The refugee arrival numbers would have to really take off in the next few months for the Trump Administration to get anywhere near the CEILING they proposed last September of 45,000 for FY18 which ends on September 30th. So far, in 4 months, 6,704 refugees have been placed with almost every state seeing a few at least. Only Hawaii, Delaware, Mississippi and Wyoming have seen none. However, as regular readers know, Wyoming is the only state that has never had a program. Which will hold the record?
Will Trump break George Bush’s record?
At this rate, we could see around 20,000 admitted for the whole year which would give President Trump the distinction of the Prez admitting the lowest numbers in the history of the Refugee Act of 1980. (Kennedy, Biden, Jimmy Carter) George W. Bush holds the present record of two years in the 20,000’s. In the immediate wake of 9/11, Bush admitted 27,070 in 2002 and 28,117 in 2003.
Here is where the 6,704 for FY18 have been distributed so far:
From WRAPSNET, the State Department’s Refugee Processing Center. I know numbers are hard to read. http://www.wrapsnet.org/admissions-and-arrivals/
Top Ten ‘welcoming’ states so far this year are:
Ohio
Texas
Washington
New York
California
Pennsylvania
North Carolina
Illinois
Georgia
Michigan
Broken record alert! Reducing numbers for a few years is good because it gives some overloaded communities a reprieve, however, unless the law is reformed nothing will be permanent and the post-Trump era could see a huge push to make up for what the Open Borders Left would see as lost time.
This post is archived in my ‘refugee statistics’ category, here.
Michael Patrick Leahy, who obviously likes numbers and has the patience to pour over them, posted a piece yesterday at Breitbartshowing, on a calendar year basis, how the Trump Administration stacks up to Obama’s big last year.
(Readers, there are two ways to analyze numbers available at Wrapsnet, the State Department data base on refugee arrivals. One can search by fiscal year or calendar year. I tend to use fiscal year because it is the method used for budget purposes, but here Leahy uses calendar year data which might be more useful to citizens who aren’t policy wonks!)
Leahy at Breitbart:
During his first full year in office, President Trump delivered on his campaign promise to limit refugee admissions to the United States from countries that are known hotbeds of terrorism.
Leahy also tells us what might have been had Hillary been elected President!
Overall, refugee admissions during the 365 full days since his inauguration at noon on January 20, 2017 have declined by 70 percent from the previous complete calendar year under the Obama administration.
From January 21, 2017 to January 20, 2018 (Trump Calendar Year 2017), a total of 29,620 refugees have been admitted to the United States, according to the State Department’s wrapsnet.org website, the source of the refugee admissions data used in this story.
In contrast, from January 21, 2016 to January 20, 2017, the last full calendar year of the Obama administration (Obama Calendar Year 2016), a total of 98,898 refugees were admitted to the United States.
The most compelling aspect of the refugee arrival data for President Trump’s first full calendar year is the dramatic drop in refugee arrivals from the seven countries identified as terrorist hotbeds (Syria, Iraq, Somalia, Iran, Sudan, Yemen, and Libya) in Executive Order 13769 to whom the travel ban initially applied.
Continue reading here. There is much more for those of you not ‘numerophobic!’ Did you know there was such a word?
What happens when President Trump is no longer President?
This is all good, but reducing the numbers for a few years is not sufficient for the long haul. I can’t emphasize enough that if the UN/US Refugee Admissions Program is not reformed (or killed outright) by Congress, by law!, before Trump is gone from office, nothing will have changed. A new President, even a squishy Republican, will open the refugee admissions spigot and make up for lost time!
Sorry to say it for the umpteenth time, but, at minimum, if these nine federal contractors (acting as community agitators and activists while living off taxpayer dollars) are not removed from the system there will not be a long term fix.
(Number in parenthesis is the percentage of their income they receive from you—the taxpayer—in a recent financial analysis.)
With all the hullabaloo since yesterday about the President’s question about why we needed to import so many people from certain s***hole countries, I’m thinking that the great fear the PC crowd (pulling out the smelling salts) has is that when the President speaks straightforwardly (on anything), it gives permission for masses of Americans to do the same. Speaking freely about critical issues facing our country could be the death of the hard Left and they know it. So who leaked the comment to the Washington Post? Some speculate it was someone connected to these two unhappy participants—Senator Dick Durbin and Senate pal Lindsey Graham
I’m expecting that half of America was laughing in the privacy of their homes when they heard the President voice something that they themselves dare not say.
I didn’t look around for what might be the best discussion about what exactly happened, but this one at the American Spectatorby Scott McKay seems on point and brings up the Somali issue something we know a good bit about.
Here are a few snips (emphasis is mine):
A quote attributed to President Trump horrifies our snowflake intellectuals, but accurately reflects the sentiments of much of America.
Thursday saw a media firestorm erupt over a Washington Post report that amid a White House meeting with several members of Congress working on a compromise having to do with the Obama-era Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, or DACA, President Trump asked why America should have to take in so many immigrants from “s***hole countries” rather than people from places like Norway.
The Post article isn’t exactly the finest example of American journalism, identifying as its source no one actually in the room to confirm what Trump supposedly said but instead naming two anonymous people who were “briefed on the meeting.”
Those anonymous second-hand sources claimed that the offending statement came amid a discussion over a proposal to eliminate the diversity visa lottery program and use the 50,000 visas per year tied up in it to offer protection to “vulnerable populations” living in the United States under Temporary Protected Status.Trump became irritated at this, according to the Post, and asked about Haitians, and when the conversation turned to Africa Trump supposedly said, “Why are we having all these people from s***hole countries come here?”and suggested that maybe instead America should be taking in more people from Norway — whose prime minister visited the White House the day before.
[…..]
The Post reported that the Senators attempting to come to a DACA solution, most prominently Illinois Democrat Dick Durbin (whose track record indicates a lack of reliability where it comes to good faith in negotiations) and South Carolina Republican Lindsey Graham (no more need be said) were upset over, upon arriving at the meeting, being joined by immigration hard-liners Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Arkansas) and Rep. Bob Goodlatte (R-Virginia), among others. Durbin and Graham thought they’d have the president more or less to themselves. And when the meeting devolved into disagreement, with Trump showing no interest in a DACA deal, it’s pretty obvious someone on one or both of their staffs rushed to the Post to offer up a juicy second-hand Trump quote which might or might not have been reported in proper context.
Author McKay then goes through a list of dysfunctional countries whose nationals are here in large numbers, including from Somalia: The most recent Somali machete attacker in Vermont last week (at a hotel for the homeless). A reader tells me he came as a refugee in 2004. If so, what has he contributed to America in those 13 years?
How about Somalia? Who’s up for more mass immigration from Somalia? Is there any argument Somalia is a s***hole, or do we need a national screening of Black Hawk Down to remind us what that country is like? If you’d like a more recent depiction of what Somalia has to offer the world we could all watch Captain Phillips, the 2013 Tom Hanks vehicle about the true story of the Maersk Alabama, set upon by one of the multitudinous hordes of pirates — yes, actual pirates — sloughing off from Somali shores in search of fat from international commerce.
Somalia is such a s***hole that its stench infects nearby countries like Kenya — viz., the Westgate Shopping Mall attack in Nairobi in 2013 — and Uganda, where Al-Shabaab, Somalia’s home-grown jihadist terror group, set off a series of bombs in the capital of Kampala to slaughter 76 people as they watched the 2010 World Cup soccer final.
What has America derived from mass immigration from Somalia? Machete attacks on street corners in Columbus and mall stabbings in suburban Minneapolis. And if you like, you can ask the current and former residents of Lewiston, Maine, what a boon Somali immigration has been to that town. [Seemachete attackin Shelburne, VT in the last week.—ed]
The last thing the open-borders Left wants is for you to talk openly about immigration and who should be permitted to live here.
The open-borders crowd doesn’t want to talk about that, though, and it wants to call you racist if you’re opposed to a deluge of immigrants from the worst places on earth.That’s why Trump’s “s***holes” objection is big news rather than the fact there are so-called political leaders who can’t agree to reorient our immigration policy toward taking people who can successfully assimilate here.
Between the two, the crude man who tells the truth and looks out for his own citizens is preferable to the genteel man who sells us out for cheap labor or ballot-box fuel for a political machine. If Trump is the former, so be it.
We reported here on January 1 that the Trump refugee numbers, at the present rate of arrival, would come in at half of the CEILING of 45,000 set for FY18.
By the way, George Bush had two years that saw refugee admissions in the 20,000 range.
Trump will set a record if he comes in below George W. Bush’s two lowest yearsof 27,070 (2002) and 28,117 (2003).
(Yesterday, Michael Leahy atBreitbartposted a more detailed look at the numbers so far.) Hans Van de Weerd of the two hats (IRC and RCUSA) is the go-to-guy for media comments these days. As you know RCUSA is the lobbying arm of the UN/US Refugee Admissions Program. My question: is Hans still a Dutch citizen? Bio here: http://www.phocuswrightconference.com/Whos-Coming/Speakers/2016/Hans-Van-de-Weerd Here Reuters reportson the retirement of Barbara Strack (hat tip: Joanne):
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – One of the top U.S. government officials working on refugee issues announced her impending retirement on Tuesday, and refugee advocates expressed concern about the fate of the country’s resettlement program which faces mounting pressure from the Trump administration.
Barbara Strack, a career official and chief of the Refugee Affairs Division at U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, did not specify when she will leave her post, but USCIS spokesman R. Carter Langston said it would be in January.
[….]
“It’s something I’ve been planning towards for a long time, and it’s not driven by policy considerations,” Strack said. “I will deeply miss the colleagues and friendships that I‘m leaving behind, and the important mission of refugee resettlement. It’s been a privilege to be part of this community for the last 12 years, working to make the U.S. refugee resettlement program robust and secure.”
Advocates expressed concern at the timing of Strack’s retirement, saying it could further hamper U.S. refugee admissions. It was unclear immediately who would replace her.
[….]
The Refugee Affairs Division, which Strack oversees, includes dozens of officers charged with interviewing refugees abroad for resettlement in the United States.
[….]
Advocates for resettlement and some U.S. officials have expressed alarm at what they see as a slowdown in trips abroad known as circuit rides, in which USCIS officers interview refugees.
“The number of circuit rides has gone down drastically with currently only a few planned,” said Hans Van de Weerd, chair of Refugee Council USA***, a coalition of non-governmental groups working on refugee issues. “Many more will need to be scheduled soon to resettle 45,000 refugees and we don’t have any information about whether they will.”
More from Reuters here.
*** See myrecent post on RCUSAthe lobbying shop for the nine federal contractors which receive the vast majority of their funding from the US taxpayer. With the reduction in paying clients (aka refugees) entering the US, their budgets are taking huge hits. Go hereand see IRC salaries, spokesman Hans does not make the top tier.
In mystory on Friday about “globalist gladiator” Russell Crowe wanting to take a refugee or two home with him, I reported that New Zealand’s new Prime Minister says she would take 150 off their hands. (The asylum seekers are staging a protest at the moment).
Prime Minister Ardern says she would like some of those illegal alien men, but Turnbull has turned her down. Got a deal with the Donald!
Now Malcolm Turnbull says thanks, but no thanks! I’ve got my deal with Trump!
He said they might take up to 1,250 mostly Muslim men to Anytown, USA if they pass security screening. Turnbull is probably thinking it will be harder for them to get back to Australia from America then from New Zealand once they are legalized.
Australia turned down on Sunday an offer to take 150 asylum seekers being held in an Australian-run detention centre in Papua New Guinea, where UN officials have warned a humanitarian emergency is unfolding.
About 600 men have barricaded themselves inside the camp on remote Manus island in Papua New Guinea, defying efforts by Australia and PNG to shut it. Food, running water and medical services were cut off by Australia five days ago.
Australian authorities want the men moved to a transit centre elsewhere on the island at the start of a process the asylum seekers fear will result in them being resettled in PNG or another developing nation. The men also fear violent reprisals from the local community.
New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said on Friday her country was willing to take 150 asylum seekers from among those held on Manus island and another camp on the tiny Pacific nation of Nauru.
Her Australian counterpart, Malcolm Turnbull, however said Canberra preferred to work through an existing refugee swap deal he negotiated with former US President Barack Obama last year. Under that deal, up to 1,250 asylum seekers could be sent to the United States and Australia will in turn accept refugees from Central America. [The US will take the Muslim men off our hands and we will get Christian families in exchange!–ed]
For readers shouting that it was Obama’s deal. Yes, originally it was, but President Trump could have walked away from the truly unprecedented arrangement that Obama made as he walked out the door.
