Category: Trump Watch!

More blabbing by State Department on refugee determination

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

As you know, we expected President Donald Trump to announce his refugee admissions ceiling for FY18 at least a week ago.  But, if CBS has it right from the State Department blabbers, we learn his decision will come after this weekend.

In fact, by law, this whole process should have been started at least a month ago, as I told you here.  Unfortunately, like all Presidents before him (and Congress which is supposed to be consulted in advance), following the law is the least of their concerns!

So Donald, as you think about this over yet another weekend, consider the optics!

America First!

There are Americans hurting—in Texas, in Florida and now Puerto Rico. They need housing, medical care, and food. 

Are you going to tell the nation, tell taxpayers, they will, in addition to our refugees, be shelling out for another 40,000-50,000 third world impoverished people to begin arriving on October 1?

Suspend the program for at least 6 months—it is the politically sensible thing to do! 

(George Bush already set a precedent in 2001 by delaying the determination due that September!)

And besides, the Open borders Left and the contractors are going to scream bloody murder over 40,000-50,000 anyway (they want 75,000)!

Here is CBS reporting on the blabbers at the US State Department:

Simon Henshaw bio
Simon Henshaw is the acting assistant secretary for refugees because (shamefully) Tillerson/Trump have not replaced him.

The Department of Homeland Security has been pushing for a reduction beyond the 50,000 maximum-entry mark set by Trump earlier this year as part of his travel ban executive orders – a number that is already the lowest in modern American history. In a proposal submitted late last week, the department called for a reduction to 40,000 refugees in the next budget year starting Oct. 1, citing concerns about its workload and ability to adequately vet those seeking entry.

The State Department, which oversees the program, has formally recommended that the number be kept at 50,000, according to Trump administration officials who spoke on condition of anonymity in order to discuss internal deliberations.

Agencies had been given until the close of business Wednesday to submit formal recommendations for consideration.

State Department “officials” virtue-signalling!

State Department officials would have been inclined to set their recommendation higher, several of the people said, but were taking their cues from the president’s executive order and felt that 50,000 was the highest number that would be palatable to him.

Trump has until Oct. 1, the start of the new fiscal year, to determine how many refugees to admit under the Refugee Act of 1980. He is expected to consider the issue over the weekend, after he finishes up at the U.N. General Assembly in New York, one White House official said.

[….]

Simon Henshaw, the top State Department official for refugees, said the decision was ultimately Trump’s.

CBS must have been talking to Henshaw.

It looks like we have a few more days—tell Donald Trump what you think!

Ignorance at the Washington Post is stunning

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

“As for the cost, most is borne by private resettlement agencies.”

(Washington Post Editorial Board)

 

What! They don’t read RRW every day?

I’ve said it on many occasions but it is frightening to know something about an issue and then see flat-out ignorance about it from people who should have the facts….

 

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Too funny!

 

But, I suppose when it comes to the Washington Post it might just be that they do know the facts, but are purposefully spewing FAKE NEWS, like this line in their pro-more-refugees-anti-Trump editorial (Trump flirts with a new age of American timidity) a few days ago.

After taking a whack at Stephen Miller they say this:

The stated rationales for further refu­gee cuts — concerns over terrorists sneaking in, and the costs involved — are not defensible. In fact, both the Obama and Trump administrations have tightened vetting for refugees, who are now the subject of exhaustive background checks despite the fact that very few terrorist attacks, in the United States or Europe, have been carried out by refugees. As for the cost, most is borne by private resettlement agencies.

Nevermind for now, that we, and many others, have chronicled the number of refugee terrorists (or wannabe terrorists caught before they acted) in the refugee population in Europe and here.  It is that last sentence that rockets me through the roof!

After years of, not just me, but many other investigators exposing how much money the “private resettlement agencies”*** are paid OUT OF THE US TREASURY to resettle refugees, how can they possibly promote such a falsehood!

See my post on the US Conference of Catholic Bishops here two days ago.

And, here, if you missed it is my recent accounting of all 9 federal refugee contractors. Episcopal Migration Ministries takes the top prize at 99.5% funded by taxpayer dollars!

***These are the federal contractors paid by the head for refugee “clients” they place (secretively!) in your towns and cities. Congress should be investigating how they are using the millions of federal dollars they receive annually.

And, as long as they are running the program on your dime along with their side job of political agitation and community organizing, there can never be reform of the USRAP!

DHS says they can’t handle 50,000 refugees for FY18, but 40,000 is okay!

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

It is not okay with me and thousands of American taxpayers who want to see the program abolished or reformed! Just dickering over numbers is a fools errand—unless of course the White House and Congress have no intention of seriously investigating the program, ever!

Donald Trump announces his Candidacy for President
Dumb political move: 50,000 (or 40,000) third worlders beginning to arrive in 10 days gets Trump nothing! The Left will still hate him and it will do nothing to satisfy Americans looking for relief from the financial and cultural burdens the program creates.

This is a huge disappointment.

Suspending the program in light of Harvey, Irma and Maria (when Americans are hurting and need housing and help) would have been the sensible thing to do in this non-election year.

Does bringing more poverty to America at this time make political sense?

And, does anyone really think that when the entire Congress and a third of the Senate is up for election in 2018, they will lift a finger to investigate and reform? Of course not!

This article at Politico (thanks to Joanne) tells us why the White House has been remiss in following refugee law and getting the decision made in a timely fashion.  Here we are right up to the deadline and the dickering continues….

And, Trump doesn’t get it!

He will get s*** at 40,000, or 50,000, anyway.  He might as well suspend the program and tell Congress to review the law! He has the power to do that!

Politico:

Department of Homeland Security officials have warned the White House that they may have trouble processing 50,000 refugees next year, putting additional pressure on President Donald Trump to lower the cap on refugees entering the United States to the lowest point in decades.

In private meetings with White House officials in recent weeks, DHS officials have raised logistical concerns about handling 50,000 refugees in fiscal year 2018 if the president decides to maintain the cap that he imposed as part of the travel ban, according to two administration officials.

One of the administration officials said the department was swamped with a backlog of asylum applications, which have skyrocketed in recent years. In June, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services had roughly 275,000 pending “affirmative” asylum cases — when someone arrives in the U.S. and requests safe haven. The figure amounts to a more than 600 percent increase in the backlog compared with December 2013.

The pressure from DHS comes as Trump faces a vanishing window to make the decision on refugee admissions. According to the statute that governs the program, the president should determine refugee levels before the start of the fiscal year on Oct. 1.

Though administration officials say Trump has not yet made up his mind, they expect him to lower the refugee cap below 50,000.

DHS has recommended setting the fiscal year 2018 refugee ceiling at 40,000, the administration officials said.

You can read the rest yourself, here.  I have to go get a tooth pulled—highly preferable to reading more about this huge political blunder!

 

Trump State Dept. gives Aussies information we don’t have….

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

…..that the first of Australia’s illegal alien detainees have been notified that they will be coming to your towns within weeks!

Trump grin and Tillerson
Australian media learns before we do that Australia’s rejected asylum seekers will begin arriving in unsuspecting American towns within weeks.

That news tells us that the White House has determined to begin admitting a new batch of third worlders on October 1 and thus clearly has chosen to not suspend the UN/US Refugee Admissions Program while Americans are suffering (Harvey, Irma and now Maria).

As of  this writing the Presidential determination and accompanying report (which would outline how many we will take from Australian detention centers) has not been released to us—those paying for it and those who will have to live with the arrivals, reportedly from Bangladesh, Sudan and Burma (Rohingya Muslims)!

Was all of Trump’s ‘America First’ rhetoric at the UN yesterday just that—rhetoric?

Here is the Reuters news this morning about the Obama deal Trump called “dumb,” but nevertheless is apparently honoring starting today in order to save Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull’s political skin!

SYDNEY (Reuters) – Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull said on Wednesday the first group of about 50 men and woman held in two controversial detention centers for asylum-seekers on remote Pacific islands will be resettled in the United States within weeks.

Nauru refugees
America! Here we come! The detainees are mostly men who have lived in a men-only camp, some for as long as four years.

The comments mark the first official timetable for when the United States will begin resettling up to 1,250 people held in Australian-run centers on Nauru and Papua New Guinea’s Manus island as part of a refugee swap deal struck by former U.S. President Barack Obama late last year.

Australia will begin resettling several dozen Central American refugees within weeks under the deal that U.S. President Donald Trump has described as “dumb” but has nevertheless said Washington will honor.

“There will be about 25 from both Manus and Nauru will be going to the United States and I just want to thank again President Trump for continuing with that arrangement,” Turnbull said in a video statement.

Three sources familiar with the process said about 25 men from countries such as Bangladesh, Sudan, and Rohingya Muslims from Myanmar held on Manus island were the first to be told on Wednesday, with a similar number on Nauru to be told Thursday.

One Sudanese refugee approved for resettlement told Reuters he would leave Manus Island in a few days. [If they are being notified, you know its a done deal!—ed]

Continue here.

This is something we would have expected from Obama, but we didn’t expect Trump to agree to this extremely unusual arrangement—taking another country’s rejected asylum seekers (and mostly Muslims to boot!).

In exchange some Central American economic migrants not even in the US will go to Australia as the benefit we get from the ‘deal.’

For new readers, my extensive archive on the Trump “dumb deal” is here.

If you want to tell the White House what you think, click here. Tell him you should be notified about which cities and towns will be ‘welcoming’ them.

Will the US Conference of Catholic Bishops ever be honest with parishioners?

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Update September 20th: See here, the Bishops received almost $100 Million from taxpayers in 2016 for their migration/refugee fund “good works.”

I know I’m dreaming to think that one day the Catholic Church would explain to parishioners and the public at large that they depend on millions of taxpayer dollars every year to run their migration program.

Cardinal DiNardo
President of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, Cardinal Daniel N. DiNardo of Galveston-Houston. Let’s make a deal, tell the public and your parishioners how many millions you receive each year from the US Treasury for your migration campaign and I will shut up. Not holding my breath!

Here we have one more story where the Bishops are whining about how that mean old Donald Trump might slow the flow of refugees to America.  BUT NOT ONE WORD ABOUT HOW THE BISHOPS’ BUDGET WILL BE IMPACTED!

They want the Administration to admit 75,000 impoverished third worlders to the US beginning October 1, but NOT ONE WORD THAT THEY RECEIVE TAXPAYER DOLLARS ON A PER HEAD BASIS (and the Bishops resettle the largest number of refugees each year).

Maybe many Catholics will think that is all hunky-dory, but they should at least be informed.

Here is the latest from Catholic News Agency:

Washington D.C., Sep 17, 2017 / 04:07 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- The Trump administration is reportedly planning to further reduce the number of refugees the U.S. will accept in the coming fiscal year, drawing concern from the U.S. bishops and others.

“We’re strongly urging the administration, the President, to set a Presidential determination of at least 75,000 [refugees],” Matt Wilch of the Office of Migration and Refugee Services at the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops told CNA of reported changes to the number of refugees the U.S. plans to accept in the 2018 fiscal year.

The New York Times reported Tuesday that the Trump administration is planning to further reduce the number of refugee admissions for the 2018 fiscal year, “according to current and former government officials familiar with the discussions.”

[….]

Now the administration may be reducing its refugee quota even further, to below 50,000. [Eeek!  I hope it is far below that!—ed]

The Executive Committee of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops said in a written statement Tuesday that they were “troubled and deeply concerned” at reports that the administration was considering the reduction, which they called “inhumane.”

“We implore the administration to show mercy and compassion for those seeking refuge, and to advance the American value of freedom through providing safe harbor to those fleeing tyranny and religious persecution,” the bishops said.

The conference proposed a goal of 75,000 refugees instead. “We think it’s really time to get back to the serious business of saving lives, and we urge the administration to have the total this coming year be 75,000,” Wilch told CNA Thursday.

By the way, the nine contractors (see how much each of them gets from you, here) agreed that 75,000 was the number for this year and have coordinated their lobbying efforts around that number. It is no where near what they asked last year (200,000), but…

I’m guessing they think that is the best they can do and still keep their taxpayer-funded budgets from imploding.

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Did taxpayer dollars pay for this pamphlet?

Now, pay attention Catholics!

The Bishops have launched a propaganda campaign described in this American Thinker article (Catholic push for multicultural utopia gets weird) (hat tip: Julia).  I have no time to go in to it in detail, but I strongly recommend that you—Catholics—read it.

Let me be clear!  The Bishops and the church can do whatever they want to ‘educate’ their people, or welcome illegal aliens and refugees as long as they do so as a private entity.

A very simple concept!

The minute the USCCB takes your money and mine (taxpayers!) it becomes our business how they spend it.