News on refugees is pretty sparse these days involving mostly stories about how refugees (including illegal immigrants) don’t have work and are scrabbling to get their government bennies. Stories like this one from New Hampshire where my message to the Open Borders movement activists is this—you now need to step up and personally help (with your own time and money) all of the migrants you have helped bring to America.
However, I’m delighted to see that there is a spotlight shining on HIAS (aka the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society) from within the Jewish community.
HIAS, formerly known as the Hebrew International Aid Society*** until 2014, is in the news following a firestorm over the prospects of Dianne Lob, formerly the chair of its board of directors, becoming the chair-elect of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations.
The increased attention on HIAS provides an opportune time to scrutinize its work in resettling refugees. Unfortunately, a close examination leads to the conclusion that HIAS knowingly promotes policies that endanger Jews, as well as aligns with those linked to Islamist terrorism.
Rather than debating whether a former HIAS executive should head the big tent of all big tents of mainstream Judaism, the Jewish community should instead begin discussing how to show HIAS the door, just as it would for any other organization that enabled dangerously racist communities.
[….]
….the company HIAS keeps is telling. It has been unapologetic in its partnership with the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR). The ADL has raised serious concerns about CAIR, citing the fact, among others, that it openly delegitimizes Israel.
Because it is all over the news these days, I figured this might be a good time to repost some stories that you might not have seen or have long since forgotten. Like this one from 2017 (sure is good we were able to recover RRWwhen it was removed from the web last summer!):
Foreign-owned Big Meat hires Lutherans to help them find and retain refugee labor
That is the crux of this story and not in my wildest dreams did I think that money was directly changing hands between the meat industry and a federal refugee contractor, in this case Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Serviceheadquartered in Baltimore, MD.
I always assumed it was an informal relationship where the largely federally-funded ‘religious’ charity (LIRS is 96% funded by you and not via the collection plate) just happened to be bringing immigrant workers to small town America.
Now we learn that there is a formal (secret!), contractual arrangement planned for pilot projects in four states with JBS USA a Brazilian-owned company.And, it makes me wonder if this isn’t new and whether similar arrangements are being made with others of the nine federal refugee contractors.***
For those of you in places like St. Cloud, MN frustrated that you can’t get local elected officials to listen to you, remember their seemingly illogical resistance to slowing the flow of refugees has nothing to do with humanitarianism and everything to do with changing America for the almighty dollar!
Global meatpacking giant goes all in for refugee labor
A Lutheran resettlement agency that places United Nations refugees into dozens of U.S. cities and towns is working with the world’s largest meatpacking conglomerate to train refugees for work in four American states while also softening up the local natives to be more “welcoming.”
JBS Headquarters in Greeley, CO Photo credit: me
The secretive pilot program between Baltimore-based Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service and the U.S. subsidiary of JBS Swift aims to pump more refugees into Georgia, Texas, Iowa and Michigan to work in the company’s meat plants. If successful, the pilot program could be renewed for a second year and replicated at JBS meat plants across the U.S., WND has learned.
JBS Swift, the Brazilian-based global meat-processing giant, has agreed to pay Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Services, or LIRS, $155,000 to implement the pilot program over the next year in the four states, according to a draft of the partnership agreement obtained by WND from a person with inside knowledge of the deal.
“The shock here is to find out that a religious agency is being paid by a foreign global corporation to train refugees and ultimately transform the demographics of small towns in America’s heartland,” said Ann Corcoran, an expert on the international movement of refugees and the nine volunteer agencies that resettle them for the U.S.
The deal between the global meat producer JBS and the Lutheran agency has been dubbed “Rebuilding Dreams,” and is described in the draft document as a “grant and collaboration agreement” between JBS USA and LIRS in the four states.
“The primary goal of this agreement is to improve the capacity of JBS USA and local resettlement agencies to support and improve the hiring and retention of refugee employees at four pilot sites in Michigan, Texas, Iowa, and Georgia,” according to the document.
The following are the cities in those states where JBS has meatpacking plants:
Iowa – Council Bluffs, Marshalltown and Ottumwa, mostly pork production
Michigan – Plainwell, mostly beef
Georgia – Elberton, Douglas, Athens, Ellijay, Canton and Carrollton, mostly chicken
Texas – Waco, Lufkin, Nacogdoches, Pittsburg and Mount Pleasant, mostly chicken
“Rebuilding Dreams will achieve this goal by creating customized trainings and resources for key stakeholders, building stronger relationships through communications and technology platforms, enhancing the collection and evaluation of data, and improving the overall quality and culture of the workplace experience for refugee employees,” the agreement states.
The agreement also calls for improving the local “welcoming culture” in the cities where the refugees will be placed.
Part of United Nations agenda for sustainability
JBS is a transnational, global corporation that beats the United Nations “sustainability” drum on its website, and it also cashes in on the globalized “labor mobility” concept pushed by the U.N.’s 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.
Read more here.The story is a detailed must-read about how a global corporation and a supposedly religious charity are changing America by changing the people.
And as a side reading project, see this 2006 articlefrom the Greeley Tribune involving Swift (JBS bought Swift) explaining how the meat industry went from being a desirable place for Americans to work to their model today that is increasingly reliant on the global movement of labor—-middle America be damned!
Don’t miss Bloomberg: Big Meat worried about Trump’s reduced refugee flow,here.
For Republicans it’s about money!
We know the Dems are pushing refugee resettlement in order to boost the number of Democrat voters, and if you are wondering why the Republicans aren’t doing enough to get the program controlled—look to the Chamber of Commerce and GLOBAL Corporations that have convinced the Republican leadership that the free flow of cheap and captive (uncomplaining) labor across borders is the future.
The jig is up!
Big Meat gets cheap labor, the Dems get voters, and you, the taxpayer, get to subsidize it all (including welfare for workers paid insufficient wages!). If you complain you are a hater, a racist and an Islamophobe!
LIRS is headquartered here in Baltimore. This is their own description: The Lutheran Center (LIRS headquarters) is a six-story structure constructed in 1999 on property owned by Baltimore’s historic Christ Lutheran Church. The building is located near Baltimore’s Inner Harbor in the historic Federal Hill neighborhood, a charming area rich with history and an eclectic array of eateries and shopping venues.
Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Serviceis the lead federal contractor for the following list of subcontractors.
Making it clear!
LIRS, in Baltimore, is not a separate group from the others on the list!
LIRS is the lead contractor that deals directly with the US State Department and divvies up incoming refugees between the agencies below—LOL! it is the ‘mothership’ to the following:
(Update: Since this post is from 2017 some of the subcontractors listed may no longer exist. I didn’t bother checking. See if the one near you is still up and running and let me know!)
So what do you do? Go tothis postI wrote earlier this month and get to work where you live!
For more on meatpackers and cheap immigrant labor, go here.
*** For new readers, these are the nine major federal refugee contractors largely funded by you, the taxpayer. Refugee resettlement is not first and foremost about humanitarianism so don’t let them shut you up!
Please visit my other blog (Frauds and Crooks) today to see the latest information on the king of non-profit scammers—the Southern Poverty Law Center.
I haven’t been paying any attention to them lately but apparently in March they published their latest Hate Crime report and have once again listed RRW as an anti-Muslim hate group.
As I have pointed out for years, RRW is just me and my blog—I HAVE NO GROUP—but apparently the facts be damned when they rake in millions scaring people out of their money.
As I said, they have once againlistedRefugee Resettlement Watch as a hate group, nevermind that RRWis just me and my blog. I wonder if I have any legal rights? I couldn’t claim that they have hurt my income since I do what I do without any funding.
By the way, I suspect I was recommended for their list by the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society several years ago because I was exposing HIAS’s ‘business model’. I explained all that in 2014.
I have no way of proving it, but I suspect that HIAS and the SPLChad a hand in shutting down RRWlast summer.
Presumably because global warming (they say) is producing more refugees, or, because the Left has complete control of old line traditional conservation groups, or is it simply because the CEO of Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service (LIRS) is married to the CEO of the National Wildlife Federation.
When I saw this story with a small mention of a joint video between the Hindu CEO of LIRSand the National Wildlife Federation (NWF) it got my attention.
Back in the day, the NWF, as the largest of the politically active national groups working to supposedly protect the environment, was about as far right as you could get on the Enviros spectrum of groups working in Washington. I know, I was there.
(The Nature Conservancy was the largest financially, but NWF had a greater grassroots network of activists that were often hunters and fishermen concerned with true conservation of wildlife and who could be counted on to call their Congressmen and Senators.)
Apparently like all of the groups, starting with the Sierra Club, NWF is now thoroughly immersed in the promotion of Leftwing political goals. See what Influence Watchhas to say:
The National Wildlife Federation is one of the nation’s largest and highest-profile environmentalist organizations. In recent years, along with its associated NWF Action Fund advocacy organization, it has transitioned from being a conservation organization representing the interests of hunters and outdoor recreation enthusiasts into a left-leaning pressure group focused on global warming advocacy and promoting left-wing social causes.
Like refugees!
You’ve got the picture.
Now here is the story about Krish O’Mara Vignarajah, the former Michelle Obama staffer and former gubernatorial candidate in MD, now CEO of LIRS, arguing that Trump is hurting national security with his refugee and immigration restrictions that have been tightened since the Chinese Virus ‘crisis’ arrived.
How Blocking Immigration Hurts U.S. National Security
President Donald Trump’s new executive order barring broad categories of immigrants from entering the country may bring real harm to U.S. national security.
“The pandemic has highlighted for us that national security also involves the assets that we can harness and put against an invisible enemy,” said Krish O’Mara Vignarajah during an interview with Ploughshares Fund podcast, Press The Button. “And that includes the health care providers, the nurses, the doctors, the aides who are serving in assisted living facilities. So many of them are made up by refugees and other immigrants.”
Vignarajah is the president and CEO of the Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service, one of nine resettlement agencies working with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to provide advocacy and support for immigrants and refugees. She argued that the central justification for the immigration clampdown – the Trump administration’s claim that a faltering US economy cannot absorb any more foreign workers – is based on a myth.
“Saying this order is needed to protect American workers plays into the patently flawed idea that American prosperity is a zero-sum game,” said Vignarajah. “We see consistently that immigrants are essential workers. They’re entrepreneurial, they’re tax paying, they’re job creating members of society.”
Far from being a threat to the United States in its fight against COVID-19, immigrants are providing vital national services, explained Vignarajah, particularly in a time when experts are redefining traditional notions of national security.
Vignarajah is advocating for a pro-immigration united front.
Last year, her organization partnered with the Hispanic Heritage Foundation “around a campaign responding to threats of mass deportations from the administration.” [LIRS is almost completely taxpayer funded!—ed]
Vignarajah is also joining with some non-traditional allies. Just last week, she recorded a video with the National Wildlife Federation on how the climate crisis is affecting immigration. “Two thirds of the migrants that we see today are actually a result of climate displacement,” said Vignarajah. “This is only going to get worse going forward.”
As I have said before, tell your kids to grow up to be Leftwing/Democrat non-profit CEOs! As head of an approximately $80 million a year organization O’Mara makes just over $350,000 a year. (Seerecent Form 990)
On and off over the last few weeks I’ve been following media warnings that all hell is going to break lose in refugee camps worldwide where tens of thousands of refugees are packed together in filthy conditions (so we are told), and yet still no serious outbreak of the Chinese virus.
What gives?
Maybe it is too soon, maybe the crisis is yet to come, but if it doesn’t what does that tell us about the whole concept of social distancing as we stay behind our closed doors with the monster menacing on our doorstep.
I checked again this morning and the latest dire warning comes from PBS Frontlineabout the large Rohingya camp at Cox’s Bazar in Bangladesh.
A week earlier the UN said it would be “devastating” if the virus arrived in the camp. Two weeks ago we reported on the anticipated “carnage” to come.
But before we get to that, it’s time for a trip down memory lane!
Ifirst wrote about Cox’s Bazar over ten years ago when even Time magazine was reporting that it was an Islamic terrorist hidey-hole.
This is what Time said (link is now dead, so it’s a good thing I snipped it!) about Cox’s Bazar:
Today, southern Bangladesh has become a haven for hundreds of jihadis on the lam. They find natural allies in Muslim guerrillas from India hiding out across the border, and in Muslim Rohingyas, tens of thousands of whom fled the ethnic and religious suppression of the Burmese military junta in the late 1970s and 1980s. Many Rohingyas are long-term refugees, but some are trained to cause trouble back home in camps tolerated by a succession of Bangladeshi governments. The original facilities date back to 1975, making them Asia’s oldest jihadi training camps. And one former Burmese guerrilla who visits the camps regularly describes three near Ukhia, south of the town of Cox’s Bazar, as able to accommodate a force of 2,500 between them.
That was all before the Rohingya became the media-created poster children for Muslim oppression by the Buddhists of Burma.***
Facing COVID-19 in the World’s Largest Refugee Camp, Young Rohingya Help Prepare for an Outbreak
Every day, before dawn breaks, a student named Robi wakes up in the world’s largest refugee camp to pray.
Until a few weeks ago, many of those prayers were made at a local mosque, one of the few safe havens for his displaced community of Rohingya Muslims living in Cox’s Bazar, on Bangladesh’s sandy southeast coast. But the mosques and schools are now closed, as the threat of the novel coronavirus creeps closer to this vulnerable, tightly packed group.
The first case was confirmed within the local community last month, and the number of cases is growing. [That would be March, so where are the cases a month later?—ed]
Athena Rayburn of Save the Children
“We’re very much on borrowed time,” said Athena Rayburn, Save the Children’s humanitarian advocacy manager in Cox’s Bazar.
[….]
In late March, in a bid to stem the spread of the virus, the government restricted camp access to the more than 100 aid agencies working there. Now, only frontline workers deemed critical are being allowed in. They’re providing food and some medical aid, Rayburn said, but the services “are not currently sufficient to treat an outbreak.”
[….]
In Cox’s Bazar, there’s no such thing as social distancing.
Here, people pack together at an average of 100,000 people per square mile — far closer quarters than on a cruise ship. In these cramped quarters, accessing clean water and proper hygiene can be difficult. “People are very worried and upset,” said Mohammad Arfaat, a 25-year-old Rohingya filmmaker who lives in the camp with his family. “People are living together and sharing toilet you know, water pipe, everything, so if anyone is infected in the camp it will be very harmful.”
We will keep an eye on this story and report when/if the Chinese Virus arrives at Cox’s Bazar. (Bangladesh at present has over 6,000 cases.) If it doesn’t arrive in the camps in any significant way what will we learn from that lesson—that social distancing doesn’t matter, or perhaps that the media is whipping up fear (again) to create sympathy for the Rohingya?
We will be watching!
***I have an extensive archive with 231 previous posts I call Rohingya Reports for your reading pleasure (during your COVID incarceration). You need to know more about this ethnic group since it is one of the few Muslim refugee groups being admitted to the US in recent years. (Besides the Afghan special refugees.)
