***Update***I just went back after a few hours to see if any national media has picked up the news, and nope, nothing yet. A few more bits of news by the protesters themselves, like thisCatholic news outfitcrowing that the Catholics (not to be left out!) were there too!
Okay, so yesterday was the big protest dayfor Church World Service and the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) so I figured surely there would be gobs of media reports on the success of their anti-Trump protest especially since they succeeded in getting arrested!
Where is the WaPo? Where is CNN? Anyone see any coverage?
By the way, who comes up with this hokey stuff?
The only news I found so far comes from organizers Amnesty Internationaland another Lefty outfit called Common Dreams.
Is this goofy or what! That is the Rev. McCullough of Church World Service on the far left. He pulls in an annual salary and benefits package of nearly $300,000 from the quasi-government CWS. Looks like Anne Richard, Obama’s refugee chief next to him, and then of course CAIR’s Nihad Awad fourth from the left.
18 LEADERS ARRESTED TODAY AT THE CAPITOL WHILE PROTESTING TRUMP ADMINISTRATION’S DESTRUCTION OF THE REFUGEE RESETTLEMENT PROGRAM
In response to the Trump Administration’s continued assault on the U.S. refugee resettlement program, 18 leaders from the nation’s leading faith and human rights organizations, as well as a former State Department official, were arrested on Capitol Hill as part of the first ever act of civil disobedience in the name of refugee resettlement.Those 18 arrested represented the 18,000 refugee cap set by the Trump administration – the lowest in the history of the resettlement program.
Continue reading hereif you want to see what each of the protesters had to say. If not, see who sponsored the publicity stunt:
Today’s protest was cosponsored by: Church World Service, Sahloul, Franciscan Action Network, Asian Americans Advancing Justice, Maryknoll Office for Global Concerns, Center for Victims of Torture, Leadership Conference of Women Religious, NETWORK Lobby for Catholic Social Justice, Southeast Asia Resource Action Center, Amnesty International USA, Disciples Refugee and Immigration Ministries, American Arab Anti Discrimination Committee, Congregations Action Network, Presbyterian Church USA, United Church of Christ, Sojourners, NOVA Friends of Refugees/One Journey.
Where is HIAS I wondered, they usually love to protest in Washington?
For new readers, Church World Service is one of the nine federal resettlement contractors with subcontractor office spread throughout the US. They receive millions of federal dollars amounting to 62% of their entire budget from you—the US taxpayer.See here.
Here they plan to join the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) on the Capitol steps looking to get arrested in a protest of the President’s refugee policy.
FAITH LEADERS, HUMAN RIGHTS GROUPS, AND FORMER ASSISTANT SECRETARY OF STATE STAGE CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE FOR REFUGEES
On Tuesday, October 15th, 18 protestors–including heads of Amnesty International USA, America’s Voice, CAIR, and Church World Service, as well as a former Assistant Secretary for the Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration–will risk arrest on the steps of the U.S. Capitol. The leaders will wear life vests symbolizing the life-saving refugee resettlement program.
Faith communities, human rights groups, clergy, refugees, and refugee agencies will hold a major action on Capitol Hill as Secretary Pompeo meets with Congress to finalize the administration’s 80% cut to the refugee admissions program.
WHAT: Protest and Civil Disobedience Responding to Decimation of Refugee Resettlement
WHERE: Capitol Lawn Area 9, Constitution and First St NE
WHEN: Tuesday, October 15th at 1:00 PM
DETAILS: 18 protestors–including heads of Amnesty International USA, CAIR, America’s Voice and CWS–wearing life vests symbolizing the lives that could be saved or lost through the resettlement program will risk arrest on the steps of the US Capitol. Supporters will hold 95 photographs of refugees, a nod to the historic average refugee cap of 95,000.
LEADERS RISKING ARREST INCLUDE:
Anne C. Richard, Former Assistant Secretary of State for Population, Refugees, and Migration (PRM) [She’s back!—ed]
Margaret Huang, Executive Director, Amnesty International USA
Rev. John L. McCullough, President and CEO of Church World Service
Nihad Awad, National Executive Director, Council on American-Islamic Relations
Frank Sharry, Founder and Executive Director, America’s Voice
Sarnata Reynolds, former counsel for the House Judiciary Committee
OTHER SPEAKERS:
Sami Muya, a Refugee from Somalia separated from family members by anti-refugee policies
Endnote: I am so happy to have RRW backso history isn’t forgotten and images like those above can continue to be available for all to see.
You should take a minute and have a look at the church member congregations Church World Serviceis representing (see this post). Is your church among them?
Sobia Siddiqui, communications coordinator for the Council on American-Islamic Relations Texas Chapter, said the cuts are discriminatory.
“Our president ran his campaign and one of his strongest and most vocal points is that he called for a ban on all Muslims,” said Siddiqui.
She said there are refugee families in Houston who can’t be reunited with family members facing dangerous situations abroad because of the ban.
“There’s a lot of anxiety and uncertainty about if people will be able to have their families rejoin them back here in the United States or even in Houston,” said Dan Stoecker, CEO of The Alliance, which offers refugee services in Houston.
The Alliance is a subcontractor of the Ethiopian Community Development Council, the smallest, and likely most vulnerable to a federal budget cut, of the nine refugee contractors that monopolize all resettlement to the US.
In 2016, I excitedly reported that the State of Texas withdrew from the US Refugee Admissions Program, but you can see that without a follow-up legal challenge by the state it was a meaningless move. The contractors now run the program in the state!
….and was wearing a hijab, thus making her an even greater target for trigger happy police.
Here we go again! As Leo Hohmannsays, here comes the Council on American Islamic Relations and the mental illness excuse! What I want to know is, if so many of these violent Muslim refugees have mental problem, why weren’t they screened out in the super-duper screening process that Obama’s State Department/DHS claimed we had? Hohmann’s post opens with this:
Police face backlash after officers shoot, kill knife-wielding Somali refugee near Atlanta
CAIR Georgia Executive Director Edward Ahmed Mitchell: The hijab could have caused police to react with less restraint! Photo and bio: http://www.cairgeorgia.com/about-us/394-executive-director-edward-ahmed-mitchell.html
How many times has a Muslim migrant attacked innocent Americans and the Council on American-Islamic Relations or some other advocacy group swoops in to suggest that the attack was a result of mental illness?
~It happened in the mall stabbings in St. Cloud, Minnesota, carried out by Somali refugee Dahir Adan in 2016 [when CAIR suggested Adan’s insomnia may have caused him to snap]
~It happened last summer when another Somali refugee threatened the townspeople of Faribault, Minnesota, with a knife.
~It happened after the Ohio State University car and knife attack in 2016 by Somali refugee Abdul Razak Ali Artan.
~It happened in the attack that killed 14 Americans in San Bernardino in December 2015 by Syed Farooq and his migrant fiancée.
~It happened in Chattanooga in July 2015 when five U.S. servicemen were shot and killed by Kuwaiti-American Mohammad Abdulaziz.
~And when Amina Ali Ahra, aka Iesha Ibrahim, a female refugee from Somalia, attacked and beat a Lawrenceville, Georgia, woman and her daughter with their own flagpole in 2016 the FBI refused to charge Ibrahim with a hate crime because it said she was mentally impaired.
Well, it happened again on Saturday, April 28, in Johns Creek, a suburb of Atlanta, where Somali refugee Shukri Ali Said, 36, was threatening her family members with a knife.
Read all of the details (with links) of what happened by clicking here.
This story isn’t something I would normally bother posting (it is a ho-hum story), but since I was just introduced, via NPR, to Dallas Imam Omar Suleiman yesterday I thought it was an interesting coincidence.
Omar Suleiman, CAIR Director Nihad Awad and Linda Sarsour arrested. Refugee contractor Church World Service helped organize the protest.
Yesterday we learned that Muslim leaders who had once said they would open their mosques to people of all faiths escaping ICE, have changed their minds.
I described how Suleiman so skillfully deflected and snowed the NPR reporter. He shifted the blame to Trump and his merry band of haters when I suspect their change of heart had more to do with realizing that having a bunch of infidels living in their mosques could be problematic.
But when I looked more deeply into the demonstration story this morning, I saw that one of the nine federally funded refugee resettlement contractors—CHURCH WORLD SERVICE—was an organizer of the media stuntmaking this story very much of interest to RRW because taxpayers fund CWS to the tune of $62 million a year!
Muslim-American leaders have been arrested at the US Capitol while urging Congress to stand against President Donald Trump’s effort to end a programme that protects certain young immigrants.
This is a still shot from the corny CHURCH WORLD SERVICE video from a corny demonstration. I guess they mean ‘democracy’ is sick and weak as the actor is being held up by none other than Nihad Awad (CAIR!) and Suleiman. Who comes up with this stuff?
Omar Suleiman, Dawud Walid, Mujahid Fletcher, Talib Shareef and Nihad Awad of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), Zahra Billoo, and Linda Sarsouradvocated immigration reform before getting arrested on Monday.
The protesters participated in an act of civil disobedience at the office of the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Paul Ryan, demanding that he meet them to hear their concerns.Muslim-American leaders have been arrested at the US Capitol while urging Congress to stand against President Donald Trump’s effort to end a programme that protects certain young immigrants.
[….]
Quoting Malcolm X, Talib Shareef of the Muslim Alliance of North America said: “Almighty Allah has told us to stand for justice. We are not weak in faith and we are here for a mobilization.
“We stand here in the spirit of Malcolm X with the people who are affected by these policies.”
Imam Suleiman, who I read about yesterday, depicts himself as a moderate Imam deeply involved in the Dallas interfaith community. But, make no mistake—it is “white supremacy” he sees as the root of all evil (and so must Church World Service!).
“This is creating real fear,” Suleiman said, adding that the imams are fighting white supremacy because Islamophobia, racism and hostility against immigrants all stem from the same roots.
CHURCH WORLD SERVICE
Couldn’t figure out how to link the hokey video, but if you go to their twitter feed for March 5, you can find it.
Church World Service was clearly an instigator of this comical demonstration.
It should drive all of you crazy to know that according to a recent accounting, they received 71% of their income from US taxpayers—that amounted to about $62 million for the one year!
They can have free speech all they want, just not with our money!
(Where is Congress? Where is Paul Ryan allowing our money to be used for stunts like this?)
Recently they protested outside the White House as well, see here. And, this is what I said in that post:
If you belong to any of these churches (below) know that Church World Service was representing you outside the White House in January and this week at the Capitol.
They also hold the annual “Crop Walk,” so if you disagree with their political tactics you need to start speaking up!
Are they speaking for your church? They obviously believe they are!
And, incidentally it was a Church World Service subcontractor responsible for placing refugees in Western Maryland where I live and so they are directly responsible for birthing RRW (nothing to do with white supremacy and everything to do with transparency and how our government spends our money).
See all of my previous posts on CWS byclicking here.
