Category: Where to find information

Cool graphic: Where have all the resettled Iraqis gone?

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

I missed this back in December, it’s a very useful graphic at the Baltimore Sun showing where the 15,000 Iraqis we have brought to the US have been resettled.  Check it out here.    Note that the top resettlement states for Iraqis are California, Michigan, Arizona, Texas and Illinois.

No Iraqis were resettled in Montana and Wyoming (possibly other small states in the east as well, it’s just that the graphic is not clear).     This reminds me.  Montana takes only a handful of refugees while Wyoming has completely opted out of the refugee resettlement program.  I have been trying to find out for over a year how Wyoming got out, but no one will tell me.  Apparently a state can get out!

We are told over and over again  that refugees are resettled where there is the best chance for them to find work and become independent.   That is not true.  They are resettled in a willy-nilly fashion by the non-profit government contractors depending on where they have offices that need to keep government funds coming in.

Look at this list of states experiencing the highest unemployment rates and note that many are also the states where the Iraqis are being resettled.   California and Michigan are in the top 4 states with the most unemployment and they are the top two Iraqi refugee resettlement states.  Now does that make any sense?

Just a reminder we have written about Iraqi refugees who cannot find work and are unhappy enough to make it into a news story, these are the states we have identified where recent Iraqi arrivals are not finding jobs.  No correlation it seems between the states with the worst unemployment figures—there are just no jobs anywhere for refugees:

The fifteen states we have written about so far that have no jobs for Iraqi refugees are Arizona, Maryland, New Hampshire,Virginia, New York, Michigan, Ohio, Georgia, Idaho, Connecticut, New Mexico, California, North Carolina, Utah and Washington.

And yet the refugee pushers(!) are asking for as many as a 100,000 Iraqis to be resettled this fiscal year (summary here).  But, now that Obama has opened the welfare spigot in the bailout bill, I guess the sky is the limit.

Endnote:  I wonder if anyone has correlated the immigrant numbers in a state with the state’s economic distress.   We know for instance that California has huge immigrant numbers and is also the state in the most dire economic situation.  Does anyone know if there is such a study?

Part II: Refugee Council USA wants to dramatically increase refugee numbers

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Yesterday, I told you about the Refugee Council USA’s “Recommendations and Actions for the Obama Administration and the 111th Congress.”     Today, in Part II, Im reporting on this preposterous proposal: they want to double the number of refugees we take in 2010 and yet we aren’t able to find work for the ones we are bringing now. 

Just this week we heard about a fight that broke out in an employment line in Shelbyville, TN where World Relief  (among others) had trucked in refugees to compete with local people for jobs at Tyson’s Food.   World Relief is one of the organizations that makes up the Refugee Council USA.   The disconnect from reality demonstrated in these recommendations to Obama is stunning. 

The problem they say, “US refugee admissions targets are far below historical averages.”   For “Background” from Page 9 of the report:

The admissions target* has stagnated at around 70,000 in the past eight years, a low number considering a historical average of admissions targets closer to 100,000 per year.  Refugee admissions levels are similarly lower than in past years, and the target-to-admitted ratio has experienced an all time low between 2000 and 2007.  Refugee admissions levels must be determined based on the global need** for resettlement.

*  The Presidential Determination each year is not a target, it is a CEILING!  There is a lot of difference and these advocates know it.   A ceiling means that it is a number we don’t exceed, but we don’t necessarily have to get to it!    They have been wanting to make it a target number and so now they are just telling Obama et al that that is what it is.

** The global need!   What about our need!

So what actions do they recommend.   Since we can’t employ or take care of the 60,000 we brought this past year, lets just bring more!   

 Actions:

Propose admitting 125,000 refugees in fiscal year 2010 and commit to gradually increase the number of refugees admitted each consecutive year, with a goal of admitting 200,000 refugees in fiscal year 2013.

And, of course they go on to recommend that they need more money for all of this.  Many of the groups that make up the Refugee Council USA survive only through your tax dollars.

You will find other useful information in our category ‘Where to find information’ here.

Part I: Refugee Council USA has recommendations for Obama and Congress

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

The Refugee Council USA is a consortium of groups involved in the refugee industry.   Recently I came across their briefing book for the new Administration and the 111th Congress.  You will find it here.

There are many recommendations and so I’ll write about this in a couple of posts.    Since we have been discussing the Emergency Refugee and Migration Assistance (ERMA) funds recently, I’ll start there.  First go back and read Judy’s post of two days ago in which she clarifies a misunderstanding that had developed in the blogosphere about ERMA funds going to Gaza.    The  US taxpayer-funded ERMA account is used for “humanitarian assistance” elsewhere in the world and is not for the purpose of resettling refugees in the US.

Here is what the Refugee Council USA says about ERMA.  Not surprisingly they want more money, but they also want the President out of the loop.

ERMA provides the Bureau of Population Refugees and Migration (PRM) of the Department of State with an emergency pool of $100 million that it can draw on in the event of an unexpected crisis.  Currently, draw downs must be approved by the President.  This requirement can considerably slow down the process.  Moreover, the $100 million ceiling on the account has not been updated in over a decade, even though costs and demands on the account have risen significantly.  The ERMA ceiling should be raised to $200 million and the Secretary of State should be given the authority to approve ERMA draw downs.

Stimulus Watch: Refugee housing for Salt Lake City

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Your tax dollars:

Earlier today I told you about this fun site called Stimulus Watch where you can search for ‘shovel ready’ projects across the fruited plane.  Here is one I just found to benefit refugees.   It’s for the construction of 175 housing units for refugees in Salt Lake City, Utah.   The cost is projected at $27 million.    No comment.

Utah is having a big problem with housing for refugees, see my post of just last week here.

Christian Action Network: New documentary to reveal terrorist compounds in US

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Update Feb. 16th:  More on this yesterday at Jihad Watch, here.

Update Feb.10th:   Jihad Watch has a good post on this (here), with lots of informative comments.

If you are in Washington, DC next week on February 11th, you might want to attend this important showing of a terrorist training film linked to Islamic extremists operating within the US.   Here is a portion of the announcement and where to get more information:

Christian Action Network will show Homegrown Jihad at the Landmark Theater in Washington, DC, on February 11, 2009, at 7:30 pm. There is no charge to attend the viewing. Copies can also be obtained at www.christianaction.org.

The American public was never supposed to know. The 2006 Justice Department document that exposes 35 terrorist training compounds in the U.S. was marked “Dissemination Restricted to Law Enforcement.” All the copies of Sheik Muburak Gilani’s terrorist training video, “Soldiers of Allah,” had been confiscated and sealed—all of them, that is, except one—that Christian Action Network now reveals in the documentary Homegrown Jihad: The Terrorist Camps Around the U.S.

It seems unfathomable—nearly three dozen terrorist training compounds in the U.S. and the FBI, Homeland Security, and State Department are no help at all? But the evidence is irrefutable: as Jamaat ul-Fuqra (known in the U.S. as Muslims of America) leader Sheik Muburak Gilani professes on the Soldiers of Allah video, “We are fighting to destroy the enemy. We are dealing with evil at its roots and its roots are America.”

The Soldiers of Allah training video teaches American students how to operate AK-47 rifles, rocket launchers, and machine guns; how to kidnap Americans and then kill them; how to conduct sabotage and subversive operations; and how to use mortars and explosives.

Although recruitment for these camps seems to be coming from the recently released prison population, there are rumors that immigrants (refugees?) from Muslim regions of the world are involved as well.

If you go to the link above for Christian Action Network perhaps you will find a compound near you!