Glenn Beck Praises Lutheran Refugee ‘Non-Profit’ for Their Supposed Christian Charity Toward Afghan Evacuees

Yesterday as I was happily putting up my vegetable harvest, I heard Glenn Beck in the background announcing that he soon would be talking to the leader of Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service (LIRS) about their efforts to care for arriving Afghan evacuees (most are NOT refugees).

Beck can be a doofus at times.  He was just that as he effusively thanked KRISH O’MARA VIGNARAJAH CEO of LIRS for helping the poor souls (mostly Muslims of course) that Biden loaded on planes in Afghanistan last week to make it look like he was the king of humanitarians.

I’m too lazy to search for a transcript of the interview, but Beck seemed most interested in whether they were helping Afghans assimilate to American life and to learn English.

Oh, yes, they do help them learn English Vignarajah assured him.

She said they needed donations and volunteers to help them with that and their other good deeds.

But, neither she or Beck SAID A WORD ABOUT THE FACT THAT LIRS IS ALMOST COMPLETELY FUNDED BY TAXPAYERS—INVOLUTARILY BY YOU!

Now is Beck so ill prepared that he didn’t know that or did he not want to inform his listeners of that little fact?  To the uninformed the message was that wow! look at this Christian organization doing their Christian good works!

Let’s get our facts straight!

I have done this many time over the years, but just so you know.

I repeat….

The Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service is funded by the federal government!

Heck, I won’t be able to retire unless the media (and even people like Beck who fancies himself a great investigator) make that fact known!

Here is the data from the most recent LIRS Form 990 (2019).

On page 9 we see that $52 million of their $60 million or so income came from the US government.  They are a federal contractor!

 

And here, have a look at the salaries of Mrs. O’Mara and a few of her other co-workers.  Although she does not make the salary her predecessor Linda Hartke made before leaving under questionable circumstances, a quarter of a million a year isn’t chump change.

Note that she makes more than a US Senator or Member of Congress.  If LIRS was truly a private organization funded out of the charity of individuals, their salaries would be none of our business, but they are not!

 

And, now looking forward from 2019 here is some data from USA Spending.  Looks like they are sucking up even more federal tax dollars!

I hate to think that a lot of uniformed Americans are sending their hard earned bucks to LIRS because of Beck’s plug yesterday when they are already contributing via the US Treasury.

Afghan Evacuees are Going to Kentucky etc. etc. etc….

Photo from: https://www.kentuckytoday.com/stories/100-afghan-refugees-to-arrive-in-owensboro-in-mid-september,33974

The other day I mentioned that you could check this list of existng resettlement sites and have a good idea if your community was going to be ‘welcoming’ Afghan evacuees and Special Immigrant Visa holders that Biden flew out of Afghanistan in the last week.

Of course there are caveats.  First, longtime readers know that new arrivals can be placed within 100 miles of the listed office, and secondly, they are permitted to move anywhere they wish and many will.  That is because they will want to live with their own kind of people where existing enclaves of their particular ethnic group have settled.

But, just you try to say you want to live with your kind of people and watch the moral outrage!  Funny how it isn’t considered racist or phobic in any way when the situation is reversed.

I also said I would tell you another method to find out if you were going to be the lucky recipients of mystery (they loaded up many who had no discernable reason to be getting seats on planes to America) Afghans is to (duh!) check your local papers as one of my readers did for Kentucky. See here:

Richmond Register:

Kentucky prepares to resettle up to 775 Afghan evacuees amid challenges

To test it out for you, I simply searched for Maryland and Afghan refugees (although most are NOT legitimate refugees) and presto up popped many articles from the last week or so including some about how our Republican Governor Larry Hogan has his arms open to invite them in!

Within a few minutes I saw stories from Michigan, Utah, New York, Massachusetts and Tennessee.

Another suggestion I have had in the past is to find someone with gumption to infiltrate your local ‘Interfaith group’ because they will be the first to be in on the action and in the know about who is coming especially if the new arrivals will be Muslims (which the majority of Afghans will be).

Okay, so when you get that information (assuming you are unhappy about it), what do you plan to do?

Are you planning to yak on social media about how it isn’t fair, that you had no say in the matter?  Are you going to mount your high horse and fume about the Constitution and State’s rights as one “Constitutional Republican” did in recent days.  In a comment shared with me, he fumed about Arizona’s Governor Ducey and asked why Ducey couldn’t just tell Biden NO, no Afghans should be dropped in Arizona.

WTH!!! Do you really think that the Open Borders Left plays fair and gives a flying c*** about prissy high-minded notions like what is Constitutional and what isn’t?  And, besides, where were you all when President Trump did try to give governors the opportunity to stop resettlement?  I reported extensively on his efforts.

Arizona’s Ducey was one of the Republican governors who told Trump, no thanks, the feds could continue sending refugees to Arizona at will. 

Obviously not enough Arizona voters have told Ducey they are unhappy with him.

Only Texas Governor Abbott said he supported Trump in a bid to get his state’s right back!  (If you are wondering, DeSantis and Kemp remained silent, the contractors sued and stopped Trump, and that was the end of it).

Breaking News! Texas Governor Abbott Says NO! Will not Accept More Refugees in 2020

So, back to my question: what are you going to do besides fume on social media? 

Are you simply going to read more news at sites that agree with you, shake your head and fume some more?  I’ve already told you what you have to do in my series on Fighting Back Locally.

Sorry I never finished it, but I saw little interest in it from my readers.  Frankly I assume that was because it takes more work than reading news and yakking to like-minded people on Facebook, etc.

In my opinion, that is what is wrong with conservatives generally —we think our high-minded ideas are going to sway the debate. Fat chance!

What do we do now? Fight Back Locally!

 

If it is too hard for you to stick your necks out (and I understand that) even with the help of a few friends to speak up locally, or organize group of activists like the Left does, then at least now, more than ever, you must get to work on political campaigns for 2022!

And, let those who are in office now know what you think about the migrant invasion from all fronts.  Pounce every time they make a move that you disagree with.

Find good pro-America candidates at all levels of government!

Then you better find candidates who put America First and work on those campaigns.  Go to every campaign debate you can get to and ask the candidates in front of the audience and the media about immigration and where they stand!

You can choose to stay silent and watch them change America by changing the people, or speak up now, risk being labelled a racist (who cares!) and maybe, just maybe, pull America back from the brink!

Endnote:  I have an extensive archive on Kentucky if you are interested, click here.

Too Many Afghans and Not Enough Welfare For Them (and everyone else!)

Afghan evacuees arrive at Dulles near Washington, DC.

 

CBS posted a handy outline of the massive mess the Biden Administration has created by scooping up tens of thousands of Afghans who have really no legitimately determined immigration status in the US.

So, of course, Congress might have to change immigration law so that medical care, housing assistance, food stamps and cash assistance can be made available to them.

In the meantime, the Biden Administration will be going outside the law to find money (your money) to care for them.

This article is a must read for all of you interested in the tangled mess and it serves as a harbinger of the troubles your community is going to have with large numbers of unhappy evacuees who are going to be wanting stuff—decent housing in crime-free communities and a social safety net for months or even years to come.

By the way, in my first year of writing this blog—2007—there was an Iraqi boy, in Arizona I think, who penned a letter to a local paper and asked why the US would admit so many Iraqis that were then having a miserable life in America because there were too many to be properly cared for.  He asked, why not admit fewer so they could be happy instead of too many who were all subsequently unhappy?

I predict we are rapidly headed to a crisis we have never seen before because don’t forget we are also admitting hundreds of thousands across our southern border who have no approved reason to be here and who are expecting Americans to feed and clothe them.

All of those aliens combined with the Afghans and Biden’s promise for October 1 to begin admitting up to 125,000 refugees from other areas of the world is going to create the greatest drain on the American taxpayers we have likely ever seen, and the greatest chaos and tension in ‘welcoming’ communities as all of the competing migrants want stuff.

Here is the CBS story.  If you are really interested in what is happening, you should read it yourself.  I’m pulling out only a few nuggets of information I found most informative.

Once again, they are not legitimate REFUGEES, so try hard to simply call them evacuees, even as the mainstream media will try to firmly cement in your minds that they are legal refugees.

U.S. effort to resettle Afghan refugees faces major hurdles

The Biden administration’s plan to resettle tens of thousands of Afghan refugees is facing formidable operational and legal challenges, with issues ranging from the uncertain immigration status of many evacuees, to limited social resources and permanent housing for the new arrivals.

Thousands of at-risk Afghans are arriving in the U.S. without approved visas, placing them in legal limbo and rendering them ineligible for some federal social programs available to those admitted as refugees, including cash assistance and Medicaid.

The sharp increase in admissions of Afghan evacuees over the past few days has also strained the resources of the nine national U.S. refugee resettlement agencies***, prompting them to house some refugees in hotels and Airbnb rentals while affordable apartments are found, three resettlement officials told CBS News.

Since mid-August, the U.S. has admitted approximately 24,000 of the Afghans it evacuated from Kabul this summer ahead of the U.S. withdrawal. As of Thursday morning, more than 20,000 of them were being housed at eight military sites that have been chosen to temporarily host them, according to internal federal data reviewed by CBS News.

Another roughly 39,000 evacuees remained at military bases in Europe and the Middle East, including Afghans undergoing U.S. immigration processing and security vetting, the federal data showed.

Biden’s team is going “ad hoc” (a nice way of saying that they are going outside of existing law) to get the non-refugees their bennies.  

To address these exclusions, the State Department is launching an “Afghan Parolee Support Program,” which will help Afghan parolees with housing, transportation, food, cash, clothing, legal counsel and other services, according to multiple resettlement officials involved in the effort.

And, those religious charities (six of nine are supposedly religious)*** that resettle refugees on a per head basis will be getting paid as usual even as the evacuees are NOT refugees! Sounds illegal to me!

Resettlement agencies are expected to receive $2,275 for each Afghan parolee that they serve. However, parolees will only have access to the makeshift program for up to 90 days, so refugee advocates are now urging lawmakers to enact a legislative fix.

Congressmen Seth Moulton and Don Bacon, a bipartisan pair of former military officers, are planning to introduce a bill known as the WELCOME Act on Friday that would make Afghan parolees eligible for the same government benefits that traditional refugees receive, two congressional officials told CBS News.

The Office of Refugee Resettlement at the Department of Health and Human Services is also considering creating an ad hoc program to temporarily cover medical services for parolees, two resettlement officials said.

There is so much information.  You should read it and book mark it for future reference.

Don’t miss the part about how they will not be sent back to Afghanistan even if they don’t get a favorable decision with their asylum claim or their security screening!

More than 23,000 are already on US soil!  See here.

*** These are the nine Leftwing federal resettlement contractors that are busy beavers right now as they juggle for position to be awarded their allotments of illegitimate ‘refugees’ (refugee industry watchers refer to the process as bidding for bodies).

 

 

 

 

Who Are All the Afghans We Airlifted? Will We Ever be Told?

The Conservative Tree House (The Last Refuge) has a story yesterday, hat tip: Cathy, in which they question who are all the people we flew out of Afghanistan when few were Americans and few apparently were those with Special Immigrant Visas?

State Department Admits the majority of Afghans and SIVs who helped us did not evacuate, so who are these 116,000 Afghans we evacuated?

According to the data provided by the U.S. State Department in the last few days, the total number of people evacuated from the Kabul airport was 122,000.  Of those, 6,000 were American citizens (AmCits), and 116,000 were Afghan refugees.

Today the State Department admits the “majority” of the qualified Afghan people who assisted the U.S. during operations in Afghanistan, Afghan Special Immigrant Visa (SIV) applicants, did not get evacuated.  That admission begs the question: then who the heck are those 116,000 refugees?

Well, they mostly are not legitimate refugees (yet!).  They are just more bodies the left is using to change America by changing the people.

How do I know?  Because the federal resettlement contractors*** are anxious.

If they aren’t refugees, then they are likely being paroled into the US and that means there won’t be a large pot of payola for the contractors, nor will there be gobs of taxpayer money flowing to individual Afghans (well, at least not yet!) for a panoply of welfare programs.

It also means that they don’t automatically get permission to stay, but let me ask you:  Do you think there is a chance in hell that any will ever be sent back to Afghanistan?

Keep in mind that I have been on (LOL!) sabbatical for most of the last month, so I haven’t been doing my usual extensive reading on refugee industry politics nor have I been following the contractors closely.  Therefore this is not the definitive word on what the hell is going on as Biden’s White House team wings it!

However this bulletin from the US Committee for Refugees and Immigrants explaining the program that is likely being used to move so many foreign nationals into the US so quickly is informative.

If they aren’t legit refugees it is questionable whether the contractors will be in on the action.

It appears that Congress might have to change some laws to free up welfare for a large number of Afghans (and in order for the contractors to help them because the contractors, of course, do not work for free!).

Below are screen shots of the opening paragraphs and the closing paragraph of the USCRI document (photographed because I am afraid the pdf might disappear).

[….]

By the way, the refugee industry lobbying arm—Refugee Council USA–has created opportunities for you to get involved promoting and lobbying for the quick placement of Afghans (whoever they are!) into America.

*** These are the nine Leftwing federal resettlement contractors that are busy beavers right now as they juggle for position to be awarded their allotments of ‘refugees’ (refugee industry watchers refer to the process as bidding for bodies).

 

Even Trump Wants to ‘Welcome’ Tens of Thousands of Refugees—the Afghans!

First, let me say, I haven’t been doing my usual extensive reading of refugee news (I am taking a break, or was taking a break!), so you won’t be getting any deep analysis, but I can’t ignore the breaking news.

I guess Trump didn’t absorb a word of what Hungary’s Viktor Orbán told him about migration jihad!

On top of the hundreds of thousands streaming into America across our borders now we will have the airlift of Afghanistan to America put on steroids, or at least that is what Biden is signaling.

They are truly changing America by changing the people and it couldn’t be more clear than right now.   

As for Trump, sometimes he doesn’t know when to shut up!

From Forbes:

Trump Endorses Prioritizing Afghan Refugees Amid Series Of Attacks On Biden

Former President Donald Trump on Monday endorsed the idea of taking in Afghan refugees who assisted the U.S. military and are now under threat as the Taliban takes control of the country, a departure from his long held stance on refugees that appears primarily aimed at attacking President Joe Biden.

[….]

The U.S. reportedly aims to relocate as many as 30,000 Afghans who are in the special immigrant visa application process, a small portion of the estimated 88,000 seeking entry, though the State and Defense Departments said Sunday they have evacuated fewer than 2,000 thus far.

[….]

Trump’s stance on the Afghan refugees represents a break with some of his closest allies, like former aide Stephen Miller, who, echoing Trump’s long-held anti-immigrant views, has spoken out against taking in Afghan refugees.

Here is Miller’s tweet.  He is right and Trump is wrong!

 

Refugee Contractors Heads Explode, Bash Biden

Meanwhile the Washington Post is reporting (via Religion News Service) that the State Department’s refugee resettlement contractors (paid by taxpayers on a per refugee client basis) are steaming mad over the debacle in Afghanistan.

They say Biden has moved too slowly to bring tens of thousands of Muslims out of Afghanistan to be placed in a town near you. (Like in Wisconsin where a Jewish resettlement contractor is jazzed to welcome Afghans.)

And, yes, they could very well end up in a town near you because housing is limited as America is being overrun.

From the Wapo:

Refugee aid groups criticize Biden for stumbles in evacuating ‘desperate’ Afghans

WASHINGTON (RNS) — As most Americans absorbed the shock of the Taliban’s full takeover of Afghanistan over the weekend, officials at Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service followed the rapidly deteriorating situation with resignation, knowing it could have gone differently.

[….]

In May, leaders at LIRS, one of several faith-based agencies contracted with the U.S. government to resettle refugees in the United States, sent a letter to the Biden administration requesting it remove Afghan civilians (and their families) who have worked with the U.S. before its planned troop withdrawal.

Anyone familiar with the “bureaucratic maze” that is the country’s Special Immigrant Visa process knew the State Department visa office wouldn’t be agile enough to respond to the urgent need for evacuations, said Krish O’Mara Vignarajah, president and CEO of LIRS.

“We’ve been screaming from the rooftops for months now that we need to get these allies to Guam or another U.S. territory,” Vignarajah said.

[….]

In June, most of those organizations — including LIRS, World Relief, Church World Service, the Episcopal Church (which resettles refugees through Episcopal Migration Ministries) and HIAS (founded as the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society) — urged President Joe Biden to implement plans to evacuate Afghan translators, soldiers, cultural advisers, embassy clerks and others who have worked with American armed forces, media or nonprofits and allies and to authorize as many SIVs as necessary to make that possible.

Keep reading, see what Mark Hetfield of the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society says about the Biden administration and know that just in the last few days Hetfield was telling his people to press Secretary of State Antony Blinken to set the ceiling for refugees for the coming fiscal year at 125,000.

That would be 125,000 over and above the Special Immigrant Visas flown in from Afghanistan and the hundreds of thousand coming across our borders.

The 125,000 would come from other Muslim countries in Asia, the Middle East and Africa.

Apropos of nothing…  Here is Hoochie Coochie Blinken—the man who helped bring us the Afghan disaster and will decide who your new neighbors will be!

God help us!

See my “trending” post….

Austria’s Afghan Refugee Problem: Will it be Our Problem Soon?