countries told the Record in that very same report last year that their countries are deeply dependent upon money sent to family members from American relatives. It has become an important part of life in their countries.

And so what about those countries?

If you talk to assimilated natives of those particular countries – and really any country with a large remittance culture – they will tell you (maybe only secretly) that sending so much money home has ruined the society. People who keep residences in their home countries will tell you that they cannot find anyone to hire in order to maintain those properties. So many formerly hard-working people prefer to just wait for the weekly remittance from America. Why work when money just pours in from Western Union regularly?

This isn’t only in Central America, again. It’s the status quo wherever large sums of remittance money make up a significant portion of a country’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP).

Then there’s the problem with what happens to a poor economy when so much money starts rolling in without anything being produced or anybody earning said money. Prices skyrocket for food and housing. Land prices go through the roof. Heavy taxes are imposed. Everything all the sudden costs way more than it did, and the money that rolls in suddenly isn’t enough. The more money that is sent, the shorter it stretches.

Then the frantic phone calls begin to come – the money you sent isn’t enough. We need more.

What once cost $1 is now $10.

Destroying the local economy in Massachusetts

Daniel continues:

….right now we have hundreds of thousands of young adults and older teens pouring over the border to get to America by whatever means necessary. They are certainly fleeing violence, but there is also an aspect of them fleeing in order to get a job and send more money home.

That was expressly said by two women who spoke last week at the Collaborative – one of which who said she needed to send money home to her mother as soon as possible. Naturally, $1 doesn’t go as far as it used to and people need to eat.

The remittance culture needs to be addressed within this debate, but no one wants to talk about it. Just like Broadway Chelsea seems to be ground zero for the unaccompanied minor debate, it is also ground zero for cash leaving the country. Millions upon millions of dollars leave the community via Broadway Chelsea every year. Just a million of that money would transform the outlook of business on Broadway. That’s why this system cripples the community – puts local business out of business because any and all disposable income is being sent instead of spent.

Read it all.  And please spread it around, it deserves greater attention then it’s gotten at this local news outlet.

Of course the NGO drivers of the illegal migration don’t give a damn about such matters—it is all about more Democrat voters, sinking our social service system, and changing America forever.

Our complete archive on ‘unaccompanied minors’ goes back several years, click here for all of those posts.

Syracuse: Catholic Church becomes mosque update

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Reader Caroline sent us this detailed update on the latest from “welcoming” Syracuse written by Jenna Bowen at American Thinker.

We first told you about how a beautiful Catholic Church is being converted to a mosque as the Muslim refugee population there continues to grow, here.

This is going to happen to your “welcoming” city too as the Muslim population increases through immigration—it is inexorable demographic change!

Dr. Yusuf Soule in front of the new mosque. http://creepingsharia.wordpress.com/2014/04/06/syracuse-muslims-buy-catholic-church-neighbors-shocked-mosque-will-remove-crosses/

Here is the latest news (Syracuse embraces mosque and wants more ‘refugees’):

Since my original article discussing how an abandoned Catholic church was being converted to a mosque in Syracuse, NY, that city has embraced the Mosque of Jesus, Son of Mary with open arms.  In April, a local publication, the Syracuse New Times, published an interview with Dr. Yusuf Soule, the executive director of the Northside Learning Center, who bought the church and rented it to a still unidentified group of Muslims.  In no news report has the group who transformed the church into a mosque been identified as anything other than a “new Islamic society.”

Read through the update and then at the end see that the Mayor is now asking Obama to send the ‘unaccompanied alien children’  (the Catholic church calls refugees!) to “welcoming” Syracuse.

Fourteen years after the attack on the synagogue, Temple Beth El is closed, the Mosque of Jesus, Son of Mary has replaced Holy Trinity Church on the city’s North side, and everyone is stumped why there is an alarming increase in violence on Syracuse’s Northside; an area overloaded with Dr. Yusuf Soule’s “refugees.”

In fact, the city is in such good shape that Syracuse’s mayor, Stephanie Miner, is telling President Obama to send illegal immigrants from the border up to her city. “The entire Syracuse community wants to help,” she wrote him.  Indeed, they probably couldn’t find a more appropriate environment to relocate to.

Read more here.

Related:  Reader Cathy sent us a good article from late July also at American Thinker entitled “They’re not refugees.” It makes me very happy to see that the whole refugee program is being scrutinized by other media outlets as a result of the effort to label the ‘unaccompanied alien children’ as refugees. But, is it too late?

For additional reading, I see we have a bunch of posts on crimes and other problems with refugees and immigrants in Syracuse going back several years, click here.

 

Australia’s Muslim migrants call for caliphate from the streets of Sydney

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment
On the streets of Sydney, Australia

 

How many times have I heard in recent years some American say,  ‘I’m going to escape to Australia!’ 

Don’t be in a hurry to buy that ticket!   First, scroll through our Australia category (140 previous posts) and check out the problems there with the changing face of Australia.

Here is a story from earlier in the week (you may have seen it already) about a pro-Palestinian demonstration by Islamists (Hamas supporters) in Sydney.

How did Australia get so many Muslims—from refugee resettlement and from years of boat people (illegal aliens from Muslim countries) being admitted to the country by previous administrations.

From Andrew Bolt writing at The Herald Sun (hat tip: ‘pungentpeppers’):

A COUPLE of hundred men marched past the Lakemba Hotel in Sydney a week ago, chanting their support for Gaza, and with it a threat.

Here is what they shouted while waving black flags of jihad — and pray Labor finally listens:

Palestine is Muslim land

The solution is Jihad …

You can never stop Islam

From Australia to al Sham (Syria)

One umma (Muslim community) hand in hand

From Lakemba to Gaza

One call “khalifa” (Caliphate)

That chant is a wake-up for a political class now too cowed or craven to judge between the civilised and the primitive.

Read it all and learn what demographic change has wrought Down Under.

Why do we bring you news from other western countries undergoing radical demographic change?  First, and foremost so that you know that a worldwide invasion by the third world (encouraged by the Hard Left) is well underway and thus the demographic/political threat to western civilization is perhaps the greatest it’s ever been certainly in the last few centuries.

Here is another piece on Australia I would like you to see:  Refugee Activists make an industry out of bending the truth.

All of Tennessee’s employment growth since 2000 has gone to immigrants

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

We should have posted this news when it was hot earlier this week (thanks to all those who sent it), so you may already have seen it.  I would love to see a similar study by the Center for Immigration Studies of some other states with an even higher immigrant load then Tennessee.

We have written extensively on Tennessee (click here) where a ‘pocket of resistance’ continues to grow in Nashville (see our category devoted to posts on Nashville).

Tennessee Senators Lamar Alexander and Bob Corker both voted for the Senate’s Gang of Eight amnesty bill.

From the Center for Immigration Studies:

The Gang of Eight Senate immigration bill (S.744) passed last June would have roughly doubled the number of new foreign workers allowed into the country and legalized millions of illegal immigrants already in the United States. Both Tennessee senators — Lamar Alexander (R) and Bob Corker (R) — voted for it.

To put into context the possible effects of this legislation on Tennessee, the Center for Immigration Studies has analyzed recent government data on employment. The analysis shows that, since 2000, all of the net increase in the number of working-age (16 to 65) people holding a job in Tennessee has gone to immigrants (legal and illegal). This is the case even though the native-born accounted for 60 percent of the growth in the state’s total working-age population.

 * The total number of working-age (16 to 65) immigrants (legal and illegal) holding a job in Tennessee increased by 94,000 from the first quarter of 2000 to the first quarter of 2014, while the number of working-age natives with a job declined by 47,000 over the same period.

 * The fact that all of the long-term net gain in employment among the working-age population went to immigrants is striking because natives accounted for 60 percent of the increase in the total size of the state’s working-age population.

  Read it all!