Editor: From time to time we post guest commentary. This is from Joanne Bregman. As werefocus our efforts at the state and local level, because we can’t count on Washington, this is an effective argument for you to make on the state level.
This is about States’ rights!
(emphasis below is mine)
Federal Cost Shifting of the Refugee Resettlement Program
Background
In 1980 the federal government formalized the refugee resettlement program by passing the Refugee Act of 1980. There was no mandate to force states to participate in this program. Federal appropriations to provide for medical and cash assistance for newly resettled refugees, was authorized for 36 months. Refugees were and still are, first required to use state Medicaid programs if they are eligible, before federal medical assistance funds are used.
When the federal law was passed, it provided that for each refugee brought to a state by a federal contractor, states would be reimbursed 100% for three full years, the state incurred cost of providing Medicaid and cash welfare. The law also provided, that for refugees who did not meet eligibility criteria for state Medicaid and cash welfare programs, they could instead, receive a federal subsidy – Refugee Medical Assistance (RMA) and Refugee Cash Assistance (RCA) for 36 months.
By 1991, even though the number of refugees being resettled was not decreasing, the federal government eliminated reimbursement to states for the state cost of resettling and supporting refugees with Medicaid and cash welfare.
In addition, the federal government reduced the RCA and RMA subsidy from 36 months to 8 months for refugees who do not qualify for state funded programs. States have no other choice but to assume the greater share of the voluntary federal program’s costs.
The U.S. Office of Refugee Resettlement told Congress early on in the program that the reason states were no longer being reimbursed for the state’s costs was because Congress didn’t appropriate enough money.
The 1981 Select Commission on Immigration and Refugee Policy convened by Congress also documented that even the initial 3 years of 100% reimbursement to states, was not sufficient to “minimize the impact of refugees on community services.” The Commission was specifically referring to schools, hospitals and community support services.
In 1990, the U.S. General Accounting Office documented that the reduction in reimbursement to states for the federal refugee resettlement program, “costs for cash and medical assistance have shifted to state and local governments.” The National Governors Association has also questioned the federal cost shifting, stating that “[t]hese reductions represent a major federal policy change that shifts fiscal responsibility for meeting the basic needs of refugees from the federal government to states and localities.”
As the resettlement industry has grown, so has the cost to both federal and state governments but only the federal government controls its costs by appropriating annually “as available” while each state’s cost is driven by how much of the federal cost Congress chooses not to pay.
Be sure to see my post from earlier this past week about what you need to do on a state and local level, here.
I have to admit, I thought Donald Trump would come in to office and take a forceful position on the UN/US Refugee Admissions Program and tell Congress to investigate the program (and the contractors!) with an eye to trashing or reforming the whole system.
Looks like Trump has thrown in the towel on refugee program, it is now up to you where you live!
With his capitulation on the annual determination, with a substantial 45,000 refugees to be admitted in the next 12 months, Republican leaders (with the Chamber of Commerce cheering) gave a sigh of relief.
It is still enough cheap labor and no one is going to force them to investigate how taxpayer dollars are spent and no one will call them heartless racists.
(Although there is still one glimmer of hope. The 45,000 is a CEILING and the Trump Admin can come in substantially lower than that and be within the law. No executive order is needed to stay well below the ceiling!)
So, where does that leave you in the pockets of resistancethat have formed over the last few years? It means back to work (or continuing to work in your communities) exposing the system, exposing the contractors, and electing people to local office who don’t want Washington dictating the future demographic makeup of your towns and cities.
(By the way, I am very aware of many of you who never quit working hard, but won’t name you here now.)
For those of you who are advanced in your work, please forgive the following list of things that need to be done locally. We have new readers asking what they can do, so this is mostly for them.
My list of suggestions below is in no particular order:
~Learn all you can about the UN/US Refugee Admissions Program. You might start with my Frequently Asked Questions, here.
~Call yourstate refugee coordinatorand politely ask for information on who came to your state in the past and who is coming in the future. Ask for your state’s refugee plan.
~Learn how to useWrapsnet(I’m going to have a tutorial shortly) so you know which ethnic groups are coming to your town.
~Find the subcontractor (s) working near you. Go here. Find your state and city (if you live within 100 miles of one of these offices, your town is fair game). Note the abbreviation in the left hand corner. That stands for one of the nine major federal contractors***
Some cities are such large refugee resettlement sites that more than one contractor is working there. Bidding for bodies?
~Call your closest subcontractor office and ask for theR & P Abstract for FY18. They will dodge and weave and may even tell you they don’t know what you are talking about. Be persistent. You may ultimately have to use your state’s public information laws to get the abstract out of your state coordinator. (You will likely never get a FOIA answered by the US State Department, however.)
The Abstract, in addition to other research you do, will lead you to the employers who want the cheap migrant labor because they are usually cited in the Abstract. Expose them.
~The local refugee contractor is required to hold quarterly “stakeholder” meetings. They work very hard to keep the general public out. Call them and your state coordinator and ask to be included. If you get a runaround that is one more thing to publicize. This program can only run with your money, therefore YOU are a stakeholder.
~Become friendly with people in your local health department and other social service agencies. You may find them willing to tell you more about the mode of operation of the contractor/subcontractor working in your community and/or problems related to the refugees themselves (eg. high TB rates).
~Become familiar with the impact the refugee program is having in your local school system which is usually the first place we see problems erupting.
~I would expose every case you find where the subcontractor/contractor had left a refugee family or families in the lurch. Keep your focus on the government agencies and the contractors and possible malfeasance there rather than being aggressively anti-refugee. Keep in the back of your mind, that some refugees have been sold a bill of goods and wish they could go home.
~Get as much as you can into your local newspaper/TV/radio show. If they are all pro-Open Borders you will have to write your own blog or facebook page to get the information you are finding out to a broader audience.
~If you have someone in your group (yes, it would be good to form a little group) who could do youtube, or small documentary films that is another option to reach more people.
~Speak up in your churchesif they are affiliated with the nine major contractors*** Tell your church leaders that it isn’t Christian charity to take millions from the US taxpayers.
~Some grassroots activists have successfully taken to the road with powerpoint presentationsto be shown to local civic groups.
~Arrange for expert speakers to come to your towns to educate a wider audience.
~All of the above, and more that I’m not thinking of, is to educate your community with the goal of electing mayors and council members who are on your same wavelength. The Left has been electing mayors for years and that is how many cities are in the pickle they are now in!
~Consider running for elected office yourself. Even if you think you can’t win because it is another way to publicize your views.
~Educate and put pressure on your governors and your state representatives, because if you can agitate them enough there will be a trickle-up effect on US Representatives and Senators who don’t want to hear a buzzing of bees back in the district.
~As the 2018 election year gets underway, make sure you have people ready to ask tough questions of your US Congressmen/Senators as they visit your town.
~When you earlier identified those industries and global corporations pushing for cheap labor, you should be working to find out which elected officials at all levels of government are getting campaign contributions from them as well. Use that information in 2018.
~If you are a member of one of the big three immigration control groups (CIS, FAIR, and NumbersUSA) and/or the Heritage Foundation you will need to keep pressure on them. Since they are in the swamp they may not have a good understanding of how the USRAP is affecting you and thus trade-off the refugee program for something they want.
And, one final thing for right now, don’t get discouraged if you can only find a few people to work with you, just plug away with a plan a little every day and look to your key helpers for moral support and a little help!
I’m sure there is more I’m not thinking of right now… I’ll update later.
*** These are the nine federal resettlement contractors paid by the head to place refugees in your towns. They are also ‘community organizers’ who call upon their supporters to lobby Congress etc. They are rolling in millions of tax dollars.
I’m thinking that one thing that Trump’s slightly lower cap for FY18 will do to them is to force them to tighten their belts and, as they do, tensions within the fake non-profits could rise—watch for it!
Sometimes I don’t have interesting news (like refugee crimes or contractor corruption stories), but just basic information on how you can do your own research and find the facts on how the UN/US Refugee Admissions Program works (yes, knowledge is power).
Today I went to Wrapsnet to check on processing country maps that are updated on the 5th of each month. On October 5th the State Department contractor (the Refugee Processing Center) should have posted data through September 30th (for the whole of FY17) showing which countries process the most refugees in to the US (Turkey is usually tops).
(See one recent discussion on ‘processing countries’ here)
I wanted to know how many ‘refugees’ Australia had processed in to the US as of September 30th.
But, over the years I have frequently checked to see how many illegal aliens (transformed into refugees) we are bringing from Europe—specifically Malta.
So what do I find? A blank map supposedly showing processing countries from Oct. 1, 2017-Oct.5,2017. So what is going on? The map for the whole fiscal year (2017) should have been up until the 5th of November.
I was looking for ‘Map Arrivals by Processing Country as of SEPTEMBER 30th….’ at this page: http://www.wrapsnet.org/admissions-and-arrivals/
When I clicked on ‘Map Arrivals by Processing Country’ this is what I get:
Reporting period Oct. 1- Oct. 5? Is Trump’s State Department as secretive as the previous one? Or just incompetent?
I have to admit, I haven’t read it yet, but, for diehard grassroots investigators, know that the report is a treasure trove of information on the US Refugee Admissions Program and Trump’s 45,000 refugee ceiling *** for the year that began this past Sunday.
Don’t miss the tables at the end, often more useful than all the verbiage about why we need to save this or that ethnic group by hauling them to your town.
Here is the table that shows that the US admits the vast majority of permanent refugees.
Be sure to keep this so that the next time some Open Borders pusher says that Lebanon, Turkey, Germany and Jordan are doing more, remind them that ours are PERMANENT, not temporary residents. (note that this table uses calendar year numbers when we usually use fiscal year)
And, here is a table showing the costs of just the resettlement (this year, FY18, for up to 45,000 refugees).
Come to think of it, when those economic studies are done to ostensibly show how much refugees benefit America, do they ever show that it will cost the US taxpayer over $1 BILLION just to get 45,000 bodies in here?
Read the footnotes!
Please note that the anticipated costs do not include taxpayer funding for: educating the kids, Medicaid, some forms of cash assistance, food stamps, housing subsidies, interpreter costs, criminal justice system costs, etc.
Again, go here for the full report. One of the things I’ve noted over the years is that the report has no date on the cover. I can only guess that is because it is always very late and they don’t want any record of the fact that they skirt the law always on the whole determination/consultation process.
***Did you see that the Federation for American Immigration Reformcalled this a “responsible” number! Have friends like these been in the swamp too long?
Readers should know, that until very recently FAIR has not taken much interest in the UN/US Refugee Admissions Program.
This is more than the usual press statement from the White House on the Presidential Determination. In my experience previous statements have been shorter and certainly not so defensive.
Whose bright idea was it to ‘split the baby’ and place a cap on refugees arriving in the US at a number to anger both sides (Tillerson, Trump, Haley, McMaster?) Unless he morphed into Obama, Trump will never make the Open Borders Left happy, so why look weak and disrespect the base?
Below (hat tip Richard at Blue Ridge Forum) are just some of the nuggets (interspersed with comments from me) that interested me. Read the whole thinghere.
It reads like a press statement to justify suspending the whole program, or at least dropping the number significantly! 45,000 is not a significant drop!
President Donald J. Trump is Taking a Responsible and Humanitarian Approach on Refugees
President Trump has determined that up to 45,000 refugees may be admitted into the United States in Fiscal Year 2018. [George Bush averaged under 45,000 admissions from FY 2002-2008.—ed]
Editor: The difference between us and other countries being flooded with ‘refugees’ is that those refugees will not become permanent voting citizens in places like Jordan, Turkey and Lebanon. Those we take are on a path to citizenship.
With this new ceiling, the United States will continue to permanently resettle more refugees than any other country and we will continue to offer protection to the most vulnerable…
Editor: Remember readers that successful asylum seekers (those granted asylum) are refugees eligible for all the perks and privileges given to the refugees we fly in. They can access welfare and become citizens. They are refugees even if the media continues to say that the likes of the Boston Bombers are not refugees.
The decision reflects the need to concentrate limited resources on the approximately 270,000 aliens who have applied for asylum but have not been properly vetted, and are already present in the United States.
Editor: The next time you hear the contractors/volags say there are no terrorists in the refugee pool in America, remember this:
As of February 2017, more than 300 individuals who were initially admitted to the United States as refugees were under FBI investigation for potential ties to suspected terrorists.
Since 2011, there have been at least 20 admitted refugees who have been arrested or removed from the United States based on terrorism investigations.
In 2016, a Somali refugee attacked 11 Americans at Ohio State University in Columbus, Ohio.
Since the terrorist attacks of September 11, approximately two dozen individuals who had been admitted to the United States as refugees have been removed or arrested and convicted of terrorism-related offenses.
Editor: This is the first time in a long time we have heard a word about any state or local say about what is being dumped on communities from Washington, but couched in squishy language (help build trust in refugee resettlement). Who wrote this press release???
In February, the President met with local sheriffs at the White House to hear their concerns, including those about refugees who were resettled in their communities without local input.
President Trump believes in enhancing existing efforts to work closely with State and local leaders to help build community trust in refugee resettlement efforts while also determining the best placement of resettled refugees in the United States.
Editor: Regarding this next section of the White House press statement, there is no mechanism in place for any refugees who have been admitted to the US to go home. Over the years penniless unhappy refugees have come forward to say they made a mistake and want to go back home, but can’t afford to pay the airfare. We have argued that there should be a way to accommodate their wishes.
One primary goal of United States refugee policy is to enable refugees to ultimately return home, where they can be reunited with friends and family and help rebuild their communities.
[….]
The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) spent more than $96 billion on programs supporting or benefiting refugees between 2005 and 2014.
HHS surveys from the Obama Administration show that 45% of refugees arriving between 2011 and 2015 were receiving cash assistance, 49% were receiving Medicaid, and that nearly 75% were receiving Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits.
Read it all here. I am sure I will be revisiting it.
45,000 is way too many and nothing here has changed my mind about that!
Indeed much of what is written above could have been used as justification for suspending the whole program!
And, by the way, where is the much more useful report that is supposed to have been delivered to Congress before the determination?
Endnote: In case you missed it, Donald began welcoming those Australian rejected asylum seekers just this week as he surpassed his 50,000 CEILING for FY17 by 3,695! Total as of this morning for FY17 is 53,695.
Maybe the Prez should invite those mostly single men who have lived in detention for as long as 4 years to the White House and show them to the media (and show his family what a humanitarian he can be)!
