New York Times says refugee resettlement good for NY state, but doesn't tell the whole story

02/21/2017 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

What else can we expect from the NYT! Or, most of the mainstream media for that matter.
A report in the NY Times yesterday (hat tip: Joanne) glosses over the problems with the placement of poverty on top of poverty in upstate cities, misleads us about Obama’s 2017 wish list, and skims over the fact that ‘religious’ charities are sucking down taxpayer dollars like there is no tomorrow.
BTW, refugees are generally not placed in New York city because the contractors can’t find enough cheap housing.

screenshot-332 — Assuming there is only one Jesse McKinley at the NYT: https://bayarea.blogs.nytimes.com/whos-who-on-the-blog/

So Buffalo fits the bill!
Only two things worth mentioning in this overly long and biased news about how refugees are supposedly revitalizing slums.
First this!

Reporter Jesse McKinley seems to think that churches becoming mosques is somehow a positive thing! Really!

BUFFALO — Newcomers have filled up hundreds of empty homes and apartments, and poured money and energy into destitute neighborhoods. Former churches have been reborn as mosques…

And, then this (below) made me laugh—Catholic Charities can’t have it both ways!
The majority of their funding for placing refugees in New York state cities comes from the federal government. Yet, now that refugees have a negative view of the federal government, Catholic Charities of Buffalo wants to pretend they are a non-profit group!

screenshot-334 — Mr. Walczyk, why not try doing your charitable Christian good works with your own privately-raised money!

Dennis C. Walczyk, chief executive of Catholic Charities of Buffalo, said that the president’s order had spread suspicion among new arrivals.

“They’re questioning us,” Mr. Walczyk said, adding: “Even though we’re all independent, nonprofit, nongovernmental agencies, the connection seems to be being made by some of our clientele, that, ‘Well, you’re an arm of the government.’”

Yes, Mr. Walczyk, you are an arm of the government! How about doing your ‘religious’ charitable work with private money and then you can claim independence!
McKinley continues….

Groups like Mr. Walczyk’s do receive an administrative payment for their work in settling new arrivals — $900 per person — and the potential loss of that money is another point of concern, though refugee placements have restarted. Some resettlement groups across the state have already tightened their belts, and reduced staffs, reflecting President Trump’s immigration order and his administration’s plan to accept 50,000 refugees this federal fiscal year, as opposed to the target of 110,000 set by President Barack Obama.

Reporter wants readers to believe 110,000 is normal!

Darn lazy liberal reporters never tell you that this “target” set by Obama (for a year he would no longer be in the WH) is first only a ceiling not a target!

And besides, if Obama was so set on that huge number (110,000!) why wasn’t he anywhere close to that number for the previous 8 years! (Ceilings were set at 70,000-80,000 but he only occasionally came close to hitting the ceiling).
Numbers resettled in Obama years (from data here):

FY09: 74,654

FY10: 73,311

FY11: 56,424

FY12: 58,238

FY13: 69,926

FY14: 69,987

FY15: 69,993

FY16: 84,894

screenshot-337
On a whim, I decided to see just how much of your tax dollars Catholic Charities of Buffalo, NY is burning through.

Yikes! At USASpending.gov we see that since 2008 they received $43,153,870 in grants and subgrants—43 Million!!!

So why aren’t reporters like Mr. McKinley doing this kind of research and questioning what is driving the refugee industry? (We know the answer!)
There should be a law, if you are receiving federal grants you shouldn’t be allowed to whine to reporters and otherwise work against the President.
Readers, look up your local Catholic Charities and prepare to be shocked!
We have posted many many times about New York over the years, but here is one post that will help you get started with your education on the subject!

Oh, the wailing has begun, refugee contractors NOW trying to raise private money to stay afloat

02/04/2017 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

President Barack Obama’s administration told resettlement organizations to staff up in anticipation of an increase in refugees this year!

Mark Hetfield told the AP

In the wake of only a 120-day slowdown for refugee resettlement, the nine major federal refugee contractors are moaning about how they will have to cut staff as they lose MILLIONS of federal dollars they receive to place ever increasing numbers of third worlders into unsuspecting American towns.

This is an Associated Press story filled with extremely useful information, here is the first part of it. All of you in ‘pockets of resistance’ should keep the whole article.
We gave you a list of local sob stories here the other day, here are the major contractors.
From AP at Crossroads Today (emphasis is mine):

SALT LAKE CITY (AP) – Refugee resettlement organizations are bracing for significant funding cuts and possible layoffs over the coming months during President Donald Trump’s temporary refugee ban.

The agencies receive a certain amount of federal dollars per refugee they help resettle, which means they would lose a key source of funding unless the Trump administration provides funds in the interim during the 120-day temporary halt to refugees entering the U.S.

Catholic Charities USA says the executive order will cost the organization millions of dollars and put at risk about 7,000 jobs out of the 54,000 jobs at their agencies around the country, according to spokeswoman Patricia Cole.

So now they attempt to raise private Christian charity, why didn’t they do this long ago! The refugee program was supposed to be a public-private partnership, but the public share increases annually as the private share shrinks!

AP continues….

The group launched an $8 million fundraising campaign this week to help replace the funding it expects to lose during the four-month moratorium.

Catholic Charities agencies resettled roughly 23,000 of the nearly 85,000 refugees that entered the U.S. last year, Cole said. Most of them were women and children.

miliband-and-soros-3 — British national David Miliband gives Soros the IRC’s top award—the 2013 Freedom Award (LOL! not fake news!). Miliband said Soros has made a “tremendous commitment to the advancement of human rights, social justice and democracy around the world.”

It is one of nine agencies*** that handle refugee resettlement. Another agency, International Rescue Committee is asking its donors to help raise $5 million to ensure its 29 offices around the country can continue to support refugees already here. [Hey, here is a thought maybe David Miliband could take a pay cut, he gets over a half a million as CEO of this contractor. The budget for the IRC is more than a half a billion annually —ed]

Making matters worse for agencies is that President Barack Obama’s administration told resettlement organizations to staff up in anticipation of an increase in refugees this year, said Mark Hetfield, president of HIAS, formerly the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society.

You must read it all! Go here.
See that many of the employees they will let go are refugees. So next time you see their mumbo-jumbo about how they help refugees get jobs, remember many are getting jobs to advance the contractor’s agenda.

They want Trump to advance them money as Bush did after the 9/11 slowdown!

Don’t do it Donald, they are too big, too bloated, too lazy to raise private money, and they operate with secrecy and arrogance toward local citizens wherever they place refugees!

Readers, you can tell President Trump what you think here.

Be sure to tell him that these very same ‘non-profits’ whining for your tax dollars are deeply involved in plans to demonstrate against his administration, see here.

***Nine federal refugee contractors:

Maine: Catholic Charity's grand experiment supplying refugee employees to nursing home company failing

01/22/2017 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Once again, readers, forget the humanitarian mumbo-jumbo and remember that one of the primary drivers of refugee resettlement is the ‘need’ for cheap LEGAL labor!
We told you about this back in November, here, where a Maine immigration lawyer and a nursing home company, thought it was a brilliant idea to send a large Congolese family to a small town in Maine—to supply the nursing home company with cheap labor!***
Now, it looks the scheme is doomed. Why? Mostly because the family is lonely for their own kind of people (one member has already packed up and moved to Portland), and Catholic Charities did a rotten job taking care of them and acclimating them to small town American life.

jennifer-atkinson — Maine immigration lawyer Jennifer Atkinson promoted this scheme of placing this family of African laborers in small town Maine. Mainers are too old and too white she said. See here: https://refugeeresettlementwatch.org/2016/11/25/maine-immigration-lawyer-we-are-too-old-and-too-white/

Here is a brief overview at Bangor Daily News, but I recommend reading the whole long story on which this op-ed is based because it is instructive on so many levels. (Hat tip: Joanne)

Economists, business leaders and politicians agree that immigration is key to reversing or at least stopping rural Maine’s population losses. And some rural towns and businesses have already started looking to immigration to improve their numbers. [I don’t accept the premise that small towns will be revived by bringing in the third world, or even the premise that we must ‘save’ these towns!—ed]

But the experience of the Kalutas, the first refugee family to be resettled in a small Maine town rather than a city, shows that newcomers need more than jobs and housing if they are going to stay and contribute long term.

In August, the Kaluta family — 15 people from the Democratic Republic of Congo — was resettled by Catholic Charities Maine to Thomaston, population 2,781, because a nursing home there had jobs for them and agreed to provide housing and transportation to and from work. Because of Maine’s workforce shortage [would not be a shortage if they paid well!–ed], their employer, DLTC Health Care, which operates a chain of long-term care facilities, had been unable to find enough employees to hire in the local community.

Although the Kaluta family members have jobs and housing, their lives in Thomaston are tenuous, as a recent Maine Focus article details. [Be sure to see how much DLTC charges them for housing! I have a lot of sympathy for these refugees!—ed]

[….]

The Kalutas did have a caseworker from Catholic Charities who spoke one of their languages, Swahili, but he was located over 70 miles away in Portland. And the family didn’t trust him because he rarely answered their calls and he visited them only twice in Thomaston after they moved, according to the family.

[….]

The situation the Kalutas are in is working for their employer: The nursing home now has five people in positions it was otherwise unable to fill. But whether the situation can work for the family themselves — and for other families in the future — remains to be seen.

More here.
The governor of Maine did withdraw the state from the UN/US State Department Refugee Admissions Program back in early November, but it only means that Catholic Charities (the same agency that screwed up with this family!) will run the program unless he joins Tennessee in a state’s rights lawsuit.
***Having had a mother in a nursing home not that long ago, the idea of people caring for elderly loved ones who do not understand English is an abomination. Elderly Americans have enough trouble communicating what is wrong with them in English, let alone forcing them to try to communicate with a non-English speaking refugee.

Catholic Charities Southwestern Ohio planning for large refugee influx this year; ID cards for illegals

01/14/2017 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

They believe that Obama’s last proposal, sent to Congress in September 2016, will continue to be operative and that his huge ‘recommendation’ for 110,000 refugees to be admitted this year will be honored by the incoming Trump administration.
Curious to see the last time we admitted more than the astronomical number of 110,000 refugees in one year, I went back to the Office of Refugee Resettlement annual reports and found that we must go back to 1995 (Bill Clinton) to find a year when we brought that many refugees. It was a year that we admitted over 30,000 Cubans, 30,000 Russians and 30,000 Vietnamese.
Just a few days ago I posted a widely read post about this week as National Migration Week at the US Conference of Catholic Bishops and how much of your money is going to the USCCB.

The USCCB’s migration fund is 97% funded by you! Their ‘work’ is not funded by Catholic parishioners giving their own private money!

Here is a report from Cincinnati, Ohio about one Migration week, ‘welcoming the stranger,’ event. This is how the progressives do it, they declare a special day or week, hold a public relations event and the press shows up to write glowingly. They are masters at media manipulation (propaganda)! (Emphasis below is mine):

Despite uncertainty and concerns about policies of the incoming Trump administration, programs and agencies helping immigrants and refugees in Greater Cincinnati anticipate more growth in 2017.

The Refugee Resettlement Program of Catholic Charities Southwestern Ohio, which helped bring in 330 refugees in 2016, will help 450 this year, said Alisa Berry, the agency’s chief operating officer who oversees the program. It resettled 260 refugees in 2015.

alisa-berry — Wishful thinking on Alisa Berry’s part—Obama’s 110,000 refugee plan for FY17 will continue?

“The federal government keeps asking us to help more people,” Berry said. “Demand for services increases every year.”

She was one of five panelists to participate Thursday in an interfaith immigration insights event at Hebrew Union College. About 150 people attended to listen to updates on programs and perspective on a contentious national issue.

The opposition to legal immigration and assistance for undocumented immigrants and refugees helped Donald Trump defeat Hillary Clinton in the 2016 presidential race.

The Thursday event was part of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ National Migration Week and in conjunction with Pope Francis’ World Migrant and Refugee Day, which will be Tuesday.

The United States will accept 110,000 refugees in 2017, a number established by President Barack Obama. Trump has the authority to change the number for 2018. [Trump can change the number in 2017, on day one, will he?—ed]

Refugees arriving in Greater Cincinnati through Catholic Charities are coming from the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Sudan, Bhutan, Syria, Iraq and Myanmar.

Check out what else they are doing through CLINIC (the Catholic Legal Immigration Network), a non-profit organization that depends on millions of your tax dollars too! They are giving ID cards out to those who have no legal identity in the US. Who is paying for this? You?

In January 2015, immigration attorney Allison Herre started as the local Catholic Charities’ agency director of Legal Immigration Services.

[….]

The event also provided an update on the MARCC ID card, issued by the Metropolitan Area Religious Coalition of Cincinnati and manufactured and distributed by Catholic Charities. It is recognized as legal identification by all city departments, including the police.

[….]

Card supporters say the card will improve public safety by providing people who otherwise do not have an ID card – people returning from prison, the homeless, immigrants, especially those living here without legal documentation.

Herre said her agency continues to advise clients to apply for the MARCC card and file for extensions of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals. Known as DACA, it was created by an Obama executive order in 2012 to provide status to children brought illegally into the country and who have grown up in the United States. It allows them to apply for driver’s licenses and work permits.

See all of the CLINIC offices operating in your communities, here.
Below is a screenshot of one portion of the government grants received by Catholic Charities of Southwestern Ohio (USASpending.gov).

screenshot-141

If all of these Catholic organizations (USCCB, Catholic Charities and CLINIC) operated on truly private charitable giving, then we would have nothing to say about their activities, but it is the fact that they use our money (never report that fact to the public), so they can brag about their Christian charity, that is so offensive to me.

And we almost missed it! US Conference of Catholic Bishops celebrates its National Migration week

01/11/2017 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Update January 12th: Don’t miss Leo Hohmann’s expanded news on the Bishop’s Migration Week, here.
Just now when I was writing about Catholic Charities crowing about the Somali Muslims they are placing in Minnesota, I came across this news. Sheesh! And, I almost missed it. If you are a Catholic you are likely being bombarded this week (January 8th -14th) with propaganda about welcoming the stranger.

Special Event: on “Common ground for the common good” (to mark the concluding day of the World Interfaith Harmony Week (1–7 February 2012), as proclaimed by General Assembly resolution 65/5 (A/RES/65/5)) (organized by the Office of the President of the General Assembly, in cooperation with the NGO Community at the United Nations Bill Canny - Catholic RElief Services — William Canny at the United Nations. Time to tell Catholics you are mostly funded by American taxpayers.

Longtime readers know that the US Conference of Catholic Bishops is one of the nine major federally employed refugee resettlement agencies in the US. Here the Crux tells us the Bishops are the largest of the nine:

Migration and Refugee Services of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops is the largest private refugee resettlement agency in the United States and has helped to resettle more than one million refugees since 1975.

Nearly 80 Catholic Charities agencies across the country are involved in refugee resettlement work, helping refugees with housing, legal services, language proficiency, trauma counseling and employment training. [Implying that this is all done with Christian charity!—ed]

If you want to, you can read the rest of the Crux’s glowing report on what the good Bishops are doing on immigration, here.

What is missing from this long story is any mention of the MILLIONS OF TAXPAYER DOLLARS the Bishops receive to do their work!

And, guess what I learned! The Bishops don’t file an IRS Form 990 (no wonder we haven’t been able to find one). That is the tax form that non-profit organizations must file every year which is of vital importance for citizens to understand how their money is used and what salaries are paid.
The Bishops say they are a PRIVATE refugee agency (I say they are a quasi-government agency), but then use the religious exemption to avoid reporting to the IRS!

screenshot-134 — Why do you think their office is in Washington? Maybe they need to stay close to keep the pressure on Congress to keep their funds flowing!

Because we can’t get a Form 990, we have had to rely on the USCCB Migration and Refugee Service’s annual report, but unfortunately the most recent one available (that I can find) is for 2014. But, you get the gist of it—they get millions from you. And, frankly, if they would be honest with the public and their parishioners about these vast amounts of government funding, I will shut up about it.
Here is the breakdown of their income for 2014:

screenshot-136 — Federal grants is your money. But, so is the ‘travel loan.’ Makes them 97% funded by you!

Now just to impress upon you how much money the Bishops are getting from the US treasury, here (below) is a screenshot of one small portion of the list of grants and contracts they have gotten in recent years at USASpending.gov.
In the last few years the total is over $200 MILLION in grants, subgrants and contracts. And, that is just what went directly to the Bishops (when doing your own search, spell out United States Conference of Catholic Bishops).
It doesn’t include government grants and contracts for individual dioceses. You will have to look those up separately and find more pots of money.

screenshot-137 — This is just a section of one page at USASpending.gov!

So come on Bishops! Fess-up! Tell your loyal Catholic flock that this Migration and Refugee Services isn’t being funded by them, through their Christian charitable giving, but by the taxpayers of America!
And, it begs the question, when it comes down to taking moral stands on controversial social issues, will the USCCB choose government funding if it comes down to a choice between a moral stand or millions of free bucks?