Category: The Opposition

Where your $2 billion would go—Office of Refugee Resettlement and its contractors

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Editors note:  First, to those readers who have sent me your State Department testimony, I promise to get more posted, but between life on the farm and the pressing issue involving the illegal alien “children,” I am swamped!

I’m also annoyed at the mainstream media that seems incapable of digging more deeply into the invasion crisis on the border and acting like the “children” just showed up one day.  This is an organized invasion that I firmly believe is driven directly from a treasonous White House.

And, whether they actually helped spread the word to Central Americans to get here NOW or not, the federal refugee contractors will soon be rolling in dough (your dough) to care for the invaders.  (See my earlier post this morning, criminals or refugees?).

Last June I attended a meeting in Lancaster PA where ORR officials announced there would be a dramatic increase in “unaccompanied children” this year—how did they know that a year ago?

Update June 16th:  Questions arise about whether the alien kids are being treated better than American kids in foster care, here.

This (below) is directly from the US Dept. of Health and Human Services, Office of Refugee Resettlement description of the “Unaccompanied Alien Children” program.  Incidentally it used to be referred to as “Unaccompanied minors” but the word “children” probably sounded more warm and fuzzy to them and was added at some point!

The Senate Appropriations Committee has voted to give HHS $2 billion!

The “children” are mostly boys older than 14 years old!

This is where your $2 billion will go (if passed by Congress):

Following the Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) mission, which is founded on the belief that new arriving populations have inherent capabilities when given opportunities, ORR/ Division of Children Services/Unaccompanied Alien Children program provides unaccompanied alien children (UAC) with a safe and appropriate environment as well as client-focused highest quality of care to maximize the UAC’s opportunities for success both while in care, and upon discharge from the program to sponsors in the U.S. or return to home country, to assist them in becoming integrated members of our global society.

Overview:

On March 1, 2003, the Homeland Security Act of 2002, Section 462, transferred responsibilities for the care and placement of unaccompanied alien children (UAC) from the Commissioner of the Immigration and Naturalization Service to the Director of the Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR). Since then, ORR has cared for more than 92,000 UAC, incorporating child welfare values as well as the principles and provisions established by the Flores Agreement in 1997, the Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000 and its reauthorization acts, the William Wilberforce Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act (TVPRA) of 2005 and 2008.

Unaccompanied alien children (UAC) apprehended by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) immigration officials, are transferred to the care and custody of ORR. ORR makes and implements placement decisions in the best interests of the UAC to ensure placement in the least restrictive setting possible while in federal custody. ORR takes into consideration the unique nature of each UAC’s situation and incorporates child welfare principles when making placement, clinical, case management, and release decisions that are in the best interest of the child. View the infographic about the UAC process.

Facts about UAC

The dramatic increase came when Obama gave amnesty to the “Dreamers” in 2012.

Their youth, their separation from a protective environment or person, and the hazardous journey they embark make UAC especially vulnerable to becoming victims of human trafficking, exploitation, and abuse. UAC have multiple, inter-related reasons for undertaking the difficult journey of traveling to the United States. UAC leave their home countries to rejoin family already in the United States, to escape abusive family relationships in their home country, or to find work to support their families in the home country.

General Statistics about UAC

*An unaccompanied alien child is a child who has no lawful immigration status in the United States; has not attained 18 years of age; and, with respect to whom, there is no parent or legal guardian in the United States, or no parent or legal guardian in the United States available to provide care and physical custody.
See 6 U.S.C. § 279(g)(2)

Reasons why these minors have come to the United States include, but are not limited to, the following:

*To escape violence, abuse or persecution in their home countries
*To find family members already residing in the United States
*To seek work to support themselves; their family, or their own children
*Were brought into the United States by human trafficking rings

 

The majority of UAC are cared for through a network of state licensed ORR-funded care providers, most of which are located close to areas where immigration officials apprehend large numbers of aliens. These care provider facilities are state licensed and must meet ORR requirements to ensure a high level of quality of care. They provide a continuum of care for children, including foster care, group homes, shelter, staff secure, secure, and residential treatment centers. The care providers operate under cooperative agreements and contracts, and provide children with classroom education, health care, socialization/recreation, vocational training, mental health services, family reunification, access to legal services, and case management.

There is more, read it all.  I am out of time!

Addendum:   if you think this is a problem for the border states only, wait for it!  HHS is scouting your town now for suitable buildings in which to house the kids!

Christian Science Monitor: are illegal kids criminals or refugees?

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

They are most certainly not refugees! 

 

Refugees or criminals? http://www.breitbart.com/Breitbart-Texas/2014/06/05/Leaked-Images-Reveal-Children-Warehoused-in-Crowded-US-Cells-Border-Patrol-Overwhelmed

 

Ever since we started writing this blog in 2007, the open borders agitators (including the refugee contractors) and immigration lawyers have been attempting to expand the definition of “refugee” for the purpose of bringing in anyone in the world who is fleeing crime (or says they are fleeing crime).

Fleeing one’s home country because the country is overrun with gangs and drug dealers, and where the government there is unable to protect its citizens from crime generally, does not make one a “refugee.”   And think about it, wouldn’t that make half the world eligible for asylum in America?  Or, is that what Obama wants?

A refugee:

…. is a person who is outside their home country because they have suffered (or feared) persecution on account of race, religion, nationality, political opinion, or because they are a member of a persecuted ‘social group’ or because they are fleeing a war.

Either the “refugee” has been chosen by the UN and admitted to the US by the US State Department and flown here, or in the case of asylum seekers who got here on their own (crossed a border illegally or overstayed a visa), they must first be judged to be legitimately escaping persecution before they are declared a refugee.

The big push to find the kids lawyers is to attempt to prove that they are legitimate asylum seekers and for the US to ultimately grant them asylum which would make them refugees and thereby make them eligible for all of the taxpayer “services” available to any American citizen.  See our fact sheet!

An “economic migrant” is an alien who is seeking a better life—he or she wants a job or welfare.  They are also NOT refugees.

The recent “unaccompanied minor” border invaders may be “economic migrants,” but they definitely are illegal aliens and therefore criminals.

Here is Patrik Jonsson reporting at the Christian Science Monitor (hat tip: Joanne).

I’ve communicated with Jonsson.  He has exposed some secrecy in the “refugee” program before so I would urge him to help figure out who are the instigators of this invasion, it isn’t the kids (who are being used, in my opinion, by those who are attempting to bring on the revolution)!

Who are those shadowy players?  Or is it the White House itself?

The growing crush of vulnerable migrant children crossing the Rio Grande and entering the US through south Texas has put urgency to a vexing question for the US immigration system:

Are children fleeing Central American violence refugees who need asylum or illegal gold-diggers who need to go home?

The rush on the border has created what the White House and many others have called a humanitarian crisis. But it has also pushed Washington into finger-pointing mode, with politicians and commentators trying to pin down why children, often guided by “coyote” smugglers, are traveling hundreds of miles across Mexico into the US.

Read it all.

BTW, I heard a scary prediction yesterday—-that after the 2014 election, Obama plans to pardon all illegal aliens in the US.  Is that what the “kids” know?

With all of this horrific news about the invasion of America by mostly teenaged boys from Central America, I see a bright side!  

Those who have brought this nightmare (including the US Conference of Catholic Bishops and the Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Services***) to the front pages have succeeded in making the word “refugee” a very dirty word in homes across America after years and years of building up “refugees” as wonderful, deserving, industrious and grateful NEW AMERICANS.   Keep it up!

Come to think of it, maybe I shouldn’t be so quick to say they aren’t refugees!

See our complete archive on “unaccompanied minors” and the refugee contractors by clicking here.  Learn more about where your $2 billion for the kids will be going, here.

***Why do I keep naming those two refugee contractors (of the nine), because they are two that have had contracts from the ORR to care for the “kids.”   But, I expect all of the contractors to be scrambling for the $$$$$ and a piece of the action now that more of your tax dollars (billions in fact!) may soon be flowing their way.

As a matter of fact, the contractors all lobbied for the ‘gang of eight’s’ so-called “comprehensive immigration reform” bill because it contained provisions for them to gain more “clients” and more federal grant and contract money.  Since that hasn’t gone through, and likely won’t anytime soon, this windfall—to care for the kids—is the next best thing for them!

So why were Pro-amnesty agitators at Cantor election-night headquarters?

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment
Is that CASA de Maryland we see rioting at Cantor headquarters on election night?

 

Wouldn’t it make more sense if they had stormed the Brat election-night party?

Our source on the ground suggests they were there because they had anticipated a Cantor victory!

From a Brat supporter:

They were THERE FOR THE VICTORY CELEBRATION….because Cantor winning MEANT AMNESTY.

At least they were honest about what a Cantor victory really meant.

Story at the Washington Post.  Police were called in.  Our post on the stunning Cantor defeat yesterday.

I wonder how much time the Sandinistas (aka CASA) spent in Richmond working on the Cantor campaign?

From at least last fall!

Be sure to see this story (The corruption of Eric Cantor) at Right Side News from September 2013, where Cantor staffers met with Open borders activists (including btw, the Virginia Council of Churches, a refugee contractor):

As the September 4, 2013, Richmond, Virginia TEA Party was holding its rally outside the locked doors of Mr. Cantor’s Richmond offices, Mr. Cantor’s staff, represented at the highest levels, was meeting – privately and very quietly – with far-left groups representing pro-Amnesty, pro-Obamacare and pro-entitlement groups.

These groups included:

*Central American Solidarity Association (CASA): A special interest group in favor of Progressive and Liberal policies promoting the expansion of rights for undocumented (read: illegal) aliens currently residing in the United States.

There is more!  Read it all!

Let this be a lesson to Republicans everywhere.

Senate Appropriations Committee votes to give HHS $2 billion for the illegal alien kids

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Ahhhhh!  It is insane!

I’m ashamed to say that Maryland Senator Barbara Mikulski, as chairwoman of the Senate Appropriations Committee, is the leader of this latest travesty. http://www.appropriations.senate.gov/news/chairwoman-mikulski-prepared-remarks-fy15-lhhs-subcommittee-markup

When Robin sent me this story yesterday, my first thought was that the $2 billion would be spread around the various agencies including FEMA, Homeland Security and possibly the Defense Department (now housing some of the “refugee” kids), but this $2 billion is destined for the Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) in the Dept. of Health and Human Services, the agency legally responsible for unaccompanied alien minors!

From ORR, millions could be doled out to the refugee contractors including the US Conference of Catholic Bishops and Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service (ActOfLove, what a joke!).

And, those contractors are busy lobbying for more money, more refugees, and more immigrant “clients” generally (they lobbied for the Senate “comprehensive immigration reform” bill as well).  Are they using your money for lobbying?

Here is the story according to Reuters:

A Senate appropriations panel voted Tuesday to give the Obama administration $2 billion it requested to handle the dramatic increase in child immigrants caught trying to illegally cross the Mexican border without their parents, Reuters reported.

The money is more than $1.1 billion more than President Barack Obama initially asked for in his budget proposal for the Health and Human Services division that cares for and houses immigrant children caught alone at the border, according to Reuters. It would effectively come from yet unspecified changes in mandatory programs.

The number of children found trying to cross the Mexican border without parents has skyrocketed in recent years, Reuters reported. Between 2008 and 2011, the number of children landing in the custody of HHS’s Refugee Resettlement fluctuated between 6,000 and 7,500 per year.

In 2012 border agents apprehended 13,625 unaccompanied children and that number surged even more, to over 24,000 last year with the total is expected to be as high as 90,000 this year, according to Reuters.

[….]

The HHS budget approved by the committee would also allow the government to move money from other areas if the flow of child immigrants grows beyond the latest estimate of up to 90,000, according to Reuters.

[….]

The full Senate will have the final say on its version of the HHS budget, and the House has not yet acted on the issue, Reuters reported.

[….]

Under federal law, the children are supposed to be turned over to HHS within 72 hours, Reuters reported. Most are then reunited with parents or other relatives already living in the United States.

And then this line really ticks me off (as if the above isn’t bad enough)!

Most children caught crossing the border alone are from Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala and cannot be quickly repatriated, according to Reuters.

If anyone in leadership had any guts they would propose what I put forward, here, yesterday.  Airlift the mostly teenaged boys back to their respective state capitals and turn them over to their own governments and threaten to cut off all aid to the country if they ever return to the US.

For background, see our complete archive on ‘unaccompanied minors’ by clicking here.

The invasion on our Southern border by child “refugees” helped defeat Eric Cantor

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Update June 12th:  Why were pro-amnesty rioters at Cantor headquarters on Tuesday night?  Here!

They have overplayed their hand this time.  Their strategy has back-fired.

Cantor offer to Obama: We can do something for the kids.

Who is they?  Obama, Cecilia Munoz, some in the Republican Party (Bush, Cantor, US Chamber of Commerce) and the open borders lobby including the US Conference of Catholic Bishops and the Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service*** which you know were helping spread the word throughout Mexico and Central America that the illegal alien “kids” were welcome to invade America.

And, they have squandered decades of the warm and fuzzy feelings that naive do-gooders have built up around the word “refugee.”   Earlier yesterday, as House Majority Leader Eric Cantor’s political death sentence was being meted out, I was struck by this article published at Human Events (hat tip Paul) on Sunday—-‘Cloward-Piven at the border‘ by John Hayward.

If you have never heard of the Cloward-Piven strategy read one of our posts on the topic from 2009 for some background.

It is not the connection to C-P that interested me so much as it was Hayward’s use of the word “refugee” linked to something that is so obviously disgusting to the average American—invaders expecting hand outs.

These teenage migrants from mostly Central America are not refugees and by pushing that mantra Obama and others have succeeded, better than critics of the program could ever do, in sullying the word that as I said has had an aura of pure goodness about it ever since the Refugee Act of 1980 (Kennedy/Carter) was signed into law.

As various political action and education groups have built up over the years working to slow immigration into America, those groups and their leaders have stayed away from criticism of “refugees” because apparently they viewed them as untouchable and above criticism in the public mind.

I wonder will all of that change now that these illegal alien invaders are being openly called “refugees?”

Back to Cantor and what his defeat could mean…..

Read that Human Events piece in which Hayward quotes Cantor:

“I have told the president, there are some things we can work on together,” he said in the WTVR interview.

“We can work on the border security bill together, we can work on something like the kids,” he said referring to his proposal to offer some undetermined variety of amnesty to the children and youths of millions of parents who entered the country illegally.

There couldn’t have been worse timing for Cantor—as thousands of “kids” showed up on the border obviously lured by Washington establishment talk of something for the kids.

And, here is a good comment to Erick Erickson’s analysis of the Cantor defeat (the Brat victory!).  Erickson doesn’t believe it was all about immigration, but some of his readers beg to differ.  And here is one of them:

‘The Rebel’ (emphasis is mine):

Cantor supported legislation known as the KIDS Act, which would give citizenship to children brought to the country illegally. Given the flood of illegal children on our southern borders over the past two weeks, I would say that was the deciding factor.

The biggest loser tonight after Cantor has to be Jeb Bush. They were tied at the hip on amnesty and common core. It wouldn’t surprise me if he didn’t win a single primary other than FL. Let’s see if he backtracks on his messaging now.

The other loser is Obama. If he thinks he can just ramrod immigration and amnesty through on executive orders, let him try. Not only would those endangered Senate Dems be finished, but other Senate Dems within reach by Republicans could also be in trouble. This earthquake will fire up the Republican base for November.

The refugee contractor lobbyists who stood to gain millions of new “clients” will be big losers too if the Senate’s so-called comprehensive immigration reform doesn’t become law!  (By the way, as the mainstream media beats this issue, very few will understand the connection between the contractors, who will be paid to service the immigrants/refugees, amnesty, and the invasion of unaccompanied minors, but longtime readers of RRW will.)

Here is my solution to the “humanitarian crisis” (Obama’s characterization) on the border.  Load up the planes with unaccompanied teens (83% are above the age of 14, 77% are males), fly them to their respective capitals in Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras, turn them over to their governments to find their families, and threaten the withdrawal of all US aid if any of them set foot in America again.   A few flights like that and the rush will end, and it will save us one hell of a lot of money besides (Obama wants over a $billion to take care of the “kids.”).

Endnote: We asked on Monday: Where is America’s sense of self preservation?  Looks like it’s in Virginia’s 7th District (for starters!).

***Be sure to see the Lutheran’s #ActOfLove campaign (for the kids) just launched two weeks ago.