Category: Where to find information

NumbersUSA says present immigration levels are unsustainable

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

We have a link above to the highly acclaimed NumbersUSA “gumball” video about American immigration growth, and now Roy Beck has come out with an even more shocking demonstration of where we are going if we continue our current immigration levels.   Hat tip: Henry

Roy Beck:

Our latest professional video lays out in 10 minutes the practical necessity for the next Congress to start cutting legal and illegal immigration every place possible.

Watch it here.

Note to environmentalists:  Why do you let the likes of Carl Pope and the Sierra Club support higher immigration and open borders—doesn’t make any sense!   Here is one post on the Sierra Club with links to older posts on the subject.

New CIS backgrounder available on immigration and economic stagnation

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

The Center for Immigration Studies (CIS) has available a new report based on an analyis of census data on the number of immigrants entering the country vs. jobs available. 

CIS:

New Census Bureau data collected in March of this year show that 13.1 million immigrants (legal and illegal) arrived in the previous 10 years, even though there was a net decline of a million jobs during the decade. In contrast, during the 1990s there was a net growth of 21 million jobs and 12.1 million new immigrants arrived. Despite fundamentally different economic conditions, the level of immigration was remarkably similar for both 10-year periods.

One of several summary points that interested me (emphasis mine):

There was no significant change in legal immigration during the past decade. Although the number of jobs declined in the decade just completed, 10.3 million green cards were issued from 2000 to 2009, more than in any decade in American history.

Read the whole report!

Reminder:  We have a category on ‘where to find information’ that contains many resources for facts (like this report) that you can use.  There are 157 posts in that category.

Cool map: Where were Burmese resettled in US

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

I just came across this very informative “Visualization” of which states Burmese refugees were resettled to in 2009.   This is the sort of information that used to be readily available when the Office of Refugee Resettlement sent it’s annual reports to Congress in a timely manner as required by law (note here how far behind they are as of this writing—only up to 2007!)

Check out the map for 2009 and note the top three Burmese resettlement states for 2009 were Texas (3,086), New York (1,696) and Indiana (1147).    Since 2009, as I reported yesterday, resettlements have been slowed to Indiana because the various welfare support systems are not able to cope with a continued high number of refugee resettlements.

In 2009 we resettled a total of 18,202 Burmese nationwide mostly from camps in Thailand.  Disregard the obvious typo on the data here.

By the way, a couple of our commenters suggested here that concerned citizens should write to their Congressman and Senators and ask them to get on ORR’s case.  Tell them to get up-to-date on legally required Annual Reports!

Handy resource: National Governors Association policy position on immigration…

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

….and on refugees.

Since we are about to elect a new bunch of governors this is a good time to mention again that the National Governors Association has a lengthy and quite good policy statement on immigration and on the refugee program.  Of course, two of the biggest concerns involving refugees are consultation with local communities (very rarely happens) and unfunded mandates.

See the latest version that I have (there may be a 2010 document now too, so if you are aware of it, let me know).

This is filed in our ‘where to find information’ category.

Obama: Sure, we’ll aim for another 80,000 refugees this fiscal year

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

No jobs, who cares!

The federal government’s fiscal year (FY2011) began two weeks ago on October 1.  President Obama sent his Determination Letter to Congress on the 3oth of September, a document that sets the upper limit for refugee resettlement for the upcoming year.

Some were hoping to see a lowered ceiling this year in light of the on-going economic recession, but no such luck.  The ceiling for FY2010 was 80,000 and Obama is aiming for that many again.   Readers contrast the two years following 9/11 when everyone was scared to death terrorists would be arriving in droves where the numbers were 45,896 in 2002 and 39,544 in 2003, here.   It appears however that we didn’t quite make the 80,000 this year—total here as of September 30th is 73,311.

This is from the Obama letter to Congress:

In accordance with section 207 of the Immigration and Nationality Act (the “Act”) (8 U.S.C. 1157), as amended, and after appropriate consultations with the Congress, I hereby make the following determinations and authorize the following actions:

The admission of up to 80,000 refugees to the United States during Fiscal Year (FY) 2011 is justified by humanitarian concerns or is otherwise in the national interest…

Regional goals are as follows:

Africa . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15,000
East Asia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19,000
Europe and Central Asia . . . . . . . . . . 2,000
Latin America/Caribbean. . . . . . . . . . . 5,500
Near East/South Asia. . . . . . . . . . . 35,500
Unallocated Reserve . . . . . . . . . . . . 3,000

To find out what countries are in each region go back to this site where the countries are listed.

A refugee is generally defined as someone who has left one’s country due to persecution or a fear of persecution, however, the definition is ‘fudged’ in several cases.  “Refugees” who have not left their country can still be called “refugees” if they are from one of these countries:

I [Barack Obama] also specify that, for FY 2011, the following persons may, if otherwise qualified, be considered refugees for the purpose of admission to the United States within their countries of nationality or habitual residence:

a. Persons in Cuba
b. Persons in the former Soviet Union
c. Persons in Iraq
d. In exceptional circumstances, persons identified by a United States Embassy in any location.