Massive food stamp fraud bust, Florida this time…

10/03/2017 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

If you are a longtime reader, you know that following food stamp fraud cases is a side interest of mine. Go here to my large archive on past cases. I haven’t written much lately on the topic because reporting on the refugee program is about all I can handle.

ebt-cards-map — There is so much that could be done to stop the fraud including disallowing these ‘mom and pop’ convenience stores from accepting EBT cards.

I continue to urge one of you to write a blog solely on the topic of immigrant fraud such as food stamp fraud and other welfare fraud—a topic that could keep you busy every day and do our country a great service.

And, besides, your blog could be hopping (and fun to write!) because I suspect we will see more crackdowns now that the Justice Department is run by Jeff Sessions.

The type of fraud mentioned here in the Breitbart story (called trafficking) works like this: Customer with SNAP benefits comes in to store wanting cash (for drugs?). Manager or owner pays customer 50 cents on the dollar in cash and then seeks reimbursement from the government (you!) for the full $1 dollar supposedly spent on food.

Here is Breitbart:

Twelve Floridians have been charged with running an alleged $20 million food stamp fraud scheme in one of the “largest” food stamp fraud crackdowns in history, according to the Justice Department.

Federal prosecutors told the Miami Herald that the 12 defendants who reportedly defrauded the federal government of $20 million were charged with food stamp fraud, wire fraud, and conspiracy to commit wire fraud.

The list of those charged include Mohammed Alobaisi, 37; Mohammad Alteen, 33; Joe Ann Baker, 56; Reynold Francois, 38; Omar Hajje, 43; Jalal Hajyousef, 42; Andy Javier Herrera, 24, and his father, Javier Herrera, 49; Ihab Hassouna, 44; Maria Jerdana, 36; Hasan Saleh, 59; and Yousef “Joe” Homedan Zahran, 60.

“In this instance, eight small convenience stores in South Florida committed a staggering amount of fraud in a relatively short amount of time,” said Karen Citizen-Wilcox, special agent in charge, U.S. Department of Agriculture-Office of the Inspector General, in a press release.

[….]

Store owners and employees who commit food stamp fraud face steep consequences.

Continue here.

No, I would not call a few months in jail “steep consequences.” And, how does someone pay restitution when they have sent your tax dollars out of the country (which is often the case)?

Refugee resettlement contractors get platform to complain at Christian Post, but….

10/01/2017 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Christian Post reporter Samuel Smith interviewed several leaders of fake charitable organizations to get their take on Trump’s refugee ceiling for the new fiscal year that begins today. It is the anticipated wailing and moaning about that mean Donald Trump—45,000 is not enough poor people to put on the taxpayers’ backs in one year.

However, lo and behold, two tiny mentions (you have to read carefully!) are made, that are rarely (never?) made by the likes of the New York Times and Washington Post.

One is that the federal contractors (the big nine)*** are paid out of the US Treasury to do their religious charity and that the numbers of refugees admitted have dipped as low as the 20,000s in the past. I’ll count this as a media breakthrough!

When the big media (including Fox News) investigates and reports on the multi-million dollar industry resettling refugees has become, then ten years of work will have been worth it!

See readily available financial data on how much of your money the nine contractors devour in a year, go here.

Christian Post:

Christian Aid Groups Say Trump Lowering Refugee Ceiling to 45,000 Is ‘Absurd’

Erol Kekic, executive director of the Church World Service Immigration and Refugee Program, one of nine organizations that receives funding from the State Department to resettle refugees in the U.S., said in a statement that the 45,000 limit is “absurdly low” ….

[….]

Bishop Michael Rinehart, chairman of the Board for Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service and head of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America’s Texas-Louisiana Gulf Coast Synod, said in a statement shared with CP that the cut to the U.S. refugee ceiling comes at a “a time when the world needs us desperately.”

bishop Reinhart

“[I]t seems we are shutting the door on the Statue of Liberty,” Rinehart said. “I pray that America does not lose its heart and soul.”

Rinehart should learn the facts about the statue, here.

Although they give them lots of column inches to complain, the CP is actually being honest here:

Even though 45,000 would be the lowest U.S. refugee ceiling in a fiscal year set by a president since 1980, there have been years since then when less than 45,000 refugees have been resettled into the U.S., especially in the aftermath of Sept. 11, 2001.

According to the Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit Center for Immigration Studies, a total of 28,286 refugees were resettled in 2002, and there were only 41,223 admissions in fiscal year 2006.

Read it all here.

*** Below are the nine contractors that monopolize all refugee resettlement in America (they have hundreds of subcontractors working for them). The ‘religious’ groups listed below are Leftist social justice, community organizing, activist organizations awash in taxpayer dollars!

Readers ask me all the time what they should do.

Here is an idea: Find out if your local church is affiliated with any of these nine quasi-government agencies and start speaking up in your local churches and synagogues, and if possible in your local newspapers. If you are Catholic, see this.

If we can’t get Washington to make any effort at reform, it is time to focus closer to home.

HIAS leads the pack: wants Congress to admit more refugees than Trump’s 45,000 ceiling

09/29/2017 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Nevermind, that the Refugee Act of 1980 gives the power to the President to set the CAP/CEILING*** for refugee admissions for the coming fiscal year which begins on Sunday.

I have to laugh because I can always count on the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society to be the first of the nine federal contractors to break from the gate on the next political action the refugee industry will take.

As CEO of HIAS, Hetfield makes an annual salary of $358,718 (doing well by doing good!). Will he take a pay cut if there aren’t enough paying ‘clients’ (aka refugees) entering the US this year?

For new readers, see how much of your money, your tax dollars, goes to each of the nine to resettle refugees on a per head basis, here.

There can never be serious reform while the nine are rolling in your money using it to hold rallies and lobby on the Hill while the media tries to make the public think that this is all about ‘humanitarianism’ and ‘religious charity.’

As you surely know by the keening sound coming from contractors like HIAS they aren’t happy with the 45,000 cap announced this week. (I can see huge bidding wars between the contractors as they bid for bodies in a smaller pool of refugees.)

I’m very unhappy with the number too, as I said here. The UN/US Refugee Admissions Program should be reviewed by Congress to determine if it is still even a program the US should continue.

If the President had suspended the program and said a ‘determination’ would not be sent until Congress reviewed the program, he might have achieved some important campaign promises. Sending a determination of 45,000 was meaningless—splitting the baby—and will do very little, if anything, to bring about needed long term change.

I digress, more later on what Donald Trump should be doing on the issue.

Here is HIAS telling its followers what to do:

Screenshot (884)

Screenshot (885) — This is a screenshot, so links are not hot. If you want to see the text of what they want their followers to send the Washington reps, go here: https://www.hias.org/stand-against-record-low-cap-refugee-admissions

This is what you should be doing today.

Tell the President that you are unhappy with 45,000. He clearly wimped out! And, tell your representatives in the House and Senate how you feel too because you are up against lobbyists, like those at HIAS (likely teamed up with global corporation/Chamber of Commerce lobbyists) working the halls of Congress.

*** You will be hearing more from me about the fact that the 45,000 is a CEILING (NOT A TARGET). Trump could stay well under 45,000 and still be operating within the law.

He doesn’t need an Executive order to stay under the ceiling—he never did!

More blabbing by State Department on refugee determination

09/21/2017 ~ 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!

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

09/20/2017 ~ 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.