Tag: Anne Richard

Letter to Sec. of State Tillerson is plea to keep Refugee Program at State Department

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Some of you asked me what I think of the idea floated by the Trump team to move the US Refugee Admissions Program from the State Department to the Dept. of Homeland Security.  This letter helped me decide!
If these are the supporters for keeping it at the DOS, then I vigorously support moving it!

Obama Asst. Sec. of State for PRM does not want the USRAP moved out of the DOS.

The letter reported  by the Washington Post here yesterday was spearheaded by none other than Eric Schwartz (the Soros protege who is now heading Refugees International, see here).  It is also signed by eight of the nine federal refugee contractors*** who have over the years established a cozy relationship with the bureaucrats at State. They are counted among the 58 “foreign policy experts.”
In fact there are 40 ‘experts’ and then 18 non-profit open borders activist groups.
Experts include Anne Richard (see our extensive archive here) and Ellen Sauerbrey (don’t miss this 2007 post!).  Both are former Asst. Secretaries of State for Population, Refugees and Migration (PRM). Sauerbrey, from Maryland, ran the refugee program for several years under George W. Bush.
Here is the WaPo on the letter (hat tip: Joanne):

A group of prominent foreign policy experts on Monday called on Secretary of State Rex Tillerson to keep the office responsible for managing refu­gee inflows a part of the State Department instead of moving it to the Department of Homeland Security.

Last month, a leaked memo showed the administration contemplating a relocation of the Bureau of Population Refugees and Migration. Such a change, says a letter signed by 58 former diplomats and national security advisers, would adversely shift the bureau’s focus from humanitarian and policy concerns to solely security issues.

Ellen Sauerbrey, Bush’s Asst. Sec. of State for PRM, helps make this a “bi-partisan” letter.

“We are convinced that the elimination of PRM’s assistance functions would have profound and negative implications for the Secretary of State’s capacity to influence policy issues of key concern to the United States,” the letter states. “It would also be ironic, as this is one of the bureaus at State that has enjoyed strong bipartisan support over many years.”

The signatories include former officials who served in Republican and Democratic administrations, as well executives from numerous religious and humanitarian organizations that work with newly arrived refugees.

[….]

Eric Schwartz, the president of Refugees International who helped organize the letter sent to Tillerson, said DHS plays an important role in security screening. But he said it does not focus on foreign policy considerations, such as support for host countries where refugees are awaiting admissions and encouraging other nations to take in more displaced people.  [Why is it our job to nag other countries?—ed]

See the letter by clicking here.
Your homework assignment for today is to write to Trump and tell him you like the idea of breaking up the cozy cabal at the DOS by moving the US Refugee Admissions Program to the Dept.of Homeland Security!
***Federal contractors/middlemen/lobbyists/community organizers paid by you to place refugees in your towns and cities.  Because their income is largely dependent on taxpayer dollars based on the number of refugees admitted to the US, the only way for real reform of how the US admits refugees is to remove the contractors from the process.
Eight of the nine signed the letter to pressure Tillerson.
Noticeably absent as a signatory is the US Conference of Catholic Bishops. I’ve noticed that lately they aren’t signing on to these overtly political letters. Maybe parishioners are getting to their priests! Keep it up!

 

State Dept. leaking like sieve to CNN, reveals WH thinking of moving refugee program to DHS

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Update July 1: Michael Leahy at Breitbart has more on this story, here yesterday.
I know, I know, it is a CNN story with Jake Tapper on the byline, but there is very likely truth to it.
I’m not weighing in on the merits (or demerits) of such a move, my purpose here is to once again show you that the Obama shadow government, in this case Anne Richard, FORMER Asst. Secretary of State for Population, Refugees and Migration has a pipeline in to the career bureaucrats running the refugee program in the Department of State and she is carrying their news to the likes of CNN.

Anne Richard came to her former post at the Department of State from the federal contractor the INTERNATIONAL RESCUE COMMITTEE. Prior to her job at the IRC, she was at the State Department! The system is incestuous!

The primary reason that the Deep State would not support the move of the program to the Dept. of Homeland Security is that they (in State) have a decades-long cushy relationship with the refugee contractors that I keep yelling about (here and here just this morning).
They are all on the same page—more, more, more refugees for America!
First, get the contractors (yelling and propagandizing) out of the system completely and reform of the program could be accomplished. (This depends on the lazy lunks in Congress!)
And, second!

Trump must get his loyalists placed in positions above the bureaucrats to get this under control.

Career people can’t be fired unless, and until, they are caught in insubordination to a boss. Right now Trump is at fault for not picking their bosses!
Here is CNN quoting Anne Richard extensively so she must be the one carrying the tales….

Washington (CNN)The White House is considering a proposal to move both the State Department bureau of Consular Affairs and its bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration to the Department of Homeland Security, a senior White House official tells CNN.

The move, which the White House official cautioned was far from becoming official policy, would likely be controversial among diplomats and experts in State Department matters.

[….]

“It would be a huge mistake,” said Anne Richard, who led the bureau of Population Refugees, and Migration during President Barack Obama’s second term.

[….]

The proposals were written in a memo submitted to the White House Office of Management and Budget from the White House Domestic Policy Council as part of President Trump’s March executive order pushing for ideas for Government Reorganization.

A State Department spokesperson referred CNN to the White House for comment.

The extremely complicated admissions process now starts with the UNITED NATIONS making the first cut as we have reported ad nauseam.

The White House did not explain the reasoning behind the recommendations, but perhaps the idea is rooted in a desire to streamline the refugee vetting process. As it stands currently, the United Nations High Commission of Refugees refers applicants to the State Department for vetting. This vetting is carried out by nine International Resettlement Support Centers (RSC) with American interests***; all of which are managed by the Bureau of Population, Refugees and Migration. Approved applicants are then sent to the Department of Homeland Security for final vetting. After final vetting at DHS, the State Department then resumes supervision of the process with its Reception and Placement Program.

[….]

Richard, the former Obama State Department official, pinned the proposal on an “imperfect understanding” of the bureau’s function. It’s not mainly a law enforcement body, Richard said, rather, it works with nongovernmental organizations and the UN to assist refugees around the world. [And that is the problem—the NGOs and the UN—ed]

More here.
*** Are there other interests operating Resettlement Support Centers???  See here.
Nine Department of State-funded Resettlement Support Centers (RSCs) not to be confused with the nine major refugee contractors (except that there is some overlap because some contractors work at these RSCs). Look at these locations. Can you say opportunity for fraud!

  • Amman, Jordan with sub-offices in Baghdad, Iraq and Cairo, Egypt;

• Bangkok, Thailand with a sub-office in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia;

• Damak, Nepal;

• Havana, Cuba;

• Istanbul, Turkey with a sub-office in Beirut, Lebanon;

• Moscow, Russia with a sub-office in Kyiv, Ukraine;

• Nairobi, Kenya with a sub-office in Johannesburg, South Africa;

• Vienna, Austria; and

• Quito, Ecuador with small sub-offices in San Salvador, El Salvador and Tegucigalpa, Honduras.

The nine federal resettlement contractors who are fighting tooth and nail to let nothing rock their cushy relationship with the DOS:

 
 

70 MEN held in Australian offshore detention will soon be told if they are moving to Anytown, USA

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

It is truly insane.  You really must unload on the White House and on your members of Congress and Senators to stop this awful “deal” with Australia.
If you are new to RRW, see my post here last week and be sure to read Nayla Rush’s (CIS) detailed accounting of the insanity, here.
From Today Online:

SYDNEY – The United States will tell dozens of refugees held in an Australian-run offshore detention center whether they will be offered resettlement in America within six weeks, two detainees told Reuters on Friday.

The deadline marks the first concrete timetable for a U.S.-Australia refugee swap arrangement that sparked tensions between the strong allies after President Donald Trump described it as “a dumb deal” for America.

So whose brilliant idea was this? According to Nayla Rush at CIS, it was Anne Richard, Obama’s Asst. Sec. of State for PRM who said this: Richard told reporters she was approached by the Australian embassy in Washington, D.C.: “When the Australians first came to us my motivation was let’s do this, let’s make this happen, we have got to get these individuals to a better place.”

U.S. officials representing Homeland Security this week returned to Papua New Guinea’s Manus Island, home to one of two Australian-administered detention centers in the Pacific, to conduct medical examinations on 70 men.

Extreme vetting involved six hours of questioning (oh boy, that is rough)! Any chance they used lie detector tests?

The men last month completed “extreme vetting” interviews that lasted up to six hours, with in-depth questions on associates, family, friends and any interactions with the Islamic State militant group.

After completing the medical tests, refugees were told to expect a decision on their resettlement applications within six weeks, two of the Manus Island detainees told Reuters.

[….]

It is not clear how many of the 70 men vetted will be accepted for resettlement in the United States. The refugees include men from Pakistan, Afghanistan and Myanmar. [These from Myanmar, aka Burma, are likely Rohingya Muslims.—ed]

[….]

In exchange, Australia has pledged to take Central American refugees from a center in Costa Rica, where the United States has taken in a larger number of people in recent years. [A ‘deal’ implies that both sides get something. Again, why are any mostly economic migrants who got to Costa Rica our problem?—ed]

The swap is designed, in part, to help Australia close one of its offshore centers that is expensive to run and has been widely criticized by the United Nations and others over treatment of detainees.

[….]

Australia’s hardline immigration policy requires asylum seekers intercepted at sea trying to reach Australia to be sent for processing to camps at Manus and on the South Pacific island of Nauru. They are told they will never be settled in Australia.

So Australia has a hardline immigration policy and we bail them out???  And, to add insult to injury, you won’t be told if any of Australia’s illegal aliens (they are not refugees!) will be placed in your towns!
Illegal aliens (or legitimate refugees) who get to Australia are Australia’s problem, not ours!  Imagine a scenario where some Africans came across our southern border, asked for asylum (although there is no way of screening them) and we asked Australia to take them.  Would that ever happen? No!
And, remember this!  Australia needs us more than we need them!
Continue here.
President Trump’s first instinct to call this a “dumb deal” was right, the only thing dumber is to know that and go ahead with it anyway!
For my complete Australia archive, go here where this becomes post #204.
Photo:  Anne Richard was the Asst. Secretary of State for the Bureau of Population, Refugees and Migration (PRM) for Obama. She came to that job from the International Rescue Committee (I wrote about them yesterday, here). She represents the classic revolving door since she worked earlier in her career at the DOS, then went to the private contractor job, and then back to dole out refugees and your money to her contractor comrades.  Click here for my archive on Richard.
The Deep State is running PRM! (probably with the help of the Obama shadow government, including Richard, in DC).

One of Trump’s great failings is that he has put no one loyal to him in a leadership role in PRM, so they are outmaneuvering him on refugees!

Anne Richard leaves her perch as chief refugee promoter for Obama with not much to show!

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

In an interview at Refugees Deeply, Anne Richard, Asst. Secretary of State for Population, Refugees and Migration, says she is “shocked” by the national conversation on refugees and laments that the once bipartisan support for refugee resettlement has almost disappeared during Obama’s term in office.
Editor:  Anne Richard is a political appointee and as such she must have tendered her resignation or will be doing it before Friday. Career bureaucrats will be running the refugee program until the Trump people pick a replacement.

bill-oreilly
In December Bill O’Reilly called for a complete one year moratorium on refugee resettlement, something that would have been unheard of prior to the Obama Administration. https://refugeeresettlementwatch.org/2016/12/06/fox-news-bill-oreilly-calls-for-one-year-moratorium-on-refugee-resettlement/

Most of the interview focuses on Richard’s struggle to find something that the highly publicized September refugee forum at the UN did to advance their agenda.
We saw the event as a publicity opportunity to advance Hillary Clinton’s Presidential bid and to denigrate Donald Trump whose message about unvetted refugees being placed in unsuspecting communities was resonating with voters.  The publicity stunt fizzled especially as countries refused to make any firm commitments.
You can read about it in the first part of this report at Refugees Deeply.  In the closing paragraphs of the interview she bemoans the fact that the Refugee Program, once supported on both sides of the aisle, has become a politically charged issue and that there are now members of Congress, governors and some in the media calling for a complete halt to it.
I could tell her where they went wrong, but that isn’t my job.
Here is what she said to author Daniel Howden:
(Emphasis is mine)

The end of the Obama era coincides with the emergence of deeply polarized views in the U.S. on the country’s leading role in resettling refugees.

anne-richard-cspan
The arrogance and secretiveness of those administering the RAP is partially responsible for the divisiveness surrounding the resettlement of refugees. Keep it up! Keep calling concerned citizens the “ugly element.”

The Obama administration has faced strong domestic opposition to increasing the number of refugees it resettles each year from from 85,000 in the fiscal year of 2016 to 110,000 in 2017. Republican lawmakers, most notably in Texas, have sought to block federal resettlement programs for Syrian refugees. The son of Republican nominee Donald Trump recently compared Syrian refugees to poisoned Skittles on social media.

Richard said she had been “shocked” by the U.S. national conversation this year. “We’ve had pushback on refugees. There has always been an ugly element that believes that the latest wave of newcomers are not to be trusted.”  [It is nothing Obama or she did, it is all about you haters!—ed]

She said that there had traditionally been bipartisan support for the U.S. giving refuge to the most persecuted people in the world, as “that is who we are,” but that this is now under threat: “What’s most alarming about the current discourse in American politics is that it’s a departure at the leadership level from defending that.”

More here.
I don’t want to leave readers with the idea that Obama did nothing to advance his agenda to diversify America, he did plenty.  We are now talking about refugees in the 100,000 range as normal when only a few years earlier, we were resettling about 60,000 on average.  Obama also managed to increase the number of Muslim refugees coming in from places where it is impossible to vet them.
Anne Richard was a well-paid VP for one of the federal refugee contractors, the International Rescue Committee. Prior to that she worked for the State Department. It will be interesting to see if she revolves back to a federal contractor job.
As we have said on many previous occasions, who the Trump team nominates for this post will be telling.  The job requires approval by the Senate.
***Update*** One of our readers has reported that Ms. Richard is already gone and is now an Adjunct professor at Georgetown Univ. according to LinkedIn:

Anne Richard

Adjunct Professor at Georgetown University

United States
International Affairs
Current Adjunct Professor at Georgetown University
Past Assistant Secretary, Population, Refugees & Migration at U.S. Department of State, Vice President, Government Relations & Advocacy…
Education The University of Chicago, Georgetown University
Summary Specialties: (1) Relief and Development policies of US and other major donor governments (2) Budget and management of US government…

 
 
 

No surprise, Time magazine publishes biased (anti-Trump) report on refugee controversy

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Time reporter, Maya Rhodan, quotes Anne Richard the Obama Assistant Secretary of State, and public relations people at two resettlement contracting agencies, an academician, but no one on the side of slowing the flow of refugees to America for economic and security reasons!  And, there are plenty of us out here now! She does quote Kellyanne Conway to be sure you know that it is Trump vs. the humanitarians!
Here is the story (actually we thank Ms. Rhodan for giving us so much information we didn’t have!):

anne-richard-un-symbol
Poor Anne Richard has been constantly challenged about how she does her job.

Officials at the State Department and beyond are anxious about what the Trump presidency means for their work.

The past year had been tough for Anne Richard, the Assistant Secretary of State for Population, Refugees, and Migration. Ever since the body of 3-year-old Syrian refugee Alan Kurdi washed up on the shores of Turkey in 2015, her office, which processed 84,995 refugee claims last year, has been caught in political crossfire. [Notice how the propagandists have to get that poor baby in the story!—ed]

Richard says she’s been challenged constantly about how her office does its job, from members of Congress and everyday Americans….  [Glad to know this!—ed]

[….]

“I get these letters saying ‘Oh, you’re naïve, terrorists are going to use this program to infiltrate the United States,’” Richard said. “I don’t think I’m naïve. I’m looking at facts. The debate in the United States centers on this question of whether or not people should be afraid of refugees. I think not.”

The problem for Richard and her allies is that the next President of the United States, who will effectively run her office when she leaves on January 20, disagrees with that conclusion. [Anne Richard is an Obama appointee, so Trump will be choosing her replacement.—ed]

[….]

Inside and outside of the State Department, those who handle work around refugee resettlement are worried about the future of their work in the Trump administration. [And, the future of their paychecks!—ed] Many are working to share positive refugee stories with hopes of changing the hearts and minds of skeptics. While questions loom, the work continues—a little over 25,000 refugees have already been admitted to the U.S. since the beginning of the fiscal year—but on day one of the Trump administration things could change significantly.

What hardened the public against the refugee program was indeed the terrorist attacks in San Bernardino and Paris. We noticed a huge jump in readership at RRW at that time.
Rhodan continues….

brenda-crime-poster
I know you can’t see it clearly, but wanted readers to know that Brenda in Charleston, WV has created this homemade poster of US refugees who have been arrested/convicted of Islamic terrorism or other heinous crimes. She plans to use it at meetings where the refugee advocates are promoting the meme that refugees are pure as the driven snow.

After a slight shift in opinion in the wake of Kurdi’s death, the majority of the public hardened on refugees after the terror attacks in San Bernardino and Paris. In September 2015, the Pew Research Center recorded that about 51% of Americans supported the government’s decision accept more refugees in response to the European migrant crisis. Two months later, a Bloomberg poll found 53% of Americans wanted the U.S. to stop accepting refugees altogether.

[….]

Around that time, the Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration, which houses the refugee admissions program and funds and manages the nine Resettlement Support Centers around world that prepare refugee applications, started playing defense.

When Senators Ted Kennedy, Joe Biden and President Jimmy Carter created the Refugee Admissions Program in 1980 they gave the President inordinate amounts of power to determine who comes and how many. Now, as refugee skeptic Donald Trump arrives in Washington it could come back to bite them.  (Both Bushs were soft on refugees).

In October, President Obama set a new goal of resettling 110,000 refugees in 2017—a number that president-elect Trump can decide to either reduce or ignore. The goal functions as a ceiling that the country can’t go over, and Trump can change it once he is president without an act of Congress.

At this point reporter Rhodan quotes from two representatives of refugee contracting agencies without mentioning that many jobs are at stake now at these quasi-government agencies since both of these organizations receive millions of taxpayer dollars to place refugees in your towns and cities. After discussing the International Rescue Committee, here is what she reports that Church World Service is doing.
What is so galling to me is that CWS is likely using funds you, as taxpayers, give them to organize lobbying efforts, marches on Washington and media propaganda campaigns.  They use your money to work against you!
The Time article continues…..

Church World Service is working on sharing refugees’ and volunteers’ stories through a digital campaign called #GreaterAs1. They’ve also been encourage partners across the country to reach out to local and national officials to share refugee success stories and comment on the impact of their work. The group also plans to have refugee presence at both the confirmation hearing of Sen. Jeff Sessions of Alabama as well as a women’s march planned for after the inauguration of president-elect Donald Trump. [So they are going to parade refugee pawns in to Senator Sessions’ hearing to be Attorney General? Once again, thanks to reporter Rhodan for this information.—ed]

As Richard’s appointment comes to an end, she’s still working to get the word out about refugees. After a young Somali refugee carried out a knife attack at Ohio State University, she penned a letter to the editor to USA Today. “The biggest issue that I’ve tried to get across is that refugees are not terrorists,” she said. “They are the victims of terrorists, and victims of war, victims of persecution.”

There is more, click here to read the rest of the biased Time story.
Remember, even as Ms. Richard packs up and leaves, there are career bureaucrats who will carry-on until Trump puts someone in there to rein them in!
Endnote: You might want to see yesterday’s post about Rochester, NY where we learned that the State Department is not only countering negative news, but pushing resettlement agencies to the brink with a huge number of mostly Muslim refugees they are bringing in as they come up against the clock—Inauguration day January 20th.