Editor: I hope you had a great day giving thanks with loved ones yesterday.
Much to my surprise the post I wrote on the day before Thanksgiving about 88 mayors demanding more refugees went off-the-charts viral, so if you didn’t see it, check it out.
And, thank you dear readers for continuing to follow RRW and special thanks to the donations from many of you that have made it possible for Refugee Resettlement Watch’s renewed presenceon the internet.
On a trip to Japan a few days ago Pope Francis learned first hand that Japan steadfastly maintains that it wants to keep its unique language and culture and not become a multiculty polyglot nation as so many European nations have become.
Pope’s message of openness to refugees prompts backlash in Japan
TOKYO – A visit to Japan by Pope Francis and his dream of a nuclear-free world drew largely positive headlines this week in Japan. But when he tried to gently encourage the Japanese to extend a hand of friendship to refugees, the backlash on social media was significant.
Japan has some of the toughest policies toward refugees and asylum seekers among the world’s richest nations, and a reputation for being relatively closed toward outsiders.
The pope’s effort to preach a more accepting message was not universally accepted.
[….]
The story was one of the most read on the TV Asahi website on Tuesday and Wednesday and tweets with the words “accept refugees” were trending.
But the response seemed more negative than positive.
“Do that first in the Vatican,” tweeted @Ryounagasugi7, a tweet liked by 14,600 people and retweeted 4,700 times.
[….]
“I am sorry. We’ve seen how European countries have failed terribly. Even so, do you still say that? First of all, we are not a country where Christians are dominant. Would you please ask other ‘Christian countries’? Such as America, or America, or America,” tweeted @no_problem666.
Response by a bunch of No Borders activists: Shut down the refugee-phobia on Twitter!
After seeing the flood of negative comments, a group of volunteers who support asylum seekers detained at a facility in Ushiku north of Tokyo called on Twitter to act.
“Tweets that would inflame refugee-phobia, xenophobia are growing, @TwitterJP should deal with it as its own platform has been used to inflame xenophobia,” they wrote on their account @freeushiku.
Two days ago the US Conference of Mayors told America that 18,000 refugees for fiscal year 2020 is too low and that 100,000 a year is their preferred number.
Washington DC mayor Bowser signed the letter. No surprise as she was a leader of the DC Women’s (pussy hats) march against the Prez. Checked the data and just as I suspected DC takes very few refugees—only 135 in TEN years.
They also made it clear that they do not want a local or a state role in deciding where refugees are placed saying it would create a “patchwork of conflicting policies.”
That means of course they are affirming that Washington (and its nine contractors that monopolize all refugee resettlement in America) knows best. (Well, except for when Trump is in the White House!)
Here (below) is their press release and a screenshot of all those mayors who signed the letter. (I told readersthree days ago that the aim of the Open Borders community organizers was to get local elected officials on board.)
This once again confirms that the Left has captured local elected offices and the only hope of pulling out of this decline is for you all to get involved locally where you live and find candidates to challenge them. It is a tall order that will only be accomplishedif Trump gets four more yearsto buy time for America Firsters to get to work!
(There are 1,408 mayorsin the conference, so I guess these 88 are calling the shots! What do the other 1,320 think about the Conference taking this position?)
Nation’s Mayors Urge Administration to Rescind Executive Order Reducing Refugee Admissions
Washington, DC – Today, 88 bipartisan mayors from across the country sent a letter to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, urging the Administration to rescind a September 26 executive order that revamps the U.S. resettlement system and could drastically reduce, if not entirely stop, the resettlement of refugees in cities.
The mayors also urged Secretary Pompeo to return this year’s refugee admissions to previous annual levels. The Administration announced the same day that it is slashing the number of refugees who may enter the country in 2020 to 18,000–the lowest since the program began in 1980 and a reduction of nearly 80% from just a few years ago.
The feds and their nine contractors (not elected by anyone!) know best!
The letter states, “The Executive Order would fundamentally change the structure of the U.S. resettlement program by devolving key decisions primarily to the states and ultimately lead to a patchwork of conflicting policies running contrary to the purpose of a national resettlement program….
[….]
In addition to addressing the country’s strong tradition of providing safe haven, freedom and opportunity to refugees fleeing the world’s most dangerous and desperate situation, the letter also cites the positive impact refugees have on the cultural and economic prosperity of cities and the nation as a reason to increase the cap.
The U.S. Conference of Mayors has long advocated for policies that provide adequate support for refugees and refugee resettlement.
The most recent policy adopted by USCM on this issue calls for admitting at least 100,000 refugees per year.
Here (below) is a screenshot of the signatures. Does your mayor want to cede all power to the UN/US State Department and its contractors to decide how many impoverished people your city will host?
Remember fed’s contractors only are responsible for placing refugees and getting them signed up for their “services.” Most of their care is on you—local and state taxpayers!
That is what these mayors are asking for—more poverty for your town or city!
They say the list is bipartisan but I don’t have the time to go through and figure out who might be a Republican, so let me know and I will do an update and tell readers which ones are Rs.
Here is what you should do!
Make sure that your mayor knows that this is not a freebie political position for them!
If you find your mayor on the list, write a letter to the local paper and say that your mayor is advocating for 100,000 refugees for America and stating unequivocally that he/she does not want to have any say on how many are placed in your city.
The mayors who signed the letter want that decision left up to bureaucrats in Washington along with the nine contractors that monopolize all refugee resettlement in America (below):
You may remember Democrat Governor Northam because of the “blackface” scandal he endured earlier this year, one which would have driven a Republican governor from office and into political oblivion.
Gov. Ralph Northam—we want more third worlders for Virginia!
And, surely you recall his cruel words during an abortion debate about letting babies die post-birth.
So it should be no surprise that one friend quipped when told the news, “yes, kill the babies to make room for the refugees!”
Unless I have missed some, Virginia becomes the 5th state to tell President Trump that the state wants MORE third world poverty (eventually more voters for the Democrat party)!
In the right hand side bar here at RRWI’m keeping track and so far we have PA, OR, UT, and WA as states where the governor has said, send us more!
As I said here, the Open Borders Refugee Contractors are organizing nationally to pressure the President and to get ready for the flood of migrants they expect once Trump is no longer standing in the way.
Gov. Northam: ‘We welcome refugee resettlement in Virginia’
RICHMOND, Va. (WSET) — Governor Ralph Northam sent a letter to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo Monday confirming Virginia will continue to welcome refugees fleeing danger and persecution.
“I have read federal Executive Order 13888, and I write to reaffirm Virginia’s position that we welcome refugee resettlement in the Commonwealth,” he wrote in the letter.
President Donald Trump signed the order in September explaining that the Federal Government will only resettle refugees in those jurisdictions in which both the state and local governments have consented to receive refugees under the Department of State’s Reception and Placement Program.
Two things that jumped out at me from the Governor’s letter indicating that he doesn’t understand the program as it is being carried out by the contractors in the state:
Because of our proximity to Washington, D.C., we are a preferred location for many Special Immigrant Visa holders – Iraqi and Afghanistan refugees who provided services to the U.S. military in those countries, and whose lives and families are in danger because of that service.
What the heck is he talking about? Why do previous employees of the US military have to live in proximity to Washington, D.C.? We have brought tens of thousands of Afghan and Iraqi SIVsas separate from the Refugee Admissions Program over the last ten years.
We are never told how the SIVs are divvied up among the contractors and clearly if it is true that more of the Muslim Afghans and Iraqis are being placed near DC (Northern Virginia is mosque-central after all), the contractors have a hand in making that decision along with the feds. The Governor is out of the loop!
If the governor is telling the truth, Virginians should be asking why they are getting a disproportionate share of SIVs.
Virginia Community Capacity Initiative?
And then this:
Virginia helps refugees settle into new homes only in those localities that participate in the Virginia Community Capacity Initiative, which ensures that a community’s elected officials, faith leaders, schools, and other stakeholders are committed to helping refugees build new homes and lives. We work with resettlement agencies that have deep ties to these communities.
“Resettlement agencies” are of course the federal refugee contractors. LOL! and I bet a contractor drafted the governor’s letter.
I had never heard of this Virginia Community Capacity Initiative and when I searched around I found very little, just some verbiage at some Catholic sites about finding housing for refugees.
I doubt the program has any statewide application so for the governor to suggest that all of the communities in the state that receive refugees have already said they can handle more refugees is a stretch (well, a lie!).
I decided to see just how many ‘welcoming’ communities existed in Virginia and so naturally went to the Refugee Processing Centerdata base.
I limited my search to the last ten years of refugee placement in the state and compiled this list (below) of cities/towns that had refugees placed in their community.
And, you should know that the Afghan/Iraq special refugees are not included in this database. Indeed, I have never found any database which tells us where the SIVs are sent.
Some locations may have only received a handful of refugees, but nonetheless, the list is extensive. I’m just wondering if the Virginia Community Capacity Initiativewas at work in all of them.
Virginia ‘welcoming’ communities:
And, while I was having fun with the data last night, here are the top ten ethnic groups resettled in Virginia in the last ten years.
11,800 regular refugees (not including SIVs) have been placed in Virginia since October 2009 (a small number compared to some other states). But, again we don’t know how many of the special refugees, SIVs, were provided housing, medical care, and other welfare services in the state.
Virginia’s top ten:
Iraq (3,438)
Bhutan (2,294)
DR Congo (1,328)
Iran (642)
Burma (636)
Afghanistan (536)
Somalia (436)
Eritrea (406)
Syria (361)
Sudan (275)
As Isaid yesterday at ‘Frauds and Crooks’ …. as Virginia turns blue, we see some very disturbing criminal cases involving ‘new Americans’ of all stripes in the Old Dominion. Check out my posts there.
And, guess what? You, who either don’t want to see any more refugees coming to America or at least want a say in who we are accepting and whether they are placed in your town, are screwed.
Sorry to sound vulgar, but it is true, because the other side is highly organized and you have no national voice helping to guide you on what to do locally to push back.
It is make or break time! You’ve got a few more weeks to get your message to your local mayors, city councils, and governors.
And, locally is where the refugee contractors are making their big move now (in addition tosuing the President over the September EOthat supposedly will give states an opportunity to opt-out of resettlement).
I’m not naming names, but for those of you hoping a national immigration control organization located in Washington, DC (or anywhere in America) will focus on the refugee issue and tell you what to do, forget it!
You are on your own.
And, notice where the debate is! It isn’t on the issue of whether we should be bringing tens of thousands (hundreds of thousands!) of refugees to the US annually from countries that hate us; it isn’t on whether the whole program is unconstitutional and needs to be dumped and rewritten (if we even want more refugees); it is on which of your towns will be changed forever and who gets to decide that!
Trump’s EO was far from perfect, but he is concerned about the secrecy that has heretofore been the watchword of refugee resettlement decision-making in America. The contractors, which have monopolized all resettlement in the US for decades, love calling the shots from Washington and are fighting tooth and nail not to lose that power.
The nine federal contractors*** and their friends throughout the Open Borders Industry are highly organized with an extensive grassroots network, so when Trump opened the door with his September Executive Order about local and state governments having some say in the decision-making process they have turned on their networks and their people have gone to work.
Indeed, they expect Trump to be gone so they can go back to business as usual of changing America one town at a time, their Executive Order pushback has become a key element in their strategy.
I’ve always hated the expression, but since Trump handed them a lemon they are making lemonade!
Here is the first of many examples, Mary Poole the refugee advocate who opened the door to a new resettlement office in Montana says it best.
Missoula refugee resettlement agency wades through Trump order
Missoula is one of roughly 190 communities in the U.S. that resettle refugees. Only a handful of states don’t. So far none has banned further resettlement, and letters of support are reported from city councils in the likes of Decatur, Georgia; and Alexandria, Virginia.
In 2016 Mary Poole successfully pushed for the opening of an International Rescue Committee subcontractor office for Missoula.
Gary Herbert, Utah’s Republican governor, wrote Trump a letter requesting he “allow us to accept more international refugees in Utah.”
Democratic governors Jay Inslee of Washington and Kate Brown of Oregon have voiced support for resettlement, and on Tuesday Republican Gov. Doug Burgum, announced North Dakota would continue to receive refugees “as long as local governments agree to it,” the Grand Forks Herald reported.
Such responses underline what Soft Landing Missoula’s Mary Poole sees as a bright side to the executive order.
“While it makes an additional hurdle and roadblock, and it’s unfortunate, I think what we’re really going to see are people going to bat for (accepting refugees) in a way we haven’t seen before,” she said. “I’m pretty excited to see that visual representation nationwide to show how important this is.”
And so they are!
Their people are pushing local governments everywhere to shove it back at Trump and put in writing that they WANT MORE REFUGEES!
Some examples that have come across my desk in recent days:
And, in Tennessee the Tennessee Office of Refugees run by Catholic Charities has sent out an e-mail with contact information for TN mayors to make it easier for their anti-Trump EO supporters to weigh in:
Contact your local elected officials to let them know their constituents support refugee resettlement.
Chattanooga City Mayor
Andy Berke
(423) 643-7800
mayor@chattanooga.gov
Hamilton County Mayor
Jim Coppinger
(423) 209-6100
Email: hamiltontn.gov/Mayor/form.aspx
Knoxville City Mayor
Madeline Rogero
(865) 215-2040
mayor@knoxvilletn.gov
Knox County Mayor
Glenn Jacobs
(865) 215-2005
Email: knoxcounty.org/email/email_new.php?email_name=county.mayor
Memphis City Mayor
Jim Strickland
(901) 636-6000
mayor@memphistn.gov
Shelby County Mayor
Lee Harris
(901) 222-2000
officeofthemayor@shelbycountytn.gov
Nashville Metro Mayor
John Cooper
(615) 862-6000
You can be sure that information like that is going out in your state too!
Because you aren’t going to hear it from any organization giving you marching orders….
…. my message to you is get to your local government and speak up before they do—a big challenge because they have a huge head start on you!
Contact your governor too!
Even if you think that your voices won’t be heard, tell your local and state elected officials what you think anyway, otherwise they will assume that supporting the idea of more refugees for your town or city is a political freebie for them!
Oh, and if you want to make a big splash—challenge your local elected officials in the next election. Even if you think you can’t win the first time out, your local media will be forced to report on your platform.
A very simple message to your elected officials is this: care for refugees where they live in the world, and let’s take care of poor and vulnerable Americans here first!
***The nine federal contractors listed below have dozens of subcontractors working under them around the country. So although your local resettlement agency has a name not listed here, you can be sure they work for one of the nine major contractors.
They are all very Leftwing political organizations, but the most actively anti-Trump in recent months are in red. You might argue that the Bishops are very political and they are, but I’ve noticed that they are laying low these days (there are a large number of Catholic Trump supporters) and USCRI has been unusually quiet.
Further confirmation that the latest legal gambit by the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society and its fellow federal refugee contractors Church World Service and Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service*** is about making money!
Over the last few days I told you here,here and hereabout the lawsuit filed this week by the three federal refugee contractors and now I see there is a follow-up appeal by HIAS for guess what—money.
There is one important point you need to know about refugee resettlement, and one that wasaddressed here by David James,that the contractors don’t explain to their groupies….
They are not required to remain even for a day in the place they are resettled.
Of course if they stay for a few months they get a lot of help from the local sub-contractor to get signed-up for their services (aka welfare, etc), but they are not required to stay where placed.
The contractor’s duties generally end in just a few months after arrival anyway, and the refugees become the responsibility of your local/state services for the poor.
Additionally, the US State Department permits contractors to place refugees anywhere within a hundred mile radius of their nearest office.
In HIAS CEO Mark Hetfield’s e-mail appeal for money on Friday he makes it sound like refugees will not be reunited with their family members who came before them if Trump succeeds in his dastardly plan. That just isn’t so.
***Update***I have been informed that the EO specifically says it does not apply to family reunification placements.
Also, The US does not block anyone from moving!
It has happened time and again that refugees simply pack up and move to another city or state at will. (Which is why, although well-intended, the Trump EO really won’t accomplish what I think the designers hoped it would.)
And, asMr. James reported, the feds can override the wishes of a state or local government.
But, if scaring donations out of people is the goal, then telling their supporters that Trump will block refugees from joining family members is a pretty good talking point.
Here is a bit of Hetfield’s plea for donations:
Here’s why our lawsuit is so important: The administration’s unprecedented action could prevent refugees from joining their U.S.-based families – even though many have waited for years to reunite. It could block communities from welcoming refugees, even if they have long-standing and successful resettlement programs. And it could prevent resettlement agencies from maintaining local affiliate offices that provide essential services to refugees during their first critical years in our country.
So, send us money!
Click here to make a gift of $18 or more right now to stand with HIAS and fight the Trump administration’s unprecedented attempt to close America’s door to thousands of refugees.
For more than a hundred years, our shared Jewish and American values have guided our work helping refugees build new lives of safety and freedom in the United States. It is these values that compel us not to look away from this intolerance – and to take a stand on behalf of those in need of our assistance.
President Trump’s executive action is an insult to the values upon which this nation was founded, and we’re calling on you to stand with us as we fight in court for refugees seeking safe havens in American communities. Please, we’re counting on you to step up at this crucial moment:
Did we mention? Send money!
Make a gift of $18 or more now – the need has never been more urgent – to support refugees and asylum seekers in their quest for safety and freedom.
*** In case you think I’m picking on HIAS, I wrote about Church World Serviceyesterday and I’ll shortly have a post on LIRS! Those two ‘Christian charities’ are even more heavily dependent on you (taxpayers of America) to keep their refugee businesses flush with cash than is HIAS!
