Category: The Opposition

How Many and Where Did Federal Contractors Place their Refugee Clients in 2019?

~ Ann Corcoran ~ 4 Comments

I meant to post on the numbers and geographic distribution of refugees in 2019 yesterday, but got sidetracked by the feckless GOP governors again.

So here is what I learned about calendar year 2019. 

(We normally talk about refugee data on a fiscal year basis but because this is the time of year for look-backs on the previous year, I thought I would look back at 2019.)

We admitted a total of 27,513 refugees as your new neighbors during the course of 2019.  13% of those were Muslims from a variety of countries.  The others represented many many religions, or none at all.

And, in light of the newest Middle East flare-up you should know that we admitted almost equal numbers of Shiites and Sunnis and so we have invited both of the warring factions to come live among us!

I’ll give you some more interesting data below, but first I want you to see where the federal refugee contractors*** placed the refugees.

Always humorous is the fact that Delaware hardly ever gets refugees, although it was then Senator Joe Biden who joined Ted Kennedy’s team to create the dysfunctional program back in 1979 (Jimmy Carter signed it into law in 1980).

(I love this pic of Joe and Ted! Do you think this pair had our best interests at heart when they figured out how to fund Leftwing ‘non-profit’ groups with taxpayer dollars to distribute refugees around America?  But, of course we can’t expect Republican governors to know anything about the history of the program or how it works! That would be expecting way too much!).

From the Refugee Processing Center:

I know it is hard to read the numbers, but the top five ‘welcoming’ states in calendar year 2019 were Texas, Washington, California, New York and Kentucky (slaughterhouse workers?).

The bottom five were Washington DC with 3, and big fat zeros for Delaware, Hawaii, West Virginia and Wyoming.

The top sending country was the DR Congo by far with 11,152 impoverished, poorly educated and low-skilled Africans delivered to many states (I need to do another post just on the DR Congo).  Obama told the UN we would take 50,000 over five years and we are way beyond that number now.

Burma (4,681) and Ukraine (4,013) were the next two big senders.  I need to look into this Ukraine conveyor belt because now that we have confirmed that refugees are used as pawns/bargaining chips for other purposes of the State Department, I’m wondering if that is driving that resettlement.

Of the 4,681 Burmese, 689 are the Muslim Rohingya which gets me to the point I made recently.

If you think that we are saving Middle Eastern Christians and other minorities from the three largest distribution centers in the Middle East—Iraq, Afghanistan and Syria—we are not.

During 2019 we admitted 1,364 Afghans and 1,290 of those were Muslims.

We admitted 631 Syrians and 565 were Muslims (so of course CAIR is cheering Maryland Governor Hogan).

We admitted 512 Iraqis and 385 were Muslims.

But that ain’t all!

Coming to you at the rate of about 10,000 a year, Afghan and Iraqi men (and families) who supposedly helped us. I think this is another of those bargaining chips we have been hearing about!  Their numbers help keep the refugee contractors financially afloat we are told.  https://fraudscrookscriminals.com/2019/05/31/special-immigrant-visa-holders-coming-in-by-the-thousands-from-afghanistan-but-iraqi-flow-has-slowed/

 

In addition to the 27,513 regular refugees we admitted in 2019, another 9,561 Special Immigrant Visa holders from Afghanistan and Iraq arrived.  You can bet they are all Muslims and are treated just like regular refugees in that they can access social services and bring their families!

So we can safely say that in calendar year 2019 we admitted 37,000 refugees/SIVs and that approximately 38% of the total are Muslims.

And, get this!  According to the Funding Guidance I’ve been yakking about for days, we will be taking another 10,000 SIVs from Iraq and Afghanistan (maybe Syria!) in the 2020 fiscal year. That is over and above the 18,000 ceiling that the President determined for the year.

The FY 2020 ceiling for refugee admissions established by the President, after consultation with Congress, is 18,000.  In addition, applicants should include 10,000 Special Immigrant Visa (SIV) recipients in their planning. Applicants should assume similar admissions and recipient numbers for performance periods beyond FY 2020.

 

***For new readers these (below) are the nine federally-funded refugee contractors that operate as a huge conveyor belt monopolizing all refugee placement in America.

Church World Service poster girl!

For decades they have decided in secrecy where to place refugees and they don’t want to lose that power because even as they pontificate about their religious convictions and humanitarian zeal, they are Leftwing political activist groups working to change America by changing the people and using your money to do it!

And, they do not limit their advocacy toward only legal immigration programs, but are heavily involved in supporting the lawlessness at our borders.

The question isn’t as much about refugees per se, but about who is running federal immigration policy now and into the future?  

(I plan to say this once a day from now on!)

I continue to argue that these nine contractors are the heart of America’s Open Borders movement and thus there can never be long-lasting reform of US immigration policy when these nine un-elected phony non-profits are paid by the taxpayers to work as community organizers pushing an open borders agenda.

(If you are new and are confused because your local resettlement agency doesn’t have one of these names, just know that they are a subcontractor of one of the nine and you can usually find out which one by going to their website.)

 

 

CAIR “thrilled” with Governor Hogan’s Letter in Support of More Muslim Refugees for Maryland

~ Ann Corcoran ~ 3 Comments

“We are thrilled with this decision.”

 (Zainab Chaudry, director of CAIR Maryland outreach)

Of course they are, they have apparently been lobbying him heavily. Just as you can be sure they were busy in most states making sure that governors, especially Republican governors, toed the line.

I told you about Hogan’s consent yesterday, here.  I guess it shouldn’t have been a surprise because he has always been a ‘never Trumper’ so supporting the President on reform of the UN-driven Refugee Admissions Program wasn’t at the top of his priority list.

So far I am not seeing any Maryland county governments begging for refugees (although I can think of several ready to invite more ‘diversity’ and more poverty to their counties).

From WBAL-TV:

Hogan letter: Maryland will keep door open to refugees

BALTIMORE —
The Council on American-Islamic Relations is praising Gov. Larry Hogan’s decision to agree to receive refugees this year while criticizing President Donald Trump’s policies.

CAIR power! Big smooch for Hogan!

Hogan made his decision well before a Jan. 21 deadline set by the Trump administration.

In a letter to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, Hogan wrote, “We are willing to accept refugees who the federal government has determined are properly and legally seeking refugee status and have been adequately vetted.”***

“They are a great asset to Baltimore and to Maryland,” said Ibrahim Abusway, community development of Islamic Circle of North America Relief USA.

“We are thrilled with this decision,” said Zainab Chaudry, director of CAIR Maryland outreach.

The president imposed the requirement for cities and states to make a decision as to whether or not they would accept refugees after he cut the total number of refugees the United States will accept to a historic low of 18,000.

“This is just another step that is indicative of the Trump administration’s anti-Muslim, anti-immigrant, anti-refugee agenda,” Chaudry said.

While Maryland has accepted nearly 10,000 refugees under the Hogan Administration since 2016, Hogan was among 31 governors who wanted to refuse Syrian refugees in 2015.  

“In 2018, CAIR had the opportunity to actually introduce Gov. Hogan to a couple Syrian refugee families that were settled in the Baltimore area, and not only was he able to hear more about their personal story, the circumstances that led them to flee their country and civil war and strife and to settle here in the United States, but he also learned about how they were launching a small business,” Chaudry said.

Just so you know, by very large margins (even under Trump), the vast majority of Syrians entering the US are Muslims.

*** This vetting issue is a red herring!  Hogan surely knows that you can’t robustly vet anyone when they come from failed states.  The vetting in many cases involves nothing more than asking the refugee if he/she has associated with any terrorist groups.  What do you think they will say!  Lying to infidels is permitted in the Islamic ‘faith.’

And, besides, the State Department’s Funding Guidance expressly says a governor can’t put any conditions on his/her letter.  However, Hogan did place a condition—he said they must be “legally vetted refugees” (whatever that means!).  See his letter here.

Was that so he could throw a little bone to all of you who might be concerned about who he is welcoming to Maryland?

Here is what the Funding Guidance says:

The letter may consent to initial resettlement for refugees only in certain localities within the state, but otherwise must convey the state government’s unambiguous and unconditional consent to accept the initial resettlement of any refugee in that state in FY 2020. The consent may not be conditioned on acceptance of certain refugees or on any other factor, such as refugees’ race, ethnicity, religion, or national origin.

For the umpteenth time—why are the squabbling factions in the Middle East our problem?  They have been fighting among themselves for centuries and we are then expected to take them in—why?

 

Lutherans Report on their Refugee Consent Lobbying Efforts; Falling Short on Counties

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

I know I’ll hear from Lutherans who disavow everything that Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service (LIRS) is doing (and don’t like being lumped in with them), but indeed it is this faction (the Leftwing) of the Lutheran ‘faith’ making all the news.

When I saw this website this morning (thanks to a reader) where LIRS (one of nine federal refugee contractors that monopolize all refugee resettlement in America***) is running a tally of their successes in gaining consents for their placement of refugees, I am struck by a couple of things.

LIRS National Headquarters are in this building owned by the Lutherans and located in a prime Inner Harbor Baltimore neighborhood. Taxpayers fund LIRS about $50 million a year (90% of their budget is taxpayer funded). LIRS is one of three contractors suing Trump to stop the President’s refugee reform plan.

First, where the heck is the Department of State that promised a running tally would be publicly available.

As of this writing the DOS website is pathetic compared to LIRS.

Of course since LIRS is almost completely funded by the federal government (taxpayers like you and me!), funding based on the number of refugees they place, they have a lot to lose if they can’t get enough consents when applying for their contract with the State Department.

(From its most recent Form 990 (page 9) we see that LIRS is 90% funded from the US Treasury!)

Weak Governors are falling like dominoes as we have been reporting, see here yesterday, but where are the counties?

The US State Department’s Funding Guidance (the rules for the President’s reform initiative) specifically says that in addition to governors, the contractors must get consent from COUNTY governments.  There is no mention of Mayors of cities having any say!

By the way, the contractors hate Trump’s new reform plan because they have had free rein for decades to place refugees pretty much wherever they wanted with guidance from friendly and ideologically aligned bureaucrats in the State Department.

And, they certainly never had to solicit support from elected officials to get their MONEY for the year (actually now only a portion of the year from June to the end of September 2020).

Here is the pertinent section of the Funding Guidance:

Consistent with Section 412(a) of the INA and Executive Order 13888, Enhancing State and Local Involvement in Refugee Resettlement, PRM and the Department of Health and Human Services Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) seek to promote the involvement of states and localities in the selection of locations for initial resettlement. In addition, PRM and ORR seek strong environments to support resettlement and speedy integration, and regard state and local consent for resettlement activity as important evidence of such strength. For each state and locality where the applicant proposes to resettle refugees during the award period, the applicant should seek written consent for resettlement of refugees from the state governor’s office and the chief executive officer of the local government (county or county equivalent). PRM will take into account such consents to the maximum extent permitted by law, including Section 412(a) of the INA and antidiscrimination laws, in deciding where to place refugees.  [A little wiggle room here at the end, but still no mention that mayors must approve.—ed]

Now go here and check out LIRS lineup of support.

Notice that only a small number of counties have submitted consents (29 out of a list of 86 local consents), see if yours is on the list!  Also, see if your mayor has said sure send us more poverty we don’t have enough of our own!

So to my readers who have been asking if it’s too late to put pressure on your county to say NO, the answer is NO IT ISN’T TOO LATE!

P.S. Your federal representatives—US Senators and Congressmen—have nothing to do with this plan so don’t waste time on them right now! It is county elected officials and a few remaining governors that matter!

 

***For new readers these (below) are the nine federally-funded refugee contractors that operate as a huge conveyor belt monopolizing all refugee placement in America.

Church World Service poster girl!

For decades they have decided in secrecy where to place refugees and they don’t want to lose that power because even as they pontificate about their religious convictions and humanitarian zeal, they are Leftwing political activist groups working to change America by changing the people and using your money to do it!

And, they do not limit their advocacy toward only legal immigration programs, but are heavily involved in supporting the lawlessness at our borders.

The question isn’t as much about refugees per se, but about who is running federal immigration policy now and into the future?  

(I plan to say this once a day from now on!)

I continue to argue that these nine contractors are the heart of America’s Open Borders movement and thus there can never be long-lasting reform of US immigration policy when these nine un-elected phony non-profits are paid by the taxpayers to work as community organizers pushing an open borders agenda.

(If you are new and are confused because your local resettlement agency doesn’t have one of these names, just know that they are a subcontractor of one of the nine and you can usually find out which one by going to their website.)

 

Three More Republican Governors Turn on Trump, Cave to Leftists on Refugee Program Reform

~ Ann Corcoran ~ 8 Comments

Since I posted the dumb 15 REPUBLICAN governors who rushed to tell the President that they oppose his efforts to rein-in the dysfunctional Refugee Admissions Program designed by Senators Ted Kennedy, Joe Biden and Jimmy Carter in 1980, we have three more who are welcoming more third world poverty to their states:

Governor Brad Little of Idaho, Mike Parson of Missouri and (never-Trumper) Larry Hogan of my home state of Maryland.

Republican Governors tell the President that they don’t want to slow the flow of refugees from the Middle East, Africa and Asia into their states. In so doing they are saying NO to one of the President’s signature campaign promises of 2016, and are inviting more poverty for state and local taxpayers to support.

Why do I call them dumb—first they clearly know nothing about how the Refugee Admissions Program works, but secondly because they obviously didn’t read the Funding Guidance or they would have known that they didn’t need to jump into this—there is plenty of time to consent (or opt-out).

(We expected Dem governors to go against the President, after all they will ultimately be getting more voters for the Democrat party.)

One can only conclude that the Rs don’t mind going against the President to make Open Borders Inc. happy (not to mention the globalists who want the cheap labor!).

Here is the latest line-up of REPUBLICAN governors against Trump on immigration reform (originals are in orange, new fools are in hot pink):

 

They all had many weeks before they were expected to make their decisions.

And, don’t forget, the contractors*** have filed a lawsuit  seeking to enjoin the entire reform effort by the President that will be heard before a friendly-to-the-contractors judge next week.

Smart governors are waiting!

Clearly these RINO REPUBLICANS are dissing the President and sucking up to the Leftists who run the Refugee Admissions Program as a kind of shadow government agency that you pay for with your tax dollars while they then dictate which refugees go where in America.

 

***For new readers these (below) are the nine federally-funded refugee contractors that operate as a huge conveyor belt monopolizing all refugee placement in America.

Church World Service poster girl!

For decades they have decided in secrecy where to place refugees and they don’t want to lose that power because even as they pontificate about their religious convictions and humanitarian zeal, they are Leftwing political activist groups working to change America by changing the people and using your money to do it!

And, they do not limit their advocacy toward only legal immigration programs, but are heavily involved in supporting the lawlessness at our borders.

The question isn’t as much about refugees per se, but about who is running federal immigration policy now and into the future?  

(I plan to say this once a day from now on!)

I continue to argue that these nine contractors are the heart of America’s Open Borders movement and thus there can never be long-lasting reform of US immigration policy when these nine un-elected phony non-profits are paid by the taxpayers to work as community organizers pushing an open borders agenda.

 

Waiting for Abbott, while Idaho Governor Little Caves, Becomes 16th Republican to Rebuff the President

~ Ann Corcoran ~ 3 Comments
Jen Smyers of Church World Service: “The impact if Texas doesn’t allow refugee resettlement to continue will be really dismal.”

The Leftwing federal contractors *** are on pins and needles waiting to see if they can reel in their big fish—Texas Governor Greg Abbott.   

Texas is their most desired catch because although Abbott tried to get out of the program several years ago, the state remains the top refugee placement state in the nation (the Left is turning Texas blue!).

Smyers told reporters that many church groups on the ‘religious’ Left and advocates for Open Borders have met with Abbott’s staff.

Here is the Statesman headline from yesterday:

Abbott silent as refugee resettlement deadline approaches

The article suggests that the deadline is “looming.”  It isn’t! as I explained here when I told you about the dumb Republican governors who jumped on the consent bandwagon prematurely when they obviously hadn’t read the guidance from the US State Department.

Smart governors are keeping their powder dry.

But up in Idaho….

We can add another governor to our dumb governors list.

I wonder, did Governor Little get a call from Pompeo too? Did he get any suggestion from anyone in Washington that his MONEY depended on his consent?

Governor Brad Little joins the list of governors thumbing their noses at one of the the President’s major goals—reforming the dysfunctional UN-driven Refugee Admissions Program and reducing refugee admissions.

Although Idaho doesn’t receive the massive number of refugees that Texas does, it nevertheless has been one of the major controversial locations in the country where many citizens there do not want to see more diversity and more poverty moved from Africa, Asia and the Middle East to their rural state.

(See my extensive Idaho archive here.)

Here is a headline yesterday from The Neighbor:

County, Little offer support for refugee resettlement, but questions over jurisdiction remain

You can read the story yourself, but I want to be sure you see the Governor’s letter to Secretary of State Pompeo:

You should consider this a weasel letter. The Governor is saying (sigh) if Twin Falls County wants it, it’s okay with me.

 

Twin Falls County

Three cheers for a government body that actually read the rules.

More important than the governor’s weak letter is this letter that Twin Falls County sent to the Dept. of State.  In the opening paragraphs, commissioners criticize the Funding Guidance for its lack of clarity, but toward the end of the three-page letter, they penned an important few paragraphs.

Don’t forget, this whole exercise is about whether federal contractors will get MONEY (your tax dollars) later in 2020.

Shut out of so-called ‘stakeholder’ meetings!

They want to be included in consultations in the future (having been shut out so far) and if this exercise is to be repeated they want to hold “robust public hearings.”  That is exactly what should be happening across 49 states (Wyoming has never been in the program).

Don’t forget the 100-mile radius rule! 

When a contractor is ‘hired’ by the feds and approval is given by, in this case, Twin Falls County (and the governor), contractors may place certain refugees in a 100-mile radius of the resettlement office.

With its consent, Twin Falls County has granted permission for refugees to be placed in these locations within a hundred miles. See radius calculator.

This region includes 11 counties: Blaine, ID; Butte, ID; Camas, ID; Cassia, ID; Elmore, ID; Gooding, ID; Jerome, ID; Lincoln, ID; Minidoka, ID; Power, ID; Twin Falls, ID

 

***For new readers these (below) are the nine federally-funded refugee contractors that operate as a huge conveyor belt monopolizing all refugee placement in America.

Church World Service poster girl!

For decades they have decided in secrecy where to place refugees and they don’t want to lose that power because even as they pontificate about their religious convictions and humanitarian zeal, they are Leftwing political activist groups working to change America by changing the people and using your money to do it!

And, they do not limit their advocacy toward only legal immigration programs, but are heavily involved in supporting the lawlessness at our borders.

The question isn’t as much about refugees per se, but about who is running federal immigration policy now and into the future?  

(I plan to say this once a day from now on!)

I continue to argue that these nine contractors are the heart of America’s Open Borders movement and thus there can never be long-lasting reform of US immigration policy when these nine un-elected phony non-profits are paid by the taxpayers to work as community organizers pushing an open borders agenda.