Category: Where to find information

Data Watch: Biden on Track for Lowest Annual Number of Refugees Admitted to the US

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

That is likely because the administration is too busy admitting illegal aliens by the hundreds of thousands.

Don’t get me wrong, I am not upset by potentially the lowest resettlement year in the history of the four-decades-old program, but it is puzzling that he and Kamala went through the charade of setting a legal refugee admissions ceiling of 62,500 to be admitted by September 30th when they struggled in May to admit 916 refugees (271 were admitted in April).

For this fiscal year, limited data available at the Refugee Processing Center was updated yesterday to show that with the 916 added in May our total for this fiscal year now stands at 3,250 legal refugees.

If that rate continues Biden beats Trump to the lowest annual admissions since 1980.

Trump admitted 11,814 in his last full fiscal year in the White House

https://refugeeresettlementwatch.org/2014/10/23/congolese-refugee-women-in-america-need-costly-mental-health-care-50000-in-the-pipeline/

By the way, at a quick glance down the admissions list, it looks like the Africans from the DR Congo still lead in the resettlement sweeps.

In 2013 Obama promised the United Nations we would take 50,000 from the DR Congo, a number we have far surpassed now (the extensive data we could mine for such information is now gone).

However, as of last July we were up to 74,000 from the DR Congo and they are still coming!

Texas is the top ‘welcoming’ state and it has been for years!

Here are the top ten states so far in FY21:

Texas (100)

California (72)

North Carolina (56)

Michigan (53)

New York (49)

Georgia (46)

Kentucky (45)

Ohio (41)

Virginia (37)

Illinois (34)

Getting ready for October!

Right now, the big nine refugee resettlement contractors (below) are out scouring America for new resettlement sites so that when October first comes around they will be ready to move 125,000 impoverished people (Harris/Biden have promised) from the Middle East, Africa and Asia into Anytown, USA where they can gain a foothold and open an office.

You need to be alert for any sign that the contractors and their hundred or so subcontractors are preparing their paperwork for your town or city (it is called an R & P Abstract) to open an office where you live.  This is the time of the year they get those documents ready to submit to the US State Department so they can get their allotment of paying “clients” (aka refugees) for the new fiscal year.

And, incidentally, once refugee offices are open, I’ve noticed that illegal aliens tend to congregate in those towns and cities as well.

Your job is to make political noise if they have targeted your town!  The only hope I see is if enough political turmoil is created, they may move on to a town/county/city they can pushover more easily.

Hold them off for a year or so and then work like hell to get the Dems out of the White House.

Here are the nine Foreigners First! organizations that are changing America by changing the people.

(LOL! For my faithful readers you probably wonder why I keep showing this list.  I was told once that people need to see something seven times before they remember it.  Well I figure seven times seven is better than a measly seven!)

 

Tennessee Republicans Blustering about UAC Drop in the State

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

It is no wonder that citizens throw their hands up in disgust with their so-called leaders in the GOP.

I can’t take the latest from the Tennessee Republicans seriously because for years they have been making the right noises about states rights when it comes to Washington dumping refugees and illegal aliens on the backs of their taxpayers, but somehow never make any headway.  Why is that?

It is impossible for me to go back over the leadership Tennessee did display for a brief period when the legislature filed a Tenth Amendment case against the federal government, but then after backing away from it, watched their Republican Governor, Bill Lee, stick his finger in Trump’s eye when Trump attempted to give the states a modicum of say in the distribution of refugees.

For ambitious readers, see my ‘Tennessee’ archives.

Last week we reported on the news from Chattanooga:

Tennessee Proof: Planes Land in Dark of Night Loaded with Migrants

 

The story caused a ripple of angry political posturing that has resulted in this—a study committee has been formed!  Whoop-de-do!

From The Tennessean:

Tennessee legislature forms GOP committee to take on unaccompanied minors, refugee resettlement

As recent news stories continue to highlight the arrival of unaccompanied migrant youth in Tennessee — a practice that has gone on since before President Joe Biden took office — top Republicans in the state are seizing on the issue to call for more transparency from the federal government.

On Friday, the Republican speakers of the state House and Senate announced they were forming a legislative study committee to determine how many migrant children are being permanently relocated to the state.

Apparently conflating the recent influx of migrants with refugees, a separate category of individuals Tennessee has for years received following a vetting process, the legislature has formed a “Joint Study Committee on Refugee Issues.”  [The UACs are NOT refugees. They are illegal aliens!–ed]

McNally

[….]

“When the federal government abdicates its responsibility to control our borders, states must step in,” Lt. Gov. Randy McNally said in a statement.

“With this study committee, we affirm that there is a clear and compelling state interest in a sane immigration policy.” 

[That is really some tough talk wouldn’t you say! Do you feel better now?—ed]

[….]

Good ol’ country boy Bill Lee turned Trump’s offer down! Said the state wants more refugees. https://refugeeresettlementwatch.org/2019/12/20/tennessee-republican-governor-bill-lee-caves-says-tennessee-will-invite-more-refugees/

It’s unclear when the committee will begin meeting or whether legislators intend to take any binding action during a special session or during the next legislative session in January.

Gov. Bill Lee’s announcement in December 2019 that Tennessee would continue accepting refugees, despite former President Donald Trump saying states would not have to do so, created tension with some Republican members of the legislature.

[….]

WCRB-TV in Chattanooga reported earlier this month that a group of migrant youth flew into Wilson Air Center in the early hours of May 14 before boarding buses to various Southeastern cities.

After outrage from Republican leaders about the news, The Times Free Press reported this week that the Lee administration had approved a residential child care license in May 2020 for an organization contracting with the federal government to house unaccompanied minors in Chattanooga.

[….]

Mostly teenagers headed to buses in Chattanooga.

According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of Refugee Resettlement, 717 unaccompanied children were brought to Tennessee between Oct. 1 and March 21, a period that spans both Biden and Trump’s time in office. In Nashville, that number was 290.

The office did not provide to The Tennessean information on how many unaccompanied minors were brought to the state since March 21, nor did it answer questions about reports of unaccompanied minors flying into Chattanooga.

There is a lot more, click here.

See also Tennessee’s US lawmakers “fuming,” here.

As for the transparency issue, I have been reporting for years about the UAC (Unaccompanied Alien Children, a term the Biden team has dropped) data housed at the Office of Refugee Resettlement for all to see.

Demanding transparency (while fuming!) is a wonderful way for politicians to make their constituents think they are doing something without really doing anything!

The Tennessean might want to have another look today because the latest data has been posted.  Tennessee is now up to 1,111 from 717.

Just a reminder to one and all, as much as it pains me to say it, Biden is no where near Trump’s levels of UACs sent out to states.  See the data for yourself, here.  Tennessee received over 2,000 in Trump’s worst year.

Top County data is here.  Again, these are just sponsored UACs.  The numbers do not reflect all of those still in custody.

And, if you are keeping track, here are the top ten states welcoming the Unaccompanied Alien Children, who will be ‘sponsored’ until they are 18 at which time they disappear into the woodwork of Anytown, USA, never to be heard from again unless and until they commit a crime.

Texas (3904)

Florida (2845)

California (2700)

New York (2323)

New Jersey (1470)

Maryland (1357)

Virginia (1340)

Georgia (1119)

Tennessee (1111)

North Carolina (1066)

 

Fargo, North Dakota: Deputy Mayor Surprised to Learn Refugees Still Arriving

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Editor:  I started this post yesterday, but couldn’t finish it as RRW went down for awhile making me very nervous.  I don’t know what that was about, but it seems to be working fine today.  Sure hope you didn’t experience any problems visiting.

 

I told you back in January that Lutheran Social Services of North Dakota had filed for bankruptcy after getting mired in some affordable housing scheme that is too complex to bother with here.

In the process they are losing their fancy and expensive building, a building I saw in my 2016 travels to the state.

North Dakota: Lutheran Refugee Contractor Closes its Doors

So the assumption was that refugee flow into the state was going to be halted at least for awhile.

You might recall that North Dakota’s Republican governor did NOT support President Trump’s effort at reforming the Refugee Admissions Program by allowing local and state governments to have some say in the process of determining the target sites for resettlement.

Here is what I said in December of 2019:

North Dakota Republican Governor is a Definite Yes for More Refugees

That brings us to the latest breaking news as Fargo’s Valley News Live says that refugees are being placed in Fargo:

FARGO, N.D. (Valley News Live) – Fargo City Commissioner Dave Piepkorn said Tuesday that he sat in on a phone call in which Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Services stated that they had resettled approximately 25 refugees in Fargo-Moorhead. Deputy Mayor Piepkorn shared concern that he had not been made aware of the resettlement and he questioned whether the City of Fargo was notified prior to rehoming the refugees.

Too funny! NOT! The woman who ran LSSND as it was financially crashing is now working for the governor!

Questions have been raised as to how the action was coordinated. Prior to filing bankruptcy, Lutheran Social Services (LSS) was tasked with refugee resettlement in the state.

Former LSS Director, Jessica Thomasson, now works as the Executive Policy Director at ND Department of Human Services.

The country of origin of the refugees was not made known. In a recent interview with Chris Berg, Gov. Burgum stated that he was open to resettling refugees in the state but he was unaware of any plan to resettle undocumented immigrants from the southern border.

Be sure to watch Chris Berg’s interview with Fargo City Commissioner Dave Piepkorn where Piepkorn says he doubts anyone was notified and mentioned specifically the school system.

In response to Deputy Mayor Piepkorn….

President Trump’s failed reform initiative sought to give local governments an opportunity to review plans for resettlement in their jurisdictions with a yes or no sign-off, governors would also have to approve or disapprove the plan.

Shockingly, most Republican governors, including North Dakota’s Doug Burgum, did not back the President’s efforts to shore-up their Tenth Amendment states’ rights.

Here is one of many, many posts on the feckless Republican governors:

White House Supposedly Blindsided as Republican Governors Cave on Refugee Resettlement

 

At present local governments are supposed to be consulted, but I will bet that the resettlement agency only talked to friendly “stakeholders” in the process of preparing an “abstract” that must be submitted to the US State Department in advance of placements in a given location.

https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/north-dakota/articles/2021-01-25/burgum-state-to-take-over-refugee-resettlement-after-lss

Any elected official should be able to request permission to attend a stakeholder meeting and be permitted to see a recent R & P Abstract  prepared by  a local resettlement contractor.

See one of my many posts on the topic here in January 2020.

Of course, in the case of ND (with no agency operating at the moment), one would most likely go to the state’s Department of Human Services for the most recent Abstract and a schedule of stakeholder meetings.

LOL! that would be the agency now headed by former LSS CEO Thomasson.

 

One final note:  For years we were able to see which refugees went to which towns and cities on an almost daily basis and all the way back to 2002. That database is no longer available. It was shuttered during Trump’s tenure.  The feds claimed the website is being overhauled.

Except for the most recent arrivals in the present fiscal year, we are left completely in the dark about the numbers, nationalities and resettlement locations of thousands and thousands of refugee arrivals.

That tiny bit of information is available here.

State Department Data Not Showing Large Increase in Refugees (yet!)

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

I’ve seen a couple of news reports lately mentioning that Joe Biden’s refugee numbers are picking up. But, will he admit 62,500 by September 30th?

So, I checked the little bit of data still available at the Refugee Processing Center and see that as of April 30th, he isn’t even up to Trump levels for Fiscal year 2021 (FY21 ends on September 30th, 4 and 1/2 months from now).

For new readers, the Refugee Processing Center, until the Fall of 2020, provided a treasure trove of information about refugees arriving in the US.

However, for some reason the Trump Administration took down most of the database and we are left with only scanty information that you can find on this page.

You can see how many refugees came from which countries and went to your state, but only for this fiscal year and only up until the end of the previous month.

We have admitted 2,334 refugees in the regular program from October 1, 2020 to April 30, 2021.

Top ‘welcoming’ states are:  California (355), Washington (210), Texas (186), New York (154) and North Carolina (100).

But, that doesn’t tell the whole story!

Afghans are coming in large numbers!

We admitted another 2,237 Special Immigrant Visa holders from Afghanistan (a few from Iraq are included in that number)!

That huge number includes a large percentage of dependents who are all treated to the same resettlement benefits regular refugees receive, and are “clients” of the nine federal refugee contractors.

Top Afghan SIV ‘welcoming’ states are California (828), Texas (484), Virginia (270), Washington (143) and Maryland (73).

Have a look at the monthly columns and see that the Trump Administration brought in higher numbers than Biden is admitting so far.

HHS Secretary Beccera Wisely Attempted to Keep Refugee Cap Low

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

But, the radicals in the White House, including Susan Rice, and Secretary of State Antony Blinken wanted the refugee ceiling bumped up to 62,500 for the remainder of the year.

Years ago, care for the Unaccompanied Alien Children was shifted to the Office of Refugee Resettlement which is in the Department of Health and Human Services and is thus the root of today’s problem—an agency in crisis as it attempts to deal with thousands of children who are not refugees illegally arriving at our borders at the express invitation of the Biden administration when its original mission was to manage refugees selected for admission to the US.

Here is Politico on the internal scuffle using just the nicest tones they can muster so as not to make it sounds like the Biden ship is foundering.

I am laughing to myself because this sort of internal squabbling during the Trump years would have been blown sky high by corporate media with the help of deep state leakers in a way to make Trump look foolish.

Somebody, other than Saint Joe, has to be the fall-guy in the dream administration’s first major public relations fiasco and it looks like the long knives in the White House have found their man.

For a little chuckle, watch Biden announcing his pick for HHS Secretary butcher the name of the Department of Health and Human Service before butchering Becerra’s name in the first minute of this youtube video.

 

Politico:

Becerra’s cautious border play rankles White House

Xavier Becerra spent decades urging congressional leaders to support liberalized legal immigration. But he’s sounding a different note as Health secretary, responsible for caring for upwards of 21,000 migrant children.

Biden’s kids in cages!

Becerra has argued for maintaining the historically low Trump-era cap on refugee admissions to the U.S., according to two people with knowledge of the matter, for fear of stretching the already-thin resources of his department’s refugee office.

His insistence on a more cautious approach to immigration policy has, moreover, contributed to his shaky standing with some quarters of a fast-paced White House where senior aides have spent weeks pressing the Health department to speed its intake of thousands of children at the southern border, and bristled at what friends and skeptics alike described as Becerra’s at times deliberate manner.

“He cares about raising the caps — but let’s take one challenge at a time,” one person close to Becerra said of his mindset. “Emotionally, he’s there. But he’s always a pragmatist.”

Becerra apparently had some common sense!

President Joe Biden in April initially agreed to keep the refugee limit in place, siding with Becerra and overruling top officials including Secretary of State Antony Blinken. But the blowback from immigration advocates and Democrats on Capitol Hill was immediate and intense, and Biden has since reversed course.

Becerra in the meantime has been privately frustrated by the White House’s rush to ease a series of immigration guardrails well before he was confirmed to lead the Department of Health and Human Services, allies said, including a key decision to allow unaccompanied immigrant children to remain in the country.

[….]

That responsibility for caring for unaccompanied children has landed chiefly on HHS’ Office of Refugee Resettlement, which also handles foreigners seeking refugee status, though the two operations are not intertwined.

[….]

For Becerra, a relative latecomer as one of Biden’s last Cabinet officials to be confirmed, it represents an early and steep management test.

And it comes after years in Congress and state government as a vocal immigrant-rights advocate who pressed both Democratic and Republican administrations to take more aggressive efforts to overhaul the immigration system and “open the doors of opportunity” for those coming to the U.S. Becerra frequently invokes the experiences of his immigrant Mexican parents and once chided fellow Latinos for “running from their heritage” in advocating for tough immigration restrictions.

More here.

Where are the kids?

Although we have no idea where large numbers of the ‘children’ will be placed in facilities around the US (unless information leaks out like in this North Carolina case), you can see where some of the mostly teenagers have been placed with sponsors through the end of March.

State and county data is available.  Don’t miss the fact that tens of thousands were placed during Trump’s tenure.

Where have the refugees, placed via the US Refugee Admissions Program, gone so far this fiscal year?

Check out the limited data available now at the Refugee Processing Center.

Reminder about what you can do!

Call your local elected representatives at the city or county level and ask if your community is being selected to ‘welcome’ either the illegal aliens invading our southern border now, or are being asked to become a refugee resettlement site as I reported recently about Winchester, Virginia.

If the answer is yes, you must get to work to create controversy where you live.

It Begins: Federal Contractors Out Scouring America for New Target Towns for Biden Refugees