Senator Sessions wants Office of Refugee Resettlement to provide missing annual report

12/05/2015 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Shaking my head, where were you guys when I needed you years ago!

Marsha+Blackburn+Jeff+Sessions+dLXpCJOWnJbm — Senator Jeff Sessions (center) and Rep. Marsha Blackburn sent a letter to HHS Secretary this week looking for ORR annual reports to Congress.

The Office of Refugee Resettlement (in HHS) is required by law to provide annual reports to Congress and for years and years we squawked about the fact that for years (years!) they were way behind. In fact by the time I testified at a State Department hearing in 2012 they were 3 years behind. My complaints went on for years and for awhile they were starting to catch up. (I did complain to the House immigration subcommittee too!).
I know, I’m grateful that the Congress is finally scrutinizing the UN/US State Department Refugee Admissions Program, but it was lonely there for awhile!
Here is Leo Hohmann at WND yesterday on the latest from Senator Sessions and others:

Several GOP members of Congress led by U.S. Sens. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., have placed the Obama administration on notice that it is in violation of federal law with regard to the program that resettles foreign refugees in 180 U.S. cities and towns.

Sessions, along with Sen. Richard Shelby, R-Ala., and Reps. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., and Lamar Smith, R-Texas, released a letter Thursday that was sent the previous day to Obama’s secretary of Health and Human Services, Sylvia Burwell.

The Obama administration has said it will resettle 85,000 foreign refugees in the U.S. in the current fiscal year, followed by 100,000 in the next year. It has also asked for a substantial increase in funding for the program.

But the law requires annual reports on how those resettlements are carried out.

“Failure to provide Congress with required information on the resettlement of foreign nationals within the United States violates both the law and the public trust,” Sessions said in a statement. “These are grave matters.”

The letter accuses the administration of violating federal law by failing to submit an annual report to Congress on the activities of the Office of Refugee Resettlement, which operates within Burwell’s department and doles out welfare benefits to refugees.

Continue reading here.

A trip down memory lane…..

Limon testifying — In 2013, my research indicated that those annual reports to Congress began going off track during the tenure of Lavinia Limon as Director of the ORR under Bill Clinton. Today Limon heads up one of the resettlement contracting agencies—USCRI.

This is what I said in 2012 at a US State Department scoping meeting (Ten Reasons there should be a moratorium on refugee resettlement):

5) The agencies, specifically the Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR), is in complete disarray as regards its legally mandated requirement to report to Congress every year on how refugees are doing and where the millions of tax dollars are going that run the program. The last (and most recent) annual report to be sent to Congress is the 2008 report—so they are out of compliance for fiscal years 2009, 2010 and 2011. A moratorium is necessary in order for the ORR to bring its records entirely up-to-date. Additionally, there needs to be an adequate tracking system designed to gather required data—frankly some of the numbers reported for such measures of dependence on welfare as food stamp usage, cash assistance and employment status are nothing more than guesses. (The lack of reports for recent years signals either bureaucratic incompetence and disregard for the law, or, causes one to wonder if there is something ORR is hiding.)

You might want to visit all of my ten reasons for a moratorium because they are as valid today as they were in 2012!

In 2013…..
I did further analysis of the annual reports and if they were sent to Congress according to law (here in March of 2013) and this is what I found:

My original plan was to start researching at 1990 and move toward the present time to see when they went off track and began breaking the law. It didn’t take long—1993!

So, I went back to 1980 and sure enough through the entire Reagan Presidency and the George HW Bush Presidency from 1980 to 1992 those Annual Reports were right on time—submitted to Congress on January 31st of the following year.

But, you know what the little cheaters did beginning with the 1993 report (and continued to do for the next 20 years)—they stopped putting publication dates on them. Oh, they had FY 1993 on the cover, but no information about when that actually went to Congress—heck it could have been three years late then!

So, who was the Director of the ORR during Bill Clinton’s time in office?

Lavinia Limon who now heads up one of the nine major federal contractors—the US Committee for Refugees and Immigrants—was in charge of getting those reports to Congress.

For all of you especially in ‘Pockets of Resistance’ check out the annual reports (the list is here). They are a treasure-trove of information on the program.
Update: Re-posted my Ten reasons, here.

Barnett: Contractors monopolize US resettlement as it is all about money, not what is best for America

12/01/2015 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Don Barnett, a fellow at the Center for Immigration Studies reports on how the resettlement contracting business works in an opinion piece in the Washington Times, here on Sunday.

In his opening paragraphs he reports on a little known (declassified) report for the National War College published in 2000. The author was (and may still be) a longtime employee of the US State Department and intimately involved in refugee resettlement.
I urge all of you to read the Robinson study, we reported on it here in 2010 (you will find a link to the study in that post), because it demonstrates how supposed ‘refugees’ became political pawns for the Clinton Administration’s justification for its phony-baloney Bosnian war, and how the contractors looking for more paying clients (aka refugees) urged an airlift of Kosovar ‘refugees’ who didn’t even want to come to America! The airlift was a twofer!
The report is entitled: ‘How public opinion shaped refugee policy in Kosovo.’
Barnett at the Washington Times:

Despite the exposure refugee resettlement has received lately, there has been little discussion of how the program actually operates.

Each year the administration establishes source regions and numbers for next year’s quota. The U.N. refugee agency refers most of the refugees that come through the system, though embassy staff and State Department contractors may also make referrals. An influential network of private contractors implements the program.

Speaking of the contractors running refugee resettlement, David M. Robinson, a former acting director of the refugee bureau in the State Department, wrote in 2000,

“The agencies [the resettlement contractors—ed] form a single body [that] wields enormous influence over the Administration’s refugee admissions policy. It lobbies the hill effectively to increase the number of refugees admitted for permanent resettlement each year and at the same time provides overseas processing for admissions under contract to the State Department. In fact, the federal government provides about ninety percent of its collective budget. If there is a conflict of interest, it is never mentioned.”

“[Its] solution to every refugee crisis is simplistic and the same: increase the number of admissions to the United States without regard to budgets or competing foreign policy considerations.”

Continue reading here.
Readers! For the first time in 35 years you are helping to create a serious roadblock to these nine federal contractors that have ruled the roost and called the shots for decades, please keep up the pressure.

The most important thing you can do today is laid out for you in our post yesterday on the Omnibus funding bill before Congress!

Addendum: As I reread my post from 2010, I was reminded that one of the terrorists arrested as part of the Ft. Dix Six terror plot was a refugee—add him to the list of refugee terrorists that the contractors say do not exist!
And a note to any reporters reading this: we have an enormous body of work here—over 7,000 posts—use our search function for key words for anything you are working on!

Action Alert: Call your members of the House and Senate at 202-224-3121 and ask them to vigorously oppose the Refugee Resettlement funding contained in the Omnibus Spending Bill that will be voted on by 12-11-15! Please call by this Friday, Dec. 4th.

Fact sheet provided to House of Representatives briefing November 12, 2015

11/25/2015 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Editor: Have a Happy Thanksgiving. I’ll be away from the computer for a couple of days, so that means no comments will be posted until I get back to work. Here is a little weekend pleasure-reading for you!

You’ve heard me mention several times that on the day before the Paris Islamic terror attack, Don Barnett and I briefed staff of Congressmen and Senators on Capitol Hill on the UN/US Refugee Admissions Program. The briefing was organized by ACT for America. Again, this was before Paris and the whole refugee world was turned on its head.

House of Representatives Briefing
November 12, 2015

~Refugee definition: The 1951 Refugee Convention spells out that a refugee is someone who “owing to a well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion, is outside the country of his nationality, and is unable to, or owing to such fear, is unwilling to avail himself of the protection of that country.”

However, there has been an intentional expansion of the definition. (Unaccompanied Alien Children is an example).

This is Zaatari refugee camp in Jordan, one of the camps where the UNHCR is choosing our Syrian refugees.

~The Refugee Act of 1980 created the Refugee Admissions Program (USRAP) presently being administered to resettle approximately 70,000 refugees each year (in recent years) to the US.

~The Obama Administration increased the projected ceiling to 85,000 for FY2016. 10,000 of those slots are earmarked for Syrian refugees presently being referred to the US by the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) which says it has selected 20,000 for consideration so far.

~When the President sends his “Determination” to Congress in advance of the fiscal year (two weeks in advance is required!) it is accompanied by a report (Proposed Refugee Admissions for Fiscal Year 2016). There is supposed to be a legally required consultation with Congress.

~There will be large increases this year from Africa including (but not limited to) DR Congo, Eritrea and Sudan. The largest number of refugees arriving in recent years are from: Burma (Myanmar), Bhutan/Nepal, Iraq, and Somalia. We admitted 120,000 Iraqis since 2007.

~In FY2015, we admitted 1,682 Syrian refugees, less than 40 were Christians/other minorities.

~In 2014, the United States took in 67% of the refugees resettled around the world. The next closest country was Canada with 9.9%.

~The UNHCR refers most of our refugees. The Department of Homeland Security is charged with doing the security screening. The Dept. of State (Bureau of Population, Refugees and Migration) works with nine major refugee contractors who along with the State Dept. determine their placement in America. The Dept. of Health and Human Services (Office of Refugee Resettlement) provides grants and additional federal funding mostly through those nine non-profit agencies.

~The anticipated cost to the US Treasury of the resettlement process (not including welfare/Medicaid/education costs) is projected to be just short of $1.2 billion for FY2016.

~The nine non-profit agencies contracted to resettle refugees include: US Conference of Catholic Bishops, Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service, Episcopal Migration Ministries, World Relief (Evangelicals), Church World Service, Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society, International Rescue Committee, Ethiopian Community Development Council, and the US Committee for Refugees and Immigrants.

~There are 312 subcontractors working under the nine major contractors in 185 locations around the country. There are 24 offices located around the country for the processing of Unaccompanied Alien Children. A placement site map is available on line (attached).

~The states receiving the highest number of refugees in FY2015 were in descending order: TX, CA, NY, PA, FL, GA, MI, AZ, WA, and NC.

~States receiving no refugees in 2014 or 2015 were: WY, MT. Delaware received none in 2014.

~State and local elected officials have virtually no say in the resettlement process. This is especially so in the so-called Wilson-Fish states where the state doesn’t even have a refugee office under state government and the program is completely run through the US State Department and a non-profit organization. Those states are: AL, AL, CO, ID, KY, LA, MA, NV, ND, SD, TN, VT and San Diego County.

~Refugees are a special class of legal immigrant which permits them to receive virtually all forms of welfare upon arrival.

~Grassroots opposition is growing throughout the US to the resettlement process mostly due to the lack of transparency and the fear of Islamic radicals who might get in through the program.

Some points regarding the proposed Syrian resettlement and the European migration crisis:

~Only about 50% of the migrants flooding Europe today are Syrians. The next highest number are from Afghanistan.

~These are a mix of asylum seekers and economic migrants. Asylum seekers must prove that just as refugees, they fear returning to their homelands for fear of persecution (escaping war per se has never been a part of the refugee definition).

~We are not expected to get refugees from the European flow (Malta exception). Ours will come through UN referrals from mostly UNHCR camps and regional offices.

~The refugee resettlement contractors (NGOs mentioned above) working with the US State Department began advocating several years ago for the resettlement of 15,000 Syrians per year for each of the next 5 years. They then modified their request to 65,000 Syrians before Pres. Obama leaves office. Subsequently they have demanded 100,000 Syrians before 2017.

~Earlier 14 US Senators wrote to the President asking for 65,000 Syrians. A total of 84 Senators and Members of Congress have subsequently urged the President to speed up security screening.

~FBI Director James Comey has told Congress that Syrians cannot be thoroughly screened because the Administration has no access to data (biographic or biometric) on most of them.

This post is filed in our category entitled ‘where to find information’ which now contains 401 previous posts.

Don't forget refugee health concerns, perhaps more deadly than terrorism

11/22/2015 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

We have an entire category here at RRW on refugee and immigrant health (286 previous posts!) and I’ve maintained for years that health problems coming into the US with refugees and the cost of treating the myriad diseases and chronic conditions could ultimately be more significant to your community than a terrorist attack might be.

TB photo — Those refugees with latent TB are admitted to the US and some who are being treated for active TB may also gain entry. Photo: http://www.cdc.gov/immigrantrefugeehealth/guidelines/refugee-guidelines.html

That said, here is an informative article (hat tip: Joanne) from The Journal of Family Practice a few years ago which goes over the issues facing the medical community as we ‘welcome’ over 100,000 refugees and asylum seekers to America each year.
Pay special attention to the sections on Tuberculosis and HIV (there is no longer a bar to admission for HIV/AIDS and refugees are no longer even tested for it in advance of admission). Other big medical issues include intestinal parasites and hepatitis. And, of course mental health.
In 2012 we posted a film describing how refugees with active TB were being prepared for entry into the US, here.
Here is how the Journal of Family Practice article opens:

Refugees arrive in the United States with complex medical issues, including illnesses rarely seen here, mental health concerns, and chronic conditions such as diabetes and hypertension.

I encourage all of you working in ‘pockets of resistance’ to be sure to do your homework on health issues, including mental health issues. According to Anastasia Brown of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops, 75% of Iraqis entering the US have mental illness. See Journal of Migration and Human Security report, here.
The Centers for Disease Control also has important information on its website, here.
And, in the past we have noted that both Texas and Minnesota health departments have lots of good information about refugee health on their websites, and I expect some other states do as well. If your state health department does not report on refugee medical problems that is something you should be advocating for where you live.
Again, see our ‘Health issues’ category by clicking here.

Syrians entering US in first six weeks of 2016 fiscal year; 98% Sunni Muslim

11/17/2015 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Here is where the 291 Syrians who have entered the US in FY2016 have been placed. California, Texas, Kentucky, Arizona and Ohio make the top five. (I selected for my search October 1, 2015 to November 15, 2015 and assume the data base is up to date to the 15th, but can’t know that for sure).
The flood gates have been opened and they will arrive hot and heavy now (will the governors have any power?).

At the Refugee Processing Center (click on reports and select interactive reports, you will be able to figure it out!) you can also check the religions of arriving refugees. Here is the breakdown for the 291 so far this fiscal year (assuming data base is up to date as of November 15th, two days ago):

3 Catholics

1 Christian

1 Orthodox

286 Sunni Muslims

As we have reported many times, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees picks most of our refugees and in the case of the Syrians they come from UN camps populated by mostly Muslims. He has 20,000 chosen for us already. At a recent immigration conclave in Washington, DC, we were there to hear him say that the Syrian Christians are not persecuted because the “regime” (Assad) was protecting them.
As long as the UNHCR is choosing most of our refugees, I don’t expect the percentage of Muslims in the stream to change much.
One other bit of confusion flying around in the mainstream media is that somehow we will be getting Syrians who have flooded into Europe, we won’t be (at least not in any great number for now).