Invasion of Europe news…. President Trump is going to Poland on July 6th. Time could not be better! (Trump visiting PNA in September 2016.) http://www.nydailynews.com/newswires/news/world/poland-hails-upcoming-trump-visit-huge-success-article-1.3240554
Here is a short bit at the Independent:
The European Commission says it is launching legal action against the Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland for failing to take in refugees under a legally binding sharing plan agreed by the European Union.
The Commission said Tuesday in a statement that it has repeatedly urged the three countries to relocate refugees or at least pledge to do so.
But it said they have not taken action “in breach of their legal obligations,” and that it “has decided to launch infringement procedures” on Wednesday.
A longer article at The Guardiansays this. Sure looks like nobody wants to take in more refugees. Gee, I wonder why!
Out of 160,000 refugees due to be taken under the scheme agreed in 2015, only 20,869 have been relocated. In theory, countries can be fined for every refugee in the quota they fail to accept.
Lots of ‘fining’ coming soon….
Our complete ‘Invasion of Europe’ archive is here.
Nayla Rush at the Center for Immigration Studieshas done us all a great service by pulling all the threads together on the “dumb deal” that could see the US taking over 1,000 ‘refugees’ that Australia does not want to take to its mainland.
Leo Hohmann at World Net Daily summarizes the key points and adds some comments by me and others:
According to a new report, President Trump is moving forward with a deal made by the Obama administration to resettle illegal-immigrant boat people whom Australia will not accept as “refugees” even though they have been classified as such by the United Nations.
The Trump administration is reportedly preparing to implement the deal with Australia. Under the terms, the U.S. will accept hundreds of unwanted Muslims rejected for asylum by the Aussies in return for several thousand Central American refugees awaiting resettlement at a U.N. camp in Costa Rica.
The deal was negotiated last summer by Obama’s Secretary of State, John Kerry. And Trump famously tweeted that he was going to study the “dumb deal” before accepting it.
Now, Trump is reported to be moving forward with the deal.
There’s only one problem, say refugee watchdogs.
These really aren’t refugees at all. They are illegal aliens who tried to sneak into Australia, were interdicted at sea and taken to an off-shore detention center in Papua New Guinea. They migrated from some of the world’s worst jihadist strongholds – in Afghanistan, Sudan, Somalia, Iran and Iraq.
The process of resettling these refugees, mostly men, is “well underway,” immigration analyst Nayla Rush reports for the Washington-based Center for Immigration Studies.
“The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) referred for resettlement in the United States over 850 detainees who were granted refugee status,” Rush writes. “Those could be admitted by the end of October, after undergoing ‘extreme vetting.’ But, no matter how ‘extreme’ or dependable the vetting (and the data U.S. officials use to screen these refugees is transmitted from a private refugee-resettlement contractor), the question remains: Why resettle Australia’s unwanted refugees in the United States?”
Rush highlights that these “refugees” are, for the most part, from countries which the Trump administration is trying to ban travel.
“Most also suffer from serious mental health issues, are not keen on coming to the United States to begin with (Australia was and still is their preferred destination), and are likely to have nothing but disdain for President Trump,” she reports.
When refugees were initially being placed in the county where I live (now more than 10 years ago), our community’s first impression was that the ‘Christian’ resettlement agency—the Virginia Council of Churches—was basically dropping off a couple hundred refugees, placing them in deplorable housing, and then not providing them with some of their basic needs.
I wanted to know what sort of program was this. Did the government allow this? But, of course as we know now, nine major federal resettlement contractors (including World Relief)*** are federal government contractors who oversee a network of over 300 subcontractors. The nine sign agreements with the US State Department laying out what services they will provide refugees in their care. Indeed the contractor is paid by the head for each refugee it is assigned.
Over the years, we have reported on many cases like this one being made in Tennessee that the contractor is not fulfilling its end of the bargain.
From The Tennessee Star:
During the March “Murfreesboro Muslim Youth” (MMY) meeting soliciting help for refugees brought to Rutherford County by federal resettlement contractor World Relief, it was disclosed that goods and services that the government paid for were not provided to the new refugees.
Abdou Kattih has been an outspoken critic of efforts by the legislature to keep Shariah law out of TN and to rein-in the refugee industry in the state. http://www.dnj.com/story/news/politics/2016/01/20/legislative-proposals-prompt-muslim-community-efforts/78809062/
According to Abdou Kattih, founder and president of MMY, were it not for his organization, special emergency needs such as getting medical care for the refugee who arrived with a broken jaw or simply providing household essentials and even clothing, would not have been addressed, explaining they had taken care of “someone that does not have literally anything but the clothes they had off of last month.”
Melissa Sohrabi, who merged her group “Roots for Refugees” with MMY, was more direct in detailing the deficiencies of the government contractor in this talk she delivered in March:
“There is an expectation of what should happen and there’s reality of what really does happen. . . Why didn’t World Relief give them a table and chairs? Why didn’t they bring them a couch? What’s going on? . . . Not only did it not happen but if it did happen, those families are charged for every belonging, every item that is donated to World Relief, the family is then charged for, for having it delivered to them.”
World Relief (WR), based in Baltimore, is one of nine national refugee resettlement organizations that sign a “Cooperative Agreement” with the U.S. State Department to receive federal funding to resettle refugees. This is taxpayer money allocated for each refugee brought to a community; the funds are split between the refugee and the agency. In addition, the resettlement agency is required to provide the goods and services as detailed in the signed agreement.
Between fiscal years 2016 -17, WR was paid over $40 million by the federal government to resettle refugees in communities where they operate local offices which also receive federal funding through grants administered by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
Continue reading here.
One of several things that came to mind when I read this, is something I have been wondering about for some time. Five of the nine resettlement contractors are ‘Christian charities’, one is Jewish and three are secular.
They all eagerly resettle Muslim refugees, but I have wondered when will some Muslim charity demand to get in on the federal gravy train? Laying the groundwork in this story?
***Here are the nine federal contractors that monopolize the US Refugee Admissions Program:
…and they seem especially pleased to announce that they are getting them from those terror-producing countries—a flow that the Trump Administration was trying to curtail.
From Buffalo News:
WASHINGTON – President Trump’s promise to cut in half the number of refugees coming to America – and therefore Buffalo – has turned into a dream unfulfilled.
Buffalo offers proof of it. State Department figures show the city welcomed 376 new refugees between Trump’s Jan. 20 inauguration and last Wednesday. That’s a 32 percent reduction from the 554 who arrived a year before, but nothing close to a 50 percent reduction.
Yippee! More refugees coming to Buffalo from Africa and the Middle East. Ms. Scott works for a subcontractor of Church World Service. http://www.jersbuffalo.org/index.php/news/entries/journeys_end_refugee_services_announces_new_executive_director
What’s more, 149 of those new arrivals come from Iran, Iraq, Somalia, Sudan or Syria – nations subject to Trump’s travel ban before the federal courts ruled it was unconstitutional.
And now, the city’s refugee resettlement agencies are gearing up for a growing wave of refugees under a new State Department announcement that further undercuts Trump’s promise.
“We had a very busy May, and we will have a very busy June,” said Karen Andolina Scott, executive director of Journey’s End Refugee Services, one of Buffalo’s fourrefugee resettlement agencies.***
Church World Service, the national refugee agency affiliated with Journey’s End, “was able to send us more people than we thought,” Scott added.
[….]
Now Buffalo stands poised to welcome a growing number of refugees in the next few months. That’s because the State Department last month quietly abandoned the weekly refugee admission quotas that had been in place earlier in the year.
[I’m highlighting this (above) because I have readers who still don’t believe this happened.—ed]
Congress fully-funded refugee resettlement for the remainder of FY17 and Trump signed it!
Budgetary constraints previously limited the number of refugees coming to America in the current fiscal year. But a State Department spokesman said the temporary budget bill that Trump signed on May 5, which funds the government through Sept. 30, includes full funding for the nation’s refugee resettlement program.
That returns the annual cap for refugees coming to America the same as the one Obama set: 110,000 for the year ending Sept. 30. [This part is still up in the air, however, a reminder that this number—110,000—is a ceiling not a target!—ed]
Refugee resettlement advocates doubt the nation will receive that number. They said it appears the Department of Homeland Security, which vets prospective refugees, slowed down that process in several countries in wake of Trump’s earlier actions, which in turn could slow refugee arrivals in the United States.
Still, local resettlement agencies expect the pace of new refugee arrivals to grow in the coming months.
Yippee! Their paying “clients” are arriving! More here.
I have a fairly large archive on Buffalo (here) and its problems (similar to Utica).
*** Go here for the list (not sure if it is complete) of resettlement contractors working near you.
Update: Refugee admissions picking up in Twin Falls, Idaho too! See here.
….And, it has nothing to do with any Trump Administration plans. Other actors have stepped in to begin to make it happen and as the story tells us, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees had no comment.
Before critics jump in, it should be none of our business if these families want to put their lives in the hands of Hezbollah, it is not our role (or the UN’s!) to play the papa and tell them where to live and what to do with their lives (which is a large part of the psychology that drives refugee resettlement—the ‘we know what’s good for you’ mentality!).
From Lebanon’s Daily Star (hat tip: Joanne)
BEIRUT: Dozens of refugee families returned to Aasal al-Ward in southern Syria after leaving the Lebanese border town of Arsal over the weekend as part of a deal brokered by Hezbollah and Syrian rebel factions.
Photo accompanying Daily Star story.
The Lebanese Army said in a statement that 30 civilian vehicles carrying an estimated 50 families departed from the northern Lebanese town in the early hours of Saturday and a military escort accompanied them until the last military checkpoint.
According to the Army statement, the move was undertaken in response to a “keen interest of the families” to return to their homeland. Hezbollah’s Al-Manar TV circulated a video Sunday depicting the Syrian families celebrating their return to their hometown.
Local media estimated that 50 families chose to leave Lebanon for Syria Saturday. A total of 500 families are expected to relocate following negotiations earlier this year to establish small safe zones for civilians in the Qalamoun region, brokered by Hezbollah.
A security source in the town of Arsal told The Daily Star Saturday that the return of dozens of displaced families was the result of behind-the-scenes negotiations between Hezbollah and the Syrian regime on one hand, and armed factions present in the area on the other.
[….]
The United Nations refugee agency, UNHCR, had no comment when contacted Sunday evening.
There is more, but you may have to subscribe to get it.
Truth be told, most ‘refugees’ just want to go home and that should be our number one goal—to get them there—not move them around the world like pieces on a chessboard.
