Category: Where to find information

Minnesota: Refugee Seniors have a Hard Time Adjusting to US, Your Tax Dollars Ease their Discomfort

~ Ann Corcoran ~ 2 Comments

When I caught this news at the Minneapolis Star Tribune about a program for lonely senior refugees, not refugees who came decades ago and grew old here, but senior citizens we admit through the US Refugee Admissions Program, it reminded me to tell you how your tax dollars are used.

 

Few speak English. https://www.wnd.com/2016/03/minneapolis-caucus-all-somalian-little-american/

First a bit of the warm and fuzzy story:

Twice a month, elders from the area’s East African community gather here for a shared halal meal and a program that can range from citizenship to weaving to winter preparedness. [I’ll bet the emphasis is on citizenship and registering to vote!—ed]

The goal is to help break the social isolation experienced by members of the older immigrant population, many of whom speak little English and stay home to care for grandchildren while younger adults in the family are at work.

[….]

About 20 people were on hand last week, including Abdi Matan, who helped organize the program through the nonprofit Horn of Africa Aid and Rehabilitation Action Network. Matan came to St. Peter six years ago after working in Somalia for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. He also worked for the U.N. in refugee camps in Somalia and Kenya.

“Minnesota is the next home for Somalis,” he said with a big grin. “We have really enjoyed this program for socialization.”

Somali elders, he said, often have a hard time adjusting to their new home.

[….]

Mohamed Omar Ali, 73, was a herdsman in Somalia. He arrived in St. Peter about five years ago. [Arrived in the US at age 68, sure will be a real asset to the US workforce which is the usual excuse for the program in the first place!—ed]

Agencies paying for this program are all taxpayer-funded including of course Lutheran Social Service of MN!

Mahoney [Leah Mahoney, Minnesota Department of Health] said she believes this is the first program of its kind in rural Minnesota and hopes that other communities with East African populations will take notice. Support for the program has come from the state Health Department, as well as the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Lutheran Social Service of Minnesota, the city of St. Peter and the Minnesota River Area Agency on Aging.

More here.

Here is more that you need to know!

First, senior citizens admitted as refugees are eligible for SSI (Supplemental Security Income) from Social Security.  Read about it here.

However, in addition to individual benefits, states that welcome “elder” refugees receive help directly from the federal treasury (from you again) to help them cope with needy senior citizen refugees.

It would take a lot of time to go through the entire list of over a hundred countries from which we receive refugees to get to the total. But here are a few numbers from the Refugee Processing Center.

In the last five years we admitted 748 seniors (over 65 years old) from Bhutan, Burma 640 seniors, DR Congo 777, and Somalia 273.

Now get a load of this!

States are given federal money to help take care of refugees aged 60 and older.

Do a little math and see how much the elder refugees are costing taxpayers in just this one portion of the welfare services available to them.

From the Office of Refugee Resettlement:

FY 2020 Allocations

The FY 2020 allocations to states and replacement designees are based on the number of ORR-eligible individuals aged 60 or older who arrived and were served in FY 2018, as reported in the ORR Refugee Arrivals Data System (RADS).

The chart below documents the number of eligible individuals served in each state in FY 2018 and the corresponding funding allocations for the SOR program for FY 2020.

Here is just a bit of the chart in a screenshot.  But be sure to open the chart and see the whole list!  It gets worse.  I wondered if this is sweetener for many states? New Hampshire 4 refugees $75,000 from the feds!

 

This is the kind of handout you have been supplying through your tax dollars for years and possibly decades!

US Catholic Bishops Bemoan Loss of Federal Funding under Trump

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

As you should all know by now, nine federal refugee contractors including the US Conference of Catholic Bishops receive a large chunk of their income from you, the US taxpayer, based on the number of refugees they place in your towns and cities.

So it is no surprise that their revenue is dropping as the President reduces the number of refugees being ‘welcomed’ to America by the UN and the US State Department.

In a story about the Bishops upcoming budget year at the National Catholic Register  (h/t Joanne) we learn that the biggest drop in funding comes from their so-called Migration and Refugee Services Office budget.

Bishops OK 2020 budget; numbers inconclusive for 2021 assessment hike

BALTIMORE — The U.S. bishops voted to approve the budget for 2020 for their conference headquarters in Washington but did not register sufficient numbers to determine passage of a proposed 3% increase in the diocesan assessment for 2021.

Both votes took place Nov. 11, the first day of their Nov. 11-13 fall general assembly in Baltimore.

The bishops approved a budget nearing $22.69 million for next year.*** Budget approval required a majority of bishops present and voting. The vote was 211-11, with one abstention.

Archbishop Dennis Schnurr of Cincinnati

The proposed 2020 budget projects a “marginal” surplus of $49,261, about 2% of the total, according to Archbishop Dennis Schnurr of Cincinnati, treasurer of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.

The figures include increases of 3.6% for policy and advocacy, 3.5% for the administrative offices, 2.7% for the general secretariat, 1.2% for the bishops’ conference staff house in Washington, and 0.4% for pastoral ministries.

The biggest budget decreases come within the Migration and Refugee Services office, which relies on federal grants for much of its revenue.

MRS operations “continue to be impacted by the very dynamic changes in the federal immigration and refugee policies and programs,” Schnurr said in a message sent to bishops prior to the meeting.

MRS administration is being cut $6.6 million “due primarily to the reduction in refugee arrivals which directly impacts pass-through funding to the dioceses for local administration and direct assistance to clients,” Schnurr said.  [LOL! pass-through funding after a huge slice is taken out for salaries!—ed]

MRS’ resettlement services office is being scaled back by $2.6 million “largely due to the closure of the Cuban-Haitian program by the end of 2019,” he added. MRS’ executive office is cutting its budget $178,00 for 2020, and its special programs office will be down $53,000 from 2019 levels.

Overall the numbers of refugees admitted to the country who are helped by MRS “continue to track downward,” Schnurr told his fellow bishops.

Rarely do we see reports on the number of refugees any of the nine contractors resettled.

In fiscal year 2016, MRS settled about 4,200 refugees. In 2017, the number swelled to 7,800 refugees, but last year MRS resettled 6,350. And as of Sept 30 of this year, the number of refugees settled was 4,350.

Interesting that in 2016 the Bishops had a smaller share (only 5%) of the incoming refugees than they do now (14%).  It can only mean that as the overall number of refugees drop, the Bishops are getting a bigger cut.  I wonder why that is?

Or, it could mean the Catholic Bishops received a lot more federal money because they also contracted to take care of the mushrooming numbers of ‘Unaccompanied Alien Children,’ funding for which comes under the federal Office of Refugee Resettlement.

“Staff remains vigilant and where possible, proactive” in pushing for higher federal intake numbers, he said.

You can bet they are proactive and lobbying for more refugee paying clients and ultimately Democrat voters!

More here.

***But, here is what I don’t get.  The Bishops reported a substantially higher income in 2018.  Yes, they had more paying clients, but did they have so many fewer last year and expect even less in the coming year that their budget dropped by half from 2018?

That would be a great headline—-Under Trump Catholic Bishops lose at least $20 million in two years!

Maybe someone with accounting experience can jump in and explain—could they have lost half of their federal money in just two years?

BTW, in 2018 93% of their Migration Program was funded by US taxpayers!

From their consolidated annual report their Migration and Refugee Services Program for calendar year 2018 shows over $48 million from the feds.  So what I want to know is if their budget for the coming year will be only $22 million (as reported above) that indicates a enormous drop in federal funding over two years.  Again, could that be true?

Only a little over $3 million was raised from private charitable giving by parishioners! page 38

 

Doing well by doing good!

Check out that 2018 financial report and notice that over $8 million went to SALARIES to compensate for their good works to benefit refugees. So much for ‘religious’ charities!

See my previous post this morning about the numbers of refugees admitted over the last ten years.  I needed some of that data to figure what percentage of incoming refugee clients the Bishops are getting—I’m guessing they are getting the biggest chunk of the flow into your towns and cities.

Handy Chart on Obama vs. Trump Refugee Admissions

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

I have a category here at RRW entitled ‘Where to find information’ and I am placing this short post there for your future reference.

I’ve become sick and tired of hearing, via uninformed media, that Obama admitted 100,000 refugees a year during his presidency.

He did not. 

According to the Refugee Processing Center:

In only one year did he set a CAP (CEILING) in excess of 100,000 and he set that in September 2016 during the waning months of his Presidency—either anticipating that Hillary was coming in to ‘welcome’ that many, or in the case of a Trump win, he was setting Trump up to look mean and unwelcoming.

Obama could have set a 100,000+ CAP in any of the previous years, why didn’t he?

Note also that Obama didn’t admit near his ceilings in several years of his time in office.

Whatever deception Obama (his State Department!) was trying to pull, please keep this chart handy because when the new numbers are recorded at the end of this month, that 2009 year will drop from the chart.

Note the ‘Ceiling’ column vs. the ‘to the US’ column which is the number that actually were admitted.

 

If you see a news report in a local paper about how Obama admitted 100,000 refugees a year, be sure to tell the reporter/editor to get their facts straight!

First Group of 2020 Refugees Arrive: IOM Says 600 in the Last Week

~ Ann Corcoran ~ 4 Comments

As you know by now the President’s cap for refugee admissions for FY2020 is 18,000 and you also should know that none arrived in October (the first month of the fiscal year) because President Trump had waited a month to sign the order.

Well, here they come!  Who are they? And where did they go?

The International Organization for Migration (IOM), a branch of the United Nations that takes care of doling out the plane tickets American taxpayers pay for, is reporting 600 in the first wave.

IOM Welcomes First US Bound Refugees Resettled in FY 2020

Washington DC – More than 600 refugees landed in the United States this week, marking the first arrivals of US fiscal year 2020. The International Organization for Migration (IOM) welcomed the refugees who come from a variety of countries.

[….]

IOM works closely with the US Department of State’s Bureau of Population, Refugees and Migration to provide case processing support, pre-departure health assessments and cultural orientation, as well as transportation support for refugees.

Congolese senior citizens, new Americans, get instructions on how to get their benefits. https://fraudscrookscriminals.com/2019/03/08/kentucky-refugee-seniors-going-hungry-as-us-imports-more-poverty/

A group of 25 Congolese refugees were the first to arrive on Tuesday morning at Washington Dulles International Airport before continuing to their final destinations. Due to ongoing violence, the families fled to neighbouring Rwanda where they remained in limbo for years. [And, remind me why this is our problem!—-ed]

Almost half of the refugees resettled in the US in fiscal year 2019 were from the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Several others arriving this week are also Congolese.

What is so maddening about the Congolese wholesale movement to America is that Obama told the UN in 2013 that we would take 50,000 over five years and we are now almost at 60,000 and they are still coming. 

I bet the deep staters at the US State Department never told the Trump people there was supposed to be a limit on the Congolese!

So it is no surprise that when I checked the data at the Refugee Processing Center I see that 226 of the 563 refugees admitted in the last week are DR Congolese!

I suspect the discrepancy in the numbers reported by IOM and the RPC is that IOM has shipped off 600 (maybe), but the State Dept. data base isn’t up to the minute and shows that we admitted 563 refugees from the first of November to today.

Because I don’t plan to report every month about who came and where they went, I’m going to give you a tutorial on finding out yourself!

Go here. 

Click on ‘reports’ in the right hand corner.

Then click on ‘Interactive reporting’ (there are useful data in the other categories), but for today’s lesson it is ‘Interactive reporting’ that you want.

You will get a screen that looks like this:

For the first exercise I picked the first choice:  MAP.

A screen opens that asks for your start date and the last date. I chose November 1 to today, the 9th.  It asks for nationalities and provides a drop- down (I chose all) and I chose for sort order ‘number of individuals.’

And presto, I got this map (below) to show where 563 refugees were placed between November 1 and today.  On the page after the map I can see the numerical breakdown for all of the states that ‘welcomed’ refugees over the last week.

As usual Texas is numero uno!

(Reminder! These are just refugees admitted through the US Refugee Admissions Program, not unaccompanied alien children, not Special Immigrant Visa holders, and not asylum seekers!)

 

 

Now go back to the first screen and see your other choices for searches.  You can find out which ethnic groups were placed in which cities in your state.

When choosing parameters for the ‘arrivals by destination’ search, choose ‘fiscal year’ and ‘destination.’  Just for fun I did Minnesota.  Here are the ‘new Minnesotans’ that arrived this week.

You can find out the religions of refugees arriving (although not by state). And you can even find how many kids are coming (cost to your schools!) and how many senior citizens will be coming to collect their SSI.

I’ve never been able to find out which contractors settled which refugees.  It might be there somewhere and if you find it let me know!

Here is what I did learn for the whole batch this week:

Of the 563 we brought in as ‘new Americans’ ….

226 are from the DR Congo

Moldova 56

Afghanistan 40

Ukraine 38

Syria 32

Burma 27

Liberia 26

Somalia 26

Eritrea 18

Iraq 18

Sudan 15

Plus smaller numbers from many other countries.

Of the 563, 154 (27%) belong to one or another Muslim sect. I was surprised to learn that a small number of the DR Congolese are Muslims.  There is no Muslim ban!

Now you too can do this yourself and I recommend that you do it at least monthly and see who is coming to a town near you!

(Have fun, play around with it!)

For serious students of the refugee program, this post is filed in two categories here at RRW: ‘Where to find information’ and ‘Refugee statistics’. All categories are in a drop-down on the right hand side bar at RRW, here.

Tennessee: Knoxville’s City Council and Open Borders Mayor Begging Governor to Bring Them Refugees

~ Ann Corcoran ~ 3 Comments

Editor:  This is a guest post by David James who recently explained how the Trump Executive Order will not do what we had all hoped.

 

Knoxville City Council has voted unanimously to beg Republican Governor Bill Lee for cheap refugee labor and directed their open borders mayor Madeline Rogero, “to send a letter to the U.S. secretary of state to share the city’s plans to participate “’in this very worthy program.”’

Will Governor Lee go-along-to-get-along with local city officials such as Mayor Rogero and join a small number of governors (only three!) who have told the White House that they want more refugees for their state?

BTW, Rogero is a BIG supporter of the anti-American TN Immigrant & Refugee Rights Coalition (TIRRC).

Governor Lee would be well advised to not go down the “compassionate conservative” route, remember who put him in office, and carefully study the issues raised in the Tennessee lawsuit.

He should pay particular attention to the long-arm reach the federal government has made into his state budget to pay for the federal resettlement program.

Federal reports have admitted to shifting costs associated with the refugee resettlement program to state and local governments.

Of course these urban lefties see no irony in the fact that the director of the federal contractor who heads up Bridge Refugee Services, was a refugee herself and now gets paid by taxpayers to bring refugees to Knoxville and Chattanooga.

Bridge Refugee Service*** contracts with national VOLAGs Church World Service and Episcopal Migration Ministries and like all contractors involved in the resettlement industry, relies on federal cash flow to keep their pipeline flush. [Church World Service recently joined forces with CAIR to demand that the White House admit more refugees to the US.—ed]

Bridge’s financial reporting has been spotty, but what is available shows what they are really worried about – contractors are paid for each individual refugee they drop into your community – so the fewer the number, the lower the federal payouts. The combined federal and state grants in 2017 and 2018 likely reflect a much lower federal contribution resulting from Trump’s annual lowered refugee arrivals.

The state grants likely refer to money funneled from USHHS to NGO Catholic Charities of TN (CCTN), which USORR designated to replace the state of TN after TN withdrew from the refugee program. Best guess is that CCTN has decided to help keep Bridge afloat knowing that both Knoxville and Chattanooga are true blue cities where open borders groups rule and local governments agree.

2008 – $682,158

2009 – $641,801

2010 – $902,445

2016 – $1,329,939 – 155 new refugees for Chattanooga and 267 for Knoxville

2017 – $839,583 (combined federal & state grants*) – 48 new refugees for Chattanooga and 65 for Knoxville

2018 – $945,165 (combined federal & state grants) -150 new refugees for Chattanooga and Knoxville combined

The reports also show that on average, 50% of the new arrivals are under age 18 – meaning all state taxpayers are paying for their English learner services in school.

You’ll also be heartened to know that Bridge works to make sure that their clients don’t become like backward, hateful, prejudiced conservative Republicans in Tennessee.

Bridge collaborates with an Adventist Muslim Friendship Association which helps arriving Muslim refugees (like Whahab and Jinan profiled in the 2018 report), “overcome differences in language, faith, and culture as well as the prejudice in the community. ‘“We learned you don’t have to change yourself to be like Americans or change Americans to be like you,” says Jinan.”

Wahab has already joined Bridge’s board and no doubt it won’t take long for him to connect with the TN American Muslim Advisory Council which is doing its level best to force its desired change on Tennessee communities.

CCTN well understands that refugee resettlement MONEY is the lifeblood of not only Bridge, but its own organization as well. Take a look at their latest available financials – almost 50% of its operating budget for the entire organization is based on money flow from refugee resettlement program. At the same time, they have drastically reduced services to needy American citizens.

 

That’s the pattern with the open borders, moralizing lefties – needy and worthy American citizens – people with intellectual disabilities, the homeless, and veterans, step aside.

***Editor endnote:  Interesting that Bridge first came to the attention of RRW in 2007 when we first learned that it refused to give information to the FBI about two Iraqi refugees it had resettled. In 2003, Bridge joined the ACLU and Muslim groups to sue the federal government to block the use of the post 911 Patriot Act.