They are changing America by changing the people
The Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR), which was mentioned by our reader in our previous post, asks an important question.
This is a subject we have mentioned frequently over the years as evidenced by our huge category (338 previous posts!) on refugee health issues, see it here.
See FAIR’s full report here.
Again, this post is archived in RRW’s ‘health issues’ category here. Don’t miss all the recent stories about TB in refugees admitted to the US.
There have been many efforts in recent years to press local and state governments to cough up data on the cost of refugees placed in communities—most recently in North Dakota and Minnesota.
This Congressional Research Memo to Congress from 2015 gives you a glimpse in to why they aren’t able to do it (assuming they were willing!).
Refugees are not identified (separately from other immigrants) at the local level when they go to the local social service agency to get their “benefits.” Indeed, immigrants may not even be designated as such on welfare applications.
Of course, this could easily be remedied by writing a few laws that direct local welfare agencies/school systems getting federal funds to require immigration status at the time one signs up for benefits or enrollment. Is the recipient a ‘refugee’ or one of many other categories of legal immigrant (or illegal!)?
In 2015, unknown Senators attempted to get some answers and this is what they got. (Hat tip: Joanne)
So, has the recipient of the report done anything about it?
From Congressional Research Service:
So the Senate requester is directed to this table (below) from the 2013 ORR Annual Report to Congress. You might wish to see some of those yourself by clicking here.
You will find, as I have (see here in 2014), that data like this below is completely extrapolated from self-reporting by refugees who are called on the phone (who can be found and who answer the phone!) and are WILLING to tell a stranger (a contract worker) what ‘benefits’ they are getting.
You can then imagine how useless this data really is!
As much as I want to encourage efforts to get the true costs for refugees to the American taxpayer, it won’t be possible until local and state agencies are forced to get the information on immigration status of someone coming in for benefits. And, if it is required to divulge one’s legal status (refugees are legal of course), then, in the process, the local agency will necessarily have to admit the illegal status of some beneficiaries of your taxpayer-funded kindness. They do not want to do that!
And, one more thing! If you think you can get a true study where you live, you must make sure that included in the cost side of the ledger are costs to the criminal justice system (how much is a life sentence in prison costing some states?), interpreter costs, emergency room costs, monitoring and medicines for those with TB, and the cost to the US economy of remittances (money sent out of the US economy to the refugee’s home country). Other costs I’m not thinking of?
No time to read it, but thought you should know this new General Accountability Office (GAO) study came out yesterday in Washington. Let me know if you see anything useful!
My experience with past GAO studies on the US Refugee Admissions Program (USRAP) is that, other than media like RRW which could use their findings to confirm a point we have made, they result in not much change in the actual operation of the the program.
Maybe I will be surprised this time.
Click here: https://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-17-706 (there will be a place to click for the full report).
By the way, if you have never looked at it, I have a whole category entitled: ‘where to find information.’ This post is archived there.
Pew Research Center has done some useful number crunching using the data available to you as well at Wrapsnet.
Here are their findings in two simple graphs. Readers should know that the flood of refugees coming in from the DR Congo are part of a five year plan agreed to during the Obama Administration to clean out the UN camps housing ‘refugees’ from the DR Congo. We reported this news in June 2013, here.
The group contains many women with mental health issues and children (very costly to the US taxpayer). And, if other UN camp clean outs are any indication, we won’t stop at 50,000!
Last fall we showed you where 33,000 from the DR Congo were placed in America. Most from the DR Congo are not Muslims.
From Pew Research:
I have two categories that might be useful to readers wanting to dig in to data. One is entitled ‘refugee statistics’ and the other is ‘Where to find information,‘ but I warn you both are huge. This post is archived in both.
Update: I realized tonight that if we cut off federal funding for refugee contractors we would have a significant down payment for The Wall!
I hadn’t checked the most recent data on how much of your money goes to the nine federal refugee resettlement contractors (aka VOLAGs) lately. So here is the latest information I could find. I had to use several sources mostly because some contractors do not file a Form 990 (LOL! they claim they are churches and are thus exempt).
Unfortunately I couldn’t find all income information for all nine for the same year, so it is a little hard to make a direct comparison, but you get the idea.
These are the nine major federal resettlement contractors. (Go here to see a data base with the hundreds of subcontractors working for them in a town near you.)
Church World Service as of June 2016 had a total revenue for the previous year of $88,455,527.
71.3% of their millions comes from you—the taxpayer—according to Charity Navigator, here. You are the source of government grants:
Their chief executive, Rev. John McCullough makes an annual salary of $251,224.
ECDC is not rated at Charity Navigator so I had to use their most recent Form 990, see here.
(If you have trouble opening the Form 990, go here and then download the document.)
Their total revenue for the year ending September 30, 2014 was $17,448,992. You will see on page 9 that they received $16,290,580 in government grants making them 93% funded by you, the taxpayer.
ECDC’s President Tsehaye Teferra has income listed on page 7 in three columns. The first is direct compensation of $171,683 and the two other columns involve other income from this organization and from “related” organizations of $57,857 and $46,843 (don’t ask me what that is!).
We know they are 99.5% funded by you because they admitted it here. But, because their federal funds flow in to a church ‘kitty’ and because churches don’t file Form 990’s (or most churches don’t), we have no idea how much they are getting or what the program leaders are being paid. Frankly, this is shameful!
If you are of the Episcopal faith, you need to start asking questions!
According to Charity Navigator for the year ending 12/2015, HIAS had a total revenue of $40,565,891.
Chief executive Mark Hetfield‘s annual salary in that report is $358,718.
Be sure to focus on how much bigger the IRC is with an annual revenue of $688,920,920! From Charity Navigator:
Head honcho David Miliband hit the jackpot with this annual salary: $591,846!
USCRI is a little harder to figure out. Charity Navigator does not rate them for this reason:
This organization is not eligible to be rated by Charity Navigator because, as a service for individual givers, we only rate organizations that depend on support from individual contributors and foundations. Organizations such as this, that get most of their revenue from the government or from program services, are therefore not eligible to be rated.
You could say that USCRI is a quasi-government organization masquerading as a non-profit!
So we go to the most recent Form 990 available for year ending September 30, 2015. (Or download pdf at ProPublica, here)
On page 9 you can see that they only take in less than $1 million of their $51,524,570 from private gifts and contributions. All of their “program income” is likely through taxpayer dollars as well.
President and CEO Lavinia Limon makes $260,258 in annual compensation plus pulls down another $42,231 from this and related organizations (whatever that is!).
Like USCRI it’s a little hard to figure out, from their recent Form 990 here where their total income is $55,983,615, exactly which of the fees in their income column actually are taxpayer dollars too.
We can assume there isn’t much private charity going to LIRS because Charity Navigator says the same thing they did for USCRI which is:
This organization is not eligible to be rated by Charity Navigator because, as a service for individual givers, we only rate organizations that depend on support from individual contributors and foundations. Organizations such as this, that get most of their revenue from the government or from program services, are therefore not eligible to be rated.
Just a reminder that USCRI and LIRS are really quasi-government agencies yet they are busy lobbying Congress and otherwise community organizing in order to influence the media and Congress to support more refugees (aka paying clients!) coming to America.
LIRS President and CEO Linda Hartke makes an annual salary of $274,632 and an additional $33,401 from this and related organizations (page 8).
Now it gets even trickier! The Bishops don’t file a Form 990 and their operations are so vast, I could spend the whole day and still not sort it out. Also, maybe you can find one, but I have not found an annual report for their refugee program since I found this one for 2014.
So we will have to rely on it (again). Keep in mind these funds for their refugee resettlement program do not include millions that go directly from the feds to some individual Catholic Charities and Dioceses around the US. (If you are researching your local CC or Dioceses, you can often find good numbers at USASpending.gov)
“Federal grants” is your money, so is the Travel Loan Collection Fees, so that puts the Bishops’ refugee resettlement program at 97% taxpayer funded. (I am not sure if the Unaccompanied Alien Children fall in to yet another fund!).
I would like to get a more up-to-date accounting for the Bishops, but they must be hiding those reports really well! I suspect they are pulling down even more payola in more recent years.
Obviously we don’t know what salaries are being paid for their Washington, DC lobbying shop. Their previous head lobbyist was Kevin Appleby.
That is according to Charity Navigator, here. Total revenue is $62,583,313 for the year ending September 30, 2015. But, I did find a more recent Form 990, here, with a huge jump in income in one year to $71,022,032. I thought World Relief was broke and closing offices??? (Gives me an idea for another post and that is to report on some of the contractors increases in funding over several years).
That Form 990 shows something I hadn’t seen in other Form 990’s and that is that the Prez/CEO doesn’t make a whole lot, but some financial officer (Barry Howard) is making over $250,000 big ones (see pages 7 & 8).
Here is Charity Navigator’s “contributions” breakdown. Ha! Ha! your tax dollars for government grants are contributions!
Whew! What a job searching for all that financial information! Hope you made it this far!
And, adding insult to injury, they lobby, kiss up to the media, and community organize against you who are paying for the whole refugee racket!
None of these organizations would survive very long if Congress and the President cut them loose (or stated more kindly and so as not to mix metaphors!—weaned them!).