RRW weekly roundup for week ending February 3, 2017

Another exciting week with Donald Trump in the White House! Never a dull moment! Right!

And, welcome to all of you new subscribers this past week!
At the end of each week (most weeks) I report on what the Top Three most-read posts of the previous week were so everyone can see what interested readers here in the US and in over 100 countries worldwide!

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Besides educating yourselves here at RRW, the most important thing you can do is to let Donald Trump know that you have his back. We must make sure he knows we want the Refugee Admissions Program trashed or reformed. There will never be a time like this again for a very long time, if ever. See what else you can do here: https://refugeeresettlementwatch.org/2017/02/04/comment-worth-noting-what-one-reader-said-to-president-trump/

But, first big apologies for my very outdated Fact Sheet in the header above. I know many of you clicked on it this week. I just don’t have time to keep it up, plus I have a hard time motivating myself when there is so much more interesting stuff to write about each day.
You might want to try the Frequently Asked Questions which leads you to some other places where you can find information.
See also recent monthly round-ups for instructions on getting the most out of RRW (at the end of both the October roundup, here, and at the end of the November roundup, here.)
I’ve been writing RRW since the summer of 2007, so there is a lot of information here (over 8,000 posts).  I recommend that you just follow along for awhile and eventually you will catch up. I do try very hard to link back to older posts in each article I write. Also, you might want to try the search window (upper left hand column). It is pretty good.  If you are really new to the issue, start with typing in your state and see if I’ve written about it over the years.
Enough of that.  Here are the Top Three Posts of the week ending on Friday, February 3rd (top daily posts are in the right hand side bar):

Repost: US Cases of refugees arrested or convicted on terror charges, and other heinous crimes

Aberdeen, SD: Somali refugee found guilty of sexual assault in December is supposed to be sentenced today

Open borders left, refugee contractors plan days of action

If you are on twitter maybe you saw some of those criminals whose mugshots I tweeted from that #1 post above. I did individual tweets in a series one evening and had hundreds of thousands of impressions that night! I am @RefugeeWatcher if you would like to follow me.

Dept. of State coordinating with its refugee contractors to try to keep refugees coming for two more weeks

That is the time frame they estimate they have before the latest legal wrangles are resolved.

So look for another big rush of refugees in the coming days.

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US Together in Ohio is one of Hetfield’s subcontractors.

And, if they don’t materialize, contractors will have to start reducing their federally-funded staffs.
From CNN:

Washington (CNN) For the second weekend in a row, nonprofits tasked with welcoming refugees to the United States are reacting to a sudden, major shift in the policies that govern their work.

A week ago, President Donald Trump signed an executive order suspending resettlement for 120 days and initiating a review of the vetting procedures used to approve applicants to come to the United States.

Then Friday, a more welcome surprise for refugee groups: A federal judge in Washington reversed several key provisions of the executive order, paving the way some refugees to enter the country.

US Together is the Ohio subcontractor for the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society.

I feel like our whole world has been turned upside-down,” Danielle Drake, community relations manager at the Cleveland*** nonprofit US Together, told CNN Saturday.

“The executive order came in so quickly, no one was prepared for it,” she said. “We had zero notice.”

Why can’t leftwing media like CNN be completely honest about this funding and explain how contractors are paid by the head out of the federal treasury to do their ‘work.’  As subcontractors of the big nine contractors, groups like US Together are almost exclusively funded by taxpayer dollars!
I am sure that the average American reading this has no understanding that they are talking about mom and pop taxpayer paying for all of this.

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Henshaw is a career federal employee obviously running the show and giving guidance to the DOS refugee contractors. Trump must appoint his replacement.

Funding for resettlement groups is also in question as the administration and the courts each consider the future of the US refugee program.

If the administration is given the go-ahead to move forward with its four-month suspension, Drake estimates US Together will have to lay off at least half its staff.

“One of the other very difficult aspects of the executive order was the financial implications faced by the local resettlement offices,” Sarah Krause, a senior director for the national resettlement agency Church World Service, told CNN. [See my funding analysis of CWS, here.—ed]

Busy, busy bureaucrats!

The State Department has been coordinating with CWS and other agencies to provide guidance on what Friday’s court ruling means for them in practical terms.

As of Saturday afternoon, CWS had been advised that flights were expected to resume early next week and continue for at least the next two weeks.

The cap of 50,000 refugees for this fiscal year remains in effect. See here where we explained why this was still too high! Bush had 4 years under 50,000, so this does not represent any big slowdown! Even 50,000 is going to cost taxpayers several billion dollars!

But for refugees still awaiting approval to go to the United States, the uncertainty created by the executive order and subsequent legal challenges has left them in limbo.

That’s due, in part, to a provision of the Trump administration’s order that was not overturned in Friday’s court ruling — a provision capping total refugee admissions at 50,000 for the 2017 fiscal year, which ends October 1.

More than 30,000 refugees had already been admitted to the US before the new policy went into effect, according to State Department data, leaving just under 20,000 spots open.

Continue reading here.
Church World Service and the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society are organizing demonstrations against Trump. There should be a federal law prohibiting federal contractors from such overtly political activities.

*** Interested readers might want to visit my 2013 post about when ‘Welcoming America’ came to Cleveland to push for changing the city by seeding it with more third worlders.

Ninth Circuit allows migrants from terror hotspots to resume entering the country

It is confusing and hopefully later there will be more clarity, but reportedly, overnight, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals has ordered both sides (the Washington State court that stopped Trump’s temporary halt of certain migrants and the US Justice Department) by tomorrow to prepare briefs supporting their arguments.

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Double standard by the Left! (and CNN!) Obama could, with a pen, control who comes and who stays in America, but don’t dare let Donald Trump use that Constitutional authority!

So, if those bureaucrats working in the US State Department attempt to resume bringing refugees in to the US, they risk leaving refugees stranded in airports (again)—pawns for their political agenda.
From the Daily Mail:

President Donald Trump has lost an appeal against a court ruling blocking his travel ban on certain travellers and all refugees.

The 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco instead asked both the state of Washington and the Trump administration early on Sunday to file more arguments by Monday afternoon.

More here and we can add more links as the day goes on.
As usual CNN this morning was on the side of stripping President Trump of his power to control immigration, while during the Obama Administration they were overjoyed and supportive as Obama said immigration was his prerogative under the Constitution.  The double standard is maddening to behold.
And, to further my annoyance level this morning. They are blasting Trump for saying something derogatory about the US in his O’Reilly interview when they said not a peep when Obama went on his apology tour of the Middle East and Africa early in his Administration.
By the way, where is Congress?  We have three branches of government. Can’t they do more there to support the President?

Comment worth noting: What one reader said to President Trump

Editor:  This is from a reader named Paul. He took my suggestion and wrote to the White House comment page.
Before you read it (below) consider this:

Since we have no idea if our comments to the White House website go down a black hole, use whatever you tell the President more broadly.

First, copy what you told Pres. Trump to your member of Congress and two US Senators. For good measure send it to your governors and your state and local elected representatives. Always ask those elected officials, especially your Washington, DC reps, a question so that they MIGHT feel compelled to respond to you.
Then you can use your comment as a part of a letter to the editor to your local newspaper. Simply say, Dear Editor, this is where I stand on President Trump’s Executive order and I believe there are many people in our community who feel the same way.  Be sure to make it clear it is a ‘Letter to the editor.’
Finally send your comment to any groups you participate in, your e-mail lists, and send it to your facebook page too. Ask everyone to go to the White House website (more then once if they want to!) and do the same!

In other words, don’t waste your comment, but make it go far and wide!

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https://www.whitehouse.gov/contact#page

Here is what Paul said to Donald Trump a couple of days ago:

So far, I’m disappointed with Trump’s actions on immigration. They’re not nearly muscular enough.

DACA and DAPA should have been cancelled on Day 1. Refugee intake should simply be on moratorium, not just in abeyance for a few months. And asylum should be shut down, too, since it’s almost entirely fraudulent.

One important, discrete thing to do is to turn off the federal money to the nine national refugee-resettlement agencies …

Church World Service (CWS)
Ethiopian Community Development Council (ECDC) (secular)
Episcopal Migration Ministries (EMM)
Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society (HIAS)
International Rescue Committee (IRC) (secular)
US Committee for Refugees and Immigrants (USCRI) (secular)
Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Services (LIRS)
United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB)
World Relief Corporation (WR)

.. which are essentially federal contractors. Many of their names suggest that they’re charitable organizations, funded by donations from generous American citizens. Instead, the vast bulk of their money comes from us taxpayers, who have no choice about the exactions.

It’s time for any remaining refugee intake to be done solely by private parties on their own nickel. And they should also be made responsible for the well-being of any such refugees after they arrive — as it is now, most of the refugees are dumped into our welfare programs, and they wind up being an even bigger expense — MUCH bigger — to us taxpayers than the resettlement agencies.

Tell everyone you know to contact the White House website and leave a polite message for President Donald Trump! Click here.  Then put your comment(s) to good use!

This post is filed in our ‘Comments worth noting/guest posts’ archive here.
Don’t miss my previous post this morning about how panic has set in among the contractors listed in Paul’s comment. Trump is breaking their rice bowls (taxpayer-funded jobs going bye! bye!).

Reprieved refugees almost all here, Texas and Georgia are top destinations

After the abrupt halt to the UN/US Refugee Admissions Program last Friday evening, the Trump Administration granted a reprieve for 872 approved refugees already on the way.
As of early this morning, Wrapsnet has logged in 843 of the 872. See our report yesterday, here.
Here is where the 843 went:
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Alaska and Hawaii got zero.

 
And, here are the top ten destinations:
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This post is filed in our Trump Watch! category as well as ‘refugee statistics’ and ‘where to find information.’