Category: Trump

No new resettlement site in Ann Arbor, Michigan, but where is State Department site list?

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

It has been missing for awhile!  What is up with that.  I thought we were going to have more transparency for communities that are (or might become) refugee placement towns and cities.

Bartlett with map
This is former State Department Director of the Office of Refugee Resettlement, Larry Bartlett, proudly standing in front of the site map that PREVIOUSLY was posted annually at Wrapsnet along with a directory list of sites.

This morning I saw this brief mention about Ann Arbor that had been fingered as a possible new resettlement site at the end of the Obama Administration when his State Department was planning as many as 40 new sites (older ones getting overloaded?).
Michigan Live:

Samaritas, Michigan’s largest refugee resettlement agency, had planned to open an Ann Arbor office and that’s now on hold because there are not enough refugees coming to the area any more, according to John Yim, supervisor of new Americans in Michigan for Samaritas.

(For new readers Samaritas is the Lutheran resettlement agency.  Why did they change their name? Who knows.)
You might want to visit this post in which I reported on the State Department’s “New Site Development Guide” published under Bartlett’s leadership.
The Ann Arbor mention reminded me to check Wrapsnet for the:

R&P AGENCY CONTACT LIST EXTERNAL DISTRIBUTION

The most recent map (like the one Bartlett is showing-off in the photo) is from FY16, but the full contact list is missing.
It hasn’t been available for awhile, so how is anyone supposed to know if their town or city has a refugee office?  I suspect its absence is also hampering the refugee industry activists. Don’t we all have a right to know where refugees are being placed and which of the hundreds of subcontractors are still open for business?
The old list is here at my blog.

We have been hearing that as many as 100 of the 350 or so offices are to be closed, and we would like to know which ones!

Where is the transparency?
Come on State Department, what are you hiding?  There are really only two reasons for not making this information available:  incompetence or they want to hide something.

Under Trump, Muslim refugees from Burma (Rohingya) are numero uno

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

I told you the other day that we had a slight increase in the number of refugees entering the US in the month of May.  The number is still way below what the refugee contractors*** need to assure that their federally funded budgets are flush with your involuntary contributions via Washington.
Today I checked Wrapsnet (FY18 data) for the Muslim refugee numbers and learned this:
The percentage of Muslims entering as refugees is way down compared to Bush and Obama years.  It now stands at 15% when it was approaching 50% under Barack Hussein Obama.
(Total admissions so far 14,321 and 2,184 are listed as Muslims of some sect or another.)
But….
 

Rohingya refugees mostly women
See my Rohingya Reports category with 224 previous posts:   https://refugeeresettlementwatch.org/category/rohingya-reports/

 

…much to my surprise I see that Burmese Muslims (Rohingya) top the list!

Continue reading “Under Trump, Muslim refugees from Burma (Rohingya) are numero uno” →

Refugee admission numbers tick slightly upward for May; Texas and Ohio top the list

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

As you know we track the monthly refugee admissions numbers at the US State Department affiliate we call simply Wrapsnet.
In a few days we will also check the list for incoming Iraq and Afghanistan so-called special immigrant visa holders.  Their numbers have been helping keep paying client numbers up for the federal contractors, the Volags, whose budgets are built around numbers of incoming refugees via a per head payment.
President Trump set the ceiling for the fiscal year (2018) back in September of 2017 at 45,000.  That number is a ceiling, a cap, and not a target that has to be reached.  We are way below the pace to reach 45,000.
This past month, May, we admitted 2,132 which is above the monthly average of 1,741 for the previous 7 months.  23,000 could now be considered a reasonable final number when the fiscal year ends on September 30th (assuming the stepped up pace holds).
Below is a map from Wrapsnet of where the 14,321 have been placed so far.

Top ten ‘welcoming’ states in descending order are: Texas, Ohio, New York, California, Washington, Arizona, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Minnesota, and Kentucky.

 
Screenshot (475)

Screenshot (476)
Numbers are hard to read, nothing I can do about that!

Caught! Somali man living in Vermont used false identity to get in to US as a refugee

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Not surprising of course, but what is surprising is that he is actually being prosecuted.
You can bet this wouldn’t be happening if Hillary was President!
And, how is this for timing—see my previous post this morning about a retired foreign service officer blowing the whistle on widespread fraud in the UN/US Refugee Admissions Program.

US Marshal badge
Will the long arm of the law find the liars?

Longtime readers may remember our extensive coverage of Somali family reunification fraud first revealed in the Wall Street Journal in 2008 (behind a paywall now).
If you search RRW for ‘Somali family reunification fraud‘ you can find maybe twenty more posts on the topic over the years!

Don’t hold your breath that a large number of the tens of thousands who lied about who they are, will get caught, but this is a start!

See the moves he made that got him caught…..
Continue reading “Caught! Somali man living in Vermont used false identity to get in to US as a refugee” →

Time to take fraud in US Refugee Program more seriously; where is Congress?

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

A former foreign service officer who worked in several capacities in the US Refugee Admissions Program around the world speaks from first hand experience when she says it is past time—way past time—for Congress to investigate the program.
After outlining examples of fraud that have been identified, Mary Doetsch says this at the Daily Caller:

It’s Time For Congress To Restore The Integrity Of The US Refugee Program

Perhaps even more disturbing than the actual fraud is the fact that this type of investigation is the exception rather than the norm. For decades, little heed has been paid to program’s extensive fraud.

unhcr sudan
Doetsch doesn’t say it, but I will. As a first step, let’s take the UN out of the process and if we are going to resettle refugees, let’s use American experts to make the decisions. Will save us a bundle of money too!

As a former refugee coordinator who served throughout the Middle East, Africa, Russia and Cuba, I saw first-hand the flagrant abuses and scams that permeate the refugee program. I witnessed widespread exploitation and misuse, from identity fraud to marriage and family relation scams, and from private individuals profiting from their involvement in USRAP to distortion of the actual refugee definition to ensure greater numbers of people who are really migrants are admitted as refugees.

During my own time working in this program, I watched USRAP continue to expand unchecked, seemingly without concern for whether it served the best interests of its own citizens or the country.

While refugee admissions have been declining under the Trump administration, there has been almost no focus on programmatic fraud. Midway into the 2018 fiscal year, just over a quarter of the 45,000 individuals proposed in the FY18 refugee ceiling had entered the country. This slow-down in admissions may reduce some fraud, but without structural reform, it cannot be eliminated.

Too many government officials, often under the guise of humanitarianism, have continued to disregard both the external “pay-to-play bribery schemes” of the UN along with the internal fraud within USRAP operations. The once admirable refugee program has lost its integrity and must be reformed. The USRAP is in need of a complete overhaul and it’s time for Congress to take the lead.

Read it all here.
Good luck trying to get Congress to do anything.
See what Ms. Doetsch said back in February 2017 in response to Trump’s announcement of restrictions to refugee resettlement from certain countries.
This morning as I see CNN crowing about how Trey Gowdy says the FBI did no wrong in planting someone in the Trump campaign, I am reminded of how the chicken! (yes Gowdy!) never lifted a finger to try to get to the bottom of the problems with the USRAP when he was chairman of the subcommittee responsible for overseeing the program.