Governor of Wyoming refugee program still in planning stage? Or, was it a done-deal last fall?

05/03/2014 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

As you know we have been following the growing controversy in Wyoming about whether that state will open a refugee resettlement office for the purpose of bringing new-to-America refugees to Wyoming. We first became aware of Governor Matt Mead’s proposal here in February. All of our subsequent posts are here.

The Governor has been claiming that they are simply exploring the option of becoming the 50th and final state to actively admit third world refugees directly to Wyoming. However, here (below) is the Governor’s letter to Eskinder Negash, Director Office of Refugee Resettlement, from LAST SEPTEMBER. Sure sounds like a done-deal to me!

Just for your information, Eskinder Negash (formerly a VP at one of the resettlement contractors—the US Committee for Refugees and Immigrants) is the Director of the Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) in the US Dept. of Health and Human Services.

The other half, and perhaps the most important half, of the FEDERAL Refugee Admissions Program is the US State Department and its Asst. Secretary for Population, Refugees and Migration represented now by Anne Richard also previously employed as a refugee resettlement contractor (International Rescue Committee).

By the way, this program is notorious for revolving doors between contractors and government, but I digress!

I’m not sure why the Governor wrote only to ORR to alert them that “Wyoming has elected to pursue” a resettlement program.

Below is the letter dated September 5, 2013 which was obtained by Wyoming resident and radio talk show host Frank Jorge. Jorge’s website is here. The radio program is here. And, I was a guest on his show this past Tuesday evening, listen here (interview begins at about minute 34) where I urge Wyomingites to get involved and find all the facts about the impact the program will have on Wyoming—demographically, financially and culturally—because it is US and Wyoming taxpayers who foot the bill and thus you all have a right to know!

US State Department will not hear public testimony on refugee program this year

04/30/2014 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

For the first time that I know of, there will be no opportunity for the public to go to Washington (frankly they should be having hearings all over the country!) to make suggestions for the refugee program for the upcoming fiscal year.

See announcement of public comment period here.

We can only conclude that officials were not happy with the outspoken testimony given by a handful of concerned citizens in the last two or three cycles.

Anne C. Richard Assistant Secretary of State for PRM.

I’ve been to the last two, and two years ago the room was mostly filled with contractors and others employed in the refugee business. Several of us testified that the program needed to be changed. [You can see my testimony here—ten reasons for a moratorium on refugee resettlement. I presented virtually the same testimony both years.]

Last year a larger number of critics were in attendance and many of the contractors had apparently simply mailed in their comments and didn’t attend. Here is my report from last year.

We just got word yesterday that there will be no hearing at all this year.

In the past two years (and I assume previously as well), the only way for your mailed-in testimony to see the light of day was by those of us in attendance bringing it home to review. There was no public record made.

This year we must insist on a published public record. Don’t send your comments yet, you have time. I’ll have more information later….gotta run today!

And, as I said I will be re-posting some of last year’s testimony so you can see what some of your fellow citizens had to say.

Anne C. Richard is Assistant Secretary of State for Population, Refugees and Migration. She was formerly employed as a contractor (International Rescue Committee) and was likely the official responsible for making the decision to have no public hearing for FY 2015.

Somali stowaway soap opera continues; CAIR involved now

04/29/2014 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Reports are sprouting up everywhere with conflicting stories about the Mom (is she a liar?), the Dad (did he kidnap the kids and bring them to America?), will the State Department permit the Mom to come to the US to reclaim her kids and to (of course) stay? etc. And, now the siblings are in the mix talking to reporters too!

Then here comes CAIR (Council on American Islamic Relations) to defend the family—they say it is all about bullying that is hard on immigrants trying to adjust to America (America bad!) with no mention of the aggrieved Mom back in Ethiopia. In Islam, Dad has rights to kids, Mom doesn’t.

For background, our first report on the Somali stowaway is here.

CAIR Executive director Zahra Billoo: the boy is struggling to adjust to life in America and needs social services. http://kalwnews.org/audio/2011/02/08/facing-down-islamophobia-interview-zahra-billoo_832857.html

CAIR speaks for the family, from Fox12 Oregon (Hat tip: ‘pungentpeppers’ who can’t get enough of this case!):

SAN FRANCISCO (HawaiiNewsNow) – The father of a teenager who stowed away on a flight from San Jose to Kahului plans to fly to Hawaii soon to take his son back to California.

The family of Yahya Abdi, 15, released a statement through a civil rights group called the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR). [“Civil rights” group—ha! ha!—ed]

“The family is very relieved about their son’s safety. I think for the last week everyone has had the opportunity to learn about the harrowing circumstances of the trip, the very low likelihood of survival,” said Zahra Billoo, CAIR’s executive director.

The teenager told investigators on Maui that he climbed into the wheel well of a Hawaiian Airlines plane after running away from the California home he shares with his father and stepmother. The boy was trying to reunite with his mother in Africa after just learning that she was alive, according to San Jose authorities.

“The family spent a lot of time displaced in Somalia and as a result of sort of the war-like conditions of that country the son had not had any formal education before arriving in the United States,” explained Billoo.

Abdulahi Yusuf said his son is struggling to adjust to life in the U.S. as a high school student.

“The dad said that he was a really good kid and that he is loved dearly by his family,” Billoo said. “Overall it was a very difficult situation and school was possibly the hardest of all of those pieces.”

Then get this! We need to supply him with social services!

“In this era of bullying and cyberspace and social media, things are already so difficult for youth, further aggravated for recent immigrants at times. I hope that they will get the social services that they need,” said Billoo.

There is more in the continuing soap opera:

Here is a story about Mom fretting in Ethiopia (with two more kids she would surely bring to the US, see photo). And, CBS interviewed siblings who say their birth mother is a liar and is only saying that the kids were taken to America against her wishes so that she too could get in to the US. I suspect hubby had two wives back in Africa at the same time and the State Department made it clear that he could bring only one wife to America.

By the way, this CBS news piece says the kids have been here for 5 years (something that seemed to be in dispute in some previous reports).

As I said before, why not send the whole kit-and-caboodle back to Africa and let the new Somali government sort out their domestic entanglements (involving at least 11 kids!). Why should the US taxpayers be on the hook for the legal wrangling, potentially new resettlements, and for “social services”?

For new readers: We have admitted well over 100,000 Somali refugees to the US. To check out the numbers visit this post, one of our most widely read posts*** over the last few years. It is a little out of date, but you get the idea.

In the first six months of this fiscal year we have admitted 3,708 additional Somalis.

Also, after being closed for years, the US State Department has resumed the Somali family reunification program that admitted tens of thousands of Somalis fraudulently to the US between 2003 and 2008 before a moratorium halted the program. The frauds were not found and deported!

***I will update that and let you know what the top five posts are now! Here it is!

Wyoming newspaper, too lazy to find facts, calls names

04/28/2014 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

“Haters” and “bigots” that is what mainstream media publications call anyone searching for the FACTS involving anything to do with immigration in America these days.

So it is no surprise to see this editorial (not a letter to the editor mind you!) from the educated and erudite and oh-so-sophisticated making up the editorial staff of the Wyoming Tribune Eagle.

The message is you are a “bigot,” “bigot,” “hater,” “hater,” “racist,” “xenophobe,” (LOL! the more powerful if they say the words many times!) if you have any questions about a federal or state government program involving immigration and your tax dollars, so shut up. It is pathetic really.

Here is how they begin, but you can read it all yourself! And, it is this sort of journalism that is at the very root of why Refugee Resettlement Watch exists to this day!

Tribune Eagle (Hat tip: Joanne):

The debate over Wyoming setting up a program to accommodate refugees from foreign lands is similar to the debate over decriminalizing pot in The Cowboy State. Some think that as long as it is illegal to possess marijuana in Wyoming, there will be no pot here.

That same ignorance is behind the opposition to creating a refugee program here: If there’s no system in place, refugees won’t come to Wyoming.

That’s just wrong, Gov. Matt Mead has pointed out, because refugees are already living here. Having no plan in place to ease them into the system n no, there will be no “refugee camp,” despite claims from the conspiracy theory crowd n simply gives the state no control and few options to provide help to the refugees who do come calling on Wyoming to make it their home.

Unfortunately, this issue has drawn the haters out from under their rocks since Mr. Mead announced a few months ago that his office was exploring the issue. (Wyoming is the only state without some kind of refugee settlement plan.)

The McCraken family owns this newspaper and Mike McCraken is the publisher. They own the Casper Star Tribune too (this paper and the Star-Tribune have the widest circulation in the state), so it looks like they control the news in Wyoming.

**History lesson from the archives of Refugee Resettlement Watch.**

We, a couple of women, began RRW in 2007 when our local newspaper, the Hagerstown Herald Mail, refused to do any investigation into how the first group of newly arrived refugees ‘found their way’ to our rural Maryland county (dropped off by the Virginia Council of Churches). Many problems ensued that mostly revolved around the refugees not being adequately cared for by the VCoC. Citizens wanted answers.

Curious too about how the government program works, I asked the Herald-Mail to please do some small amount of investigating about how the program works—how did a church group from Virginia get to drop off hundreds of mostly Meskhetians (Turkish Russians) and no one knew about it, or few knew about it.

Naively, at the time, I asked the paper to find some answers to the following questions. I thought if the public understood the program there would be less anxiety in the community.

This is from the text of an e-mail I sent to a reporter in 2007:

Here are some (maybe more than you were looking for!) questions:

1) Under what authority can a private religious group choose to bring refugees into a community? Why Hagerstown?

2) Are assessments done of the community and its ability to absorb more people who will, at least initially, live below the poverty line? Do we know how many people in Wash. Co. live below the poverty line? How many in Hagerstown?

3) Is there any accounting done of the cost to the community? For instance, is there high demand now for low income apartments in the Hagerstown area? Will more immigrants push up the cost of housing for all low income people in the county?

4) Are elected officials consulted before and during the process? Is there any legal authority that requires such consultation? Was there any outreach to Commissioners and City Council prior to the establishment of Virginia Council of Churches program here?

5) Who pays for the immigrants housing, food, medical until they are fully established?

6) Is there a saturation point determined, or can this program just go on indefinitely? Who determines saturation point?

7) Since these refugees will have low skilled work, is health insurance available to them, or must they depend on public health care? Is there any accounting of how many in the first group are now covered by medical insurance? What has been the response of public health services?

8) Are schools in Washington County overcrowded? Maybe the initial 200 refugees have not put a burden on the schools, does anyone know? Will the next 200 put a burden or the 200 after that?

9) Have there been any crimes committed or use of police services during the first wave of immigrants?

10) How well has the original group of refugees learned English? Did all adults attend ESL classes regularly enough to learn?

11) What programs are in place to encourage other assimilation to living in America?

12) Who were the volunteer groups and churches in Washington County that helped support the first wave? Are they still helping with the newcomers? What sort of support did they give to the immigrants? Are there such people lined up to help with the next wave?

13) Are there regular meetings in Washington County to assess the problems/progress of the first group?

Do elected officials attend? Does the public attend?

14) Is it a normal practice for a group such as Virginia Council of Churches to go to elected officials and ask for funds ($15,000 in this case)?

15) Why did VCoC leave Carroll County? Why are they not locating these people in Virginia? Have those cities in Virginia been saturated?

16) Does VCoC get government funds for its overhead? If so, how much?

The paper refused to even try to answer these straightforward questions and began the editorial name-calling. If I recall correctly they weren’t even so crass, or so mean, as to call those of us with questions “bigots,” “racists” or “xenophobes,” but we were called “unwelcoming” and “kitten kickers.”

That did it! If the news media could not be counted on to find facts on how refugee resettlement works, the average citizen (paying for the program) had to have another source for information—RRW was born!

Bottomline! You have a right to know every detail about how your tax dollars are being spent and how your community will be changed! Don’t let their name-calling silence you!

I just went back and re-read the Wyoming Tribune Eagle editorial and note, at the end, that they have the audacity to advise the Governor to cut any citizens with questions out of the process when getting input on the plan—unbelievable! Is Wyoming now Moscow?

Shame on you Tribune Eagle, if this program cannot survive full and open scrutiny and public discussion, should it be secretly put in place?

New Readers! To catch up on the Wyoming controversy, click here for all of our previous posts.

Australia turning back illegal aliens and the UN is hopping mad

04/25/2014 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

It is working for Australia and the UN High Commissioner for Refugees is not happy.

If you have been following our reports on Australia (here) you know that after decades of boat people arriving on their shores and demanding asylum, the Abbott government is actively turning them back at sea (most are from faraway Muslim countries).

This is the caption published with the photo: “Somali immigrants gather at a hotel where Indonesian authorities have billeted asylum seekers hoping to reach Australia. (AFP/JEMS)”

Just a reminder, a legitimate asylum seeker asks for refugee status in the first safe country he or she arrives in. These ‘boat people’ have traveled through many safe countries before embarking on a sea voyage to Australia. They are mostly ECONOMIC MIGRANTS, not legal refugees, who want to live in a first world country. Most are also Muslims (Al-Hijra).

Remember this photo from earlier this year. These are Somalis in Indonesia planning their next move to get to Australia. Indonesia is a safe country, why didn’t they ask for asylum there?

From ABC News Australia:

The United Nations refugee agency has asked Australia to prove it is not breaching the Refugee Convention with its policy of turning back asylum seeker boats.

Speaking in Jakarta, the UNHCR’s regional representative says the Australian Government has not responded to the UN’s concerns about the policies.

The request for information was made in January.

UNHCR regional representative James Lynch says people from seven boats that have been returned to Indonesia recently told the UN agency they made it to Australian land or at least its territorial waters.

He says if that is true, Australia’s responsibility is to allow them to be processed as asylum seekers.

Mr Lynch says it is significant that thousands of asylum seekers arrived in Australia until late last year but it is not a crisis by world standards.

Lynch goes on to compare Australia to the countries immediately surrounding Syria and says those countries have a crisis. Well, they are also Muslim countries and we are told by the UNHCR that Muslims are the world’s inspiration for taking care of the stranger—-remember that in 2009 the UNHCR was sucking up to the promoters of Shariah Law. I’m o.k. with giving those countries the credit as long as they keep the “refugees.”

Waahhhh! Australia not following international law!

Mr Lynch has been attending a two-day meeting about protecting asylum seekers at sea. It attracted delegates from 13 countries, including Australia, and was co-hosted by Indonesia and the United Nations refugee agency.

He says the UNHCR understands Australia wants to stop people-smuggling networks and prevent deaths at sea but it needs to comply with its international obligations.

“There are obligations as a signatory to the 1951 Convention and the 1967 protocol, which say: if you intercept in your territorial waters, you should allow those in need of protection to have access to the asylum system,” he said.