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

01/09/2017 ~ 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.

BT! Church World Service working hard to get Syrian Muslims placed in Lancaster, PA

01/02/2017 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

BT=Before Trump
This is the first of two posts (second one is here) on Lancaster, PA this morning. I’ve been interested in Lancaster ever since that city’s refugee program was linked to Church World Service’s (CWS) placement of refugees in my county seat. Those were mostly Meshketian (Russian Turkish Muslims) back in 2007.
Five years later, I traveled to Lancaster to a meeting of the refugee industry there—the federal Office of Refugee Resettlement was meeting with refugee contractors and advocates in 2013. A federal ORR employee shocked me by referring to any of the communities questioning the program as “pockets of resistance.” He was happy to tell the gathering that Pennsylvania was ‘welcoming’ and didn’t have any PORs.

cws-mccullough-arrest — Church World Service does not just resettle refugees, but they advocate for illegal aliens as well. CWS CEO Rev. John McCullough being arrested in Washington, DC protesting in support of Obama’s executive amnesty. Photo and story here: http://njfon.org/2015/04/08/faith-groups-challenge-fifth-circuit-court-on-presidents-immigration-actions/ McCullough pulls down an annual salary of over $300,000 a year from his CWS work and from “related organizations.” Page 13- 14 http://www.guidestar.org/FinDocuments/2015/134/080/2015-134080201-0c44e710-9.pdf

If you would like to get some background on Lancaster before reading this below, click here for our Lancaster archive.
This is the news that appeared in the New York Times and reposted here in Vermont newspaper. Church World Service (with the NYT) is trying so hard to make everything look so perfect in Lancaster. But, it isn’t and you will see what I mean in my next post.

Their [Syrian family—ed] imminent arrival explains all the commotion inside this slate-colored house in the small city of Lancaster, in south-central Pennsylvania. The state may have gone to Donald Trump, who likened the Syrian resettlement program to a “a great Trojan horse” for terrorists. But he isn’t president yet.

[….]

He [Josh, CWS’s 26 year old housing guy—ed] scours a government checklist of housing requirements for a resettlement [Contractors sign contracts to provide essential items for the refugees’ new home—ed], mindful that whatever he spends is deducted from a refugee’s one-time government grant of no more than $1,125. A family’s combined grants must cover its rent and other expenses until the nonprofit has helped the adults acquire Social Security numbers and jobs.

I want you to know (and the NYT doesn’t) that it is $1,125 per family member, so the Syrian family of 6 being discussed here will get $6,750 (plus welfare) and that CWS will get another approximately $6,750 as their share (of your tax dollars) to resettle this family (for their salaries and overhead).

Such encounters [Josh meets a refugee at Walmart***] happen often in Lancaster, whose rich history of acceptance is rooted, in part, in the influence of the Mennonites, Amish and other faiths. A glimpse of the local worldview came in January when a supportive rally of more than 200 people drowned out a much smaller anti-immigrant protest outside the Church World Service office in Lancaster. [See our report on the resistors rally, here.]

Sheila Mastropietro, the group’s longtime supervisor in Lancaster, took heart in the moment. It reflected a communal understanding of both the global refugee crisis and the rigorous screening process that refugees undergo before coming to the United States. [The communal understanding is wearing thin as you will see in my next post.—ed]

The big question for the resettlement contractors is: What will Trump do and when will he do it?

Still, given a president-elect who seems averse to the country’s modest commitment to refugee relocation, Mastropietro says, “We don’t know what to expect.”

[….]

Last fiscal year, the Lancaster office of the Church World Service helped to resettle 407 of the 85,000 refugees admitted to this country; this fiscal year, its target is 550 of a hoped-for 110,000.

“We are acting as if the numbers are going to be the same — until we hear something different,” she says.

Lancaster a happy “medley of cultures” (then why did Lancaster County go 57% for Trump):

Decades of resettlement work have transformed the Lancaster area into a medley of cultures so rich that Amer Alfayadh, 34, a senior case manager, struggles to name them all: “Syrians, Iraqis, Somalis, Congolese, Ukrainians, Belorussians, people from Kazakhstan. Then, of course, Lebanese, Palestinians. Bhutanese, Nepalese, Burmese, Sri Lankans …”

***I would love to know what the deal is with Walmart. Wherever I traveled on my middle America tour this past summer, I heard that Walmart was a gathering place for Muslim refugees. Is Walmart giving them gift cards or other goodies? Does anyone know?

Refugee agencies nervous about what's ahead for program under Trump Administration

12/15/2016 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Editor: Apologies for not posting all of the comments you sent yesterday, most didn’t appear until I got up this morning. What is up with wordpress?
I’ve been keeping an eye out for stories about how refugee resettlement contractors and the Obama agencies responsible for resettlement are reacting to the coming Trump Administration. They are no doubt fearful that Trump will act on his campaign promises—-some are more optimistic than others that it was all talk on the campaign trail.
(For the record we expect Trump to stop the program (at a minimum) from terror producing regions*** of the world within days of his inauguration on January 20th. And, we expect all Obama political appointees responsible for the refugee program to be gone before that date!)

Here is news from VICE magazine (featuring Texas) about some of the reaction (emphasis is mine):

Resettlement agencies in Texas—and other states with governors who have fought to block refugees—are working harder than ever to soothe their clients in the wake of the election of Donald Trump, who pledged during his campaign to severely restrict refugees from settling in the US. Now, as resettlement agencies try to keep a calm face, they also brace for a possible halt on the country’s refugee program, which advocates warn could cause a humanitarian disaster.

erol-kekik-2 — Kekic points out that as legal immigrants refugees are free to move anywhere they wish in America. For more on Kekic, see what I said about him last month: https://refugeeresettlementwatch.org/2016/11/12/poughkeepsie-church-world-service-official-spins-about-refugee-islamic-terrorists/

The president-elect has kept quiet about his resettlement plans since his election, and his press office did not return requests for comment. But during his campaign, Trump vowed to suspend the acceptance of all Syrians and to stop sending refugees to any community that opposed them. [More on this below—ed]

“A Trump administration will not admit any refugees without the support of the local community where they are being placed,” Trump said just three days before the election in a Minnesota campaign speech. He added that the state had “suffered enough” since Somali refugees began arriving. Later, after a Somali refugee attacked students at Ohio State, Trump tweeted that the 18-year-old “should not have been in our country.”

If a Trump administration does decide to block refugee resettlement in certain communities, the move would be unprecedented. Currently, the Office of Refugee Resettlement places refugees throughout the country with the help of national NGOs under the federal refugee resettlement program. States cannot turn away refugees, even if their communities don’t want them.

[….]

Abbott’s withdrawal, largely seen as a political move, can’t actually prevent new refugees from coming to Texas. But some warn that the Trump administration could cut services and funds, effectively gutting these programs. [This is the key in my opinion because the resettlement contractors have almost no private resources—ed]

“If the services we provide now were to stop, it would be a humanitarian disaster,” Rippenkroeger told me. “There would be people homeless, without medical coverage and food. It would be a very direct human catastrophe so we can’t afford for the program not to be fully functional.”

Look at this! This program costs the federal taxpayer $100 million alone just for Texas for one year!

Texas is slated to receive about $100 million in federal funds for refugee resettlement in 2017…

[….]

“There’s no amount of fundraising we could do to replace federal support.” [That is right because people give their private charitable gifts to efforts they approve of!—ed]

Then this is something I expected was going on big time and not just in Texas—emptying the coffers at ORR before January 20th (not necessarily for refugees but to keep the contractor offices open).

Amid the uncertainty, Rippenkroeger said the Office of Refugee Resettlement was working with a “nose to the grindstone approach” in setting up a system to distribute federal funds through the Texas NGOs.

[….]

Refugee advocates in other parts of the country where anti-refugee sentiment is common displayed similar reserve when I asked them about Trump’s resettlement plans. Cole Varga, executive director of Exodus Refugee Immigration Inc.—the organization that sued Mike Pence, the governor of Indiana and vice president-elect, for trying to block Syrian refugees from the state—told me he was hopeful.

“Currently, we have not received any word from our national partners or the State Department on how the incoming Trump administration will run the federal government’s refugee resettlement program,” Varga told me in an email, declining to comment on the lawsuit.

Do not get excited by Trump’s statement about not sending refugees to communities that don’t want them. This is not realistic and a long-time Church World Service head honcho gives us one reason why:

Even if Trump allows certain communities to pull out of resettlement, he can’t stop refugees from moving states after arriving in the US—which means the most significant difference may be the money states receive, noted Erol Kekic, executive director of the national resettlement agency Church World Service.

“Immigration is a federal matter, and if the nation continues to admit refugees, they’re free to go wherever they want the moment they arrive,” Kekic told me. “They may not receive services, but they’re free to move—so even if Governor Abbott says he wants none in Texas, how will he know a refugee won’t move to Texas?”

Continue reading here.
The RAP is built on a house of cards primarily based on federal funding per head of refugee admitted to the US. The ultimate answer is to stop the program (stop the numbers coming in and the funding for it!) altogether until the Refugee Act of 1980 can be reformed or trashed entirely.
I have to laugh when Kekic (above) says that “immigration is a federal matter,” but I would bet a buck he is all for those sanctuary cities thumbing their noses at the incoming Trump team saying they (the city) will decide whether to enforce federal immigration law or not.
***On terror producing regions of the world. I am talking specifically about Syrians, Somalis, Burmese Rohingya Muslims, Afghans, and most Iraqis wherever in the world we are picking them up. For example, Trump’s people can’t say “we won’t take any refugees from Somalia.” Most Somalis are not in Somalia any longer, but scattered around the world (some in very safe countries) and we are taking them to America anyway! Again, at this point in time, Donald Trump as President must stop or slow the flow across the board and not get into the weeds on the issue of whether a community wants refugees or not!

Lancaster County, PA refugee economic study is misleading

11/26/2016 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

If everything is so copacetic in Lancaster County, then why did it go 57% for Donald Trump?

This is what the Left is so good at—writing studies that are not completely accurate to paint a positive picture of the economic impact of refugees on a community and then use it as a news-hook.
But, in this case the study (the propaganda!) which concluded that immigrants/refugees economically benefit Lancaster County, PA was produced by the real driver of the Open Borders movement, not the Leftwing, do-gooder, ‘humanitarians,’ but business interests who want the ready supply of cheap labor—-the Chamber of Commerce and Bloomberg’s New American Economy cheered on by federal refugee contractor Church World Service which receives most of its funding from you, the taxpayer. [For more on the New American Economy, go here.–ed]

NEW YORK, NY - DECEMBER 15: Former Mayor of New York City Michael Bloomberg speaks at a press conference announcing a new initiative between the Clinton Foundation, United Nations Foundation and Bloomberg Philanthropies, titled Data 2x on December 15, 2014 in New York City. Data 2x aims to use data-driven analysis to close gender gaps throughout the world. (Photo by Andrew Burton/Getty Images) — Do not trust any propaganda from leading Open Borders advocates like Bloomberg: “Former Mayor of New York City Michael Bloomberg speaks at a press conference announcing a new initiative between the Clinton Foundation, United Nations Foundation and Bloomberg Philanthropies…” http://www.huffingtonpost.com/michael-bloomberg/bloomberg-what-works-cities-data_b_7097304.html (Photo by Andrew Burton/Getty Images)

The article at Philly.com (fake news?) seems to be promoting refugee resettlement, but when you look closely, the educated and hardworking immigrants cited are mostly not refugees—they are Vietnamese (we only take a handful of refugees from Vietnam now), Mexicans, Germans!, Dominicans, and a smaller number of Cubans which we do take as refugees, but shouldn’t be!
But, the most important and misleading aspect of the story is that there is no information in the study about what the refugees/immigrants cost Lancaster County and the federal taxpayer for welfare, subsidized housing, food stamps, medicare, the criminal justice system and a biggie—education for the kids.
The low wages Tyson Foods and other big global corporations pay their labor is supplemented by you, so of course the business community loves this model!
Philly.com:

Lancaster County is Donald Trump land. The president-elect won 57 percent of the 240,000 votes cast there, compared with Hillary Clinton’s 38 percent.

The county of about a half-million people also is home to fast-growing numbers of immigrants and refugees – 23,094 as of last count – whose rate of growth from 2009 to 2014 was nearly double the rate for the county as a whole. Nationwide, immigrants and refugees were among groups often lambasted by candidate Trump.

irwin-bass1 — VP Lancaster Chamber of Commerce, Cheryl Irwin-Bass. http://www.lancasterchamber.com/article.aspx?page=executive-biographies&parent=media-center#.WDmpW1ygY2w

But in Lancaster County, according to a study released Tuesday, foreign-born residents have had “an outsize” positive impact on the local economy, and in 2014 contributed $62.8 million to Social Security, $16.4 million to Medicare, $52.5 million in state and local taxes, and $103.3 million in federal taxes. Their spending power was estimated at $440.5 million.

The study was a joint project of the Lancaster County Chamber of Commerce and Industry and the Lancaster County Refugee Coalition. It was conducted and underwritten by the bipartisan New American Economy, a Washington nonprofit whose cochairs include former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg and former Philadelphia Mayor Michael A. Nutter.

[….]

“With the very serious workforce challenges the business community faces, the findings in this report will help us to more fully leverage every person in this county,” Cheryl Irwin-Bass, vice president of the chamber, said when she presented the study at her group’s annual State of the County event.

[….]

The study cites manufacturing and health care as industries in which immigrants have played important roles. Some refugees have obtained jobs at Tyson Foods. [I wonder if refugees who sign up abroad to come here are forewarned about the meatpacking jobs they are expected to fill—ed]

[….]

Church World Service has an office in Lancaster City, and the refugees she helps include Syrians who have had to flee their war-ravaged homeland. The top five immigrant groups are from Vietnam, Dominican Republic, Mexico, Germany, and Cuba. [Mostly NOT refugees—ed]

Philly.com continues here.

lancaster-rally — Rally earlier this year against more refugees for Lancaster. Trump voters! https://refugeeresettlementwatch.org/2016/01/03/pennsylvania-patriots-rally-against-more-muslim-refugees-for-lancaster/

Forget humanitarianism, it is all about money!

If I have done nothing else with this post and years of work on the subject of Refugee Resettlement I hope I have gotten one important message through to you dear reader—-Refugee Resettlement in America is NOT first and foremost about humanitarianism, it is about big business and cheap labor!
I’ve written a lot about Lancaster (Amish country) over the years. My interest began in 2007 when it was Lancaster’s spillover (there was some problem with crime there we were told by our police chief) that came to my county in western Maryland.
Go here for my archive on Lancaster. See especially posts where some very unhappy citizens protested against more refugee resettlement and where the school system endured a very expensive lawsuit filed by lawyers for refugees (I bet Bloomberg didn’t include that cost in his study!).

Ignoring the governor, New Jersey refugee contractors vow to place them as fast as Obama admits them!

11/15/2016 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

In my previous post I said I had two stories today (so far) about reactions from within the refugee resettlement industry about the future of the program in a Trump administration. The second story comes from NJ.com which begins with the usual heart string-tugging story that has to be the first lesson of Journalism 101 classes at our colleges and universities. However this story has a little smell to it! (Emphasis below is mine)

chrischristie — Governor Chris Christie withdrew New Jersey from the Refugee Admissions Program, but it is meaningless if he doesn’t follow-up with a state’s rights lawsuit. Contractors admit at NJ.com that Syrians can’t be properly screened!

The woman, a Syrian refugee recently resettled in Middlesex County, had one question the morning after the election of Donald Trump:

“What does this mean for my sons?”

What kind of visa allowed the Syrian couple admission to the US, and it is certainly a red flag that their TEENAGE BOYS were not admitted!
Also, since the pair have not yet been approved for asylum, they are NOT REFUGEES (not until their asylum applications have been approved are they eligible for all the goodies refugees receive from taxpayers!).
NJ.com continues:

Her concern was recounted by the Rev. Seth Kaper-Dale, whose New Brunswick congregation has sponsored the resettlement of several refugee families. The woman and her husband had come to the United States on visas, and are seeking asylum***, but her teenage boys were denied visas and are waiting in a third country.

“I told her it doesn’t mean anything for her boys,” Kaper-Dale said. “I do not expect Donald Trump will be nearly as aggressive with his actions as he was with his mouth.” [Rather optimistic isn’t it?—ed]

Admitting it again! Trump does not need Congress to cut off the flow!

Trump campaigned on a promise to stop the flow of refugees from the Middle East, vowing to hit the pause button on the current administration’s acceptance of refugees from the brutal civil war in Syria. Since the refugee resettlement program is administered by the U.S. State Department, a president does not need congressional approval to make the change.

And, just as we predicted! Obama may be trying to front-end the resettlement of his 110,000 refugee plan for FY2017. However, contractors beware because if you get out ahead of your federal funding, you may actually have to find private money later in the year (or go belly-up!).

The New Jersey-based agencies that have federal contracts to help refugees find housing and jobs all vow to continue to welcome people who have come to New Jersey from at least 18 countries. [Progress when mainstream media mentions that the ‘religious’ groups have federal contracts!—ed]

If anything, some expect the pace of resettlement may pick up as the Obama administration tries to bring over as many families as possible before Trump takes office in January, one volunteer said.

[….]

Concerned about the impact the Trump election might have on the organization’s refugee resettlement program, Bertrand made inquiries a few days after the election and said he was told refugees would continue to arrive until the change of administration takes place in Washington.

“And after that, they have no idea what will happen,” he said.

Gov. Christie’s withdrawal of the state from the UN/US Refugee Admissions Program only means a non-profit federal contractor like Church World Service in this story will call the shots for NJ (maybe it already has become a Wilson-Fish state). If he was serious he would file a lawsuit as Tennessee is doing here.

Although Gov. Chris Christie came out against the state accepting any Syrian refugees – saying he would be opposed to accepting even orphans under the age of five – states cannot ban refugees from resettlement in their borders.

Will wonders never cease! Here they actually admit what we have been saying all along about screening Syrians!

Agencies that help with refugee settlement say the people arriving today have been in the vetting pipeline for years. But they concede that the chaotic conditions that triggered a mass exodus from Syria in 2015 makes it very difficult for refugees to prove anything about their backgrounds, as employers, relatives and even records are now scattered, unavailable, or destroyed.

Continue reading here.
***As I warned in my earlier post this morning, watch out for more extensive use of the asylum process if the refugee resettlement program is curtailed.
Go here for more on New Jersey.