Poughkeepsie Congressional candidate learns how secretive federal refugee planning is

11/01/2016 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Update November 2: Here is an article that explains how a local college professor got this whole ball rolling creating the Mid-Hudson Refugee Solidarity Alliance.
Last week we told you that Poughkeepsie, NY had been chosen by the US State Department as a new refugee resettlement seed community.*** In order for the plans to be this advanced—the office should be open before the end of the year or in early 2017—there has been at least a year of behind-the-scenes planning.
Some local elected officials have surely been in on the plan since the beginning. There are churches, mosques and synagogues (probably part of a local ‘Interfaith’ group) that are quietly working on the plans and may very well have instigated the idea.

And, there is also an R & P Abstract for FY2017 (a planning document for Poughkeepsie which includes numbers, ethnicity, and other information about where refugees will work and so forth) that should be made available to all citizens! In fact, Congressional candidate Oliva should call Church World Service and ask for the document.
If he gets a run-around, then he should call the New York State Refugee Coordinator (see this list) and ask for it.
There is nothing new about this story. Church World Service was the major contractor where I live and was working quietly to bring refugees into my county seat in 2007 until concerned citizens demanded answers. Because the answers were not forthcoming, Refugee Resettlement Watch was born.
But, I digress…..
Back to Poughkeepsie and the Congressional candidate. From WAMC-Northeast Public Radio:

The Republican candidate for New York’s 18th congressional district was in Poughkeepsie Monday. Phil Oliva is expressing concern over news that a refugee resettlement office will open in the city.

Phil Oliva, who’s running against two-term Democratic Congressman Sean Patrick Maloney, questioned why he had to learn from a City of Poughkeepsie resident that Church World Service would be opening an office in Poughkeepsie.

“We’re not beating up on Syrian refugees. And I, and the ones that are here, I would treat them like a neighbor,” Oliva says. “It’s not them that we’re mad at.”

“My anger is directed at our federal officials. Why didn’t they tell us about this and they just think they can slip it in,” says Oliva. “And why Poughkeepsie? Why the City of Poughkeepsie?”

“Church World Service is a vendor of the federal government. The federal government, the Department of State knows this. They’re doing this, and they didn’t tell anybody locally [I’m betting they did and some local elected officials are in on it especially if they are Dems!—ed]. That’s a major, major problem,” Oliva says. “And, as a congressman, I would raise holy hell in Washington because I’m the federal representative. If I don’t know about this, I’m either not doing my job, and if somebody’s trying to slip one past me, then there’s going to be a price to pay and I’d be demanding answers now, not just sending Carol [Poughkeepsie resident mentioned above—ed] and others to go ask this one and ask that one. The buck would stop with me.”

Concerned citizens better get registered for this meeting next week. I warn you this will be a controlled meeting which means they will probably not allow open questions from the floor. Learn a little about something called the Delphi Technique for controlling the outcome of a meeting. Here are all of our mentions of the technique, don’t let them herd you like cattle.

Church World Service will hold an information session about the new Poughkeepsie office Thursday, November 10. at the Adriance Memorial Library.

Concerned citizens do your homework in the next ten days. You have every right to know what the federal government is planning for your town or city!

Start with ‘Ten things your town needs to know.’ See RRW’s Frequently Asked Questions. Then search RRW for ‘New York’ and learn all about what is happening throughout the state on refugees. Search RRW for ‘Church World Service.’ Also, search RRW for ‘Rutland’ (VT) to see the controversy there (is your mayor in cahoots with Church World Service?).
***These are the other sites (we hear there are 47 new ones, there are hundreds of established sites) that we have identified so far. The huge surge in locations is needed for the highest number of refugees we have admitted in decades and because they want them planted before a possible Trump administration takes the reins of government in January.
All planning proceeds in secrecy. Why? Because they can’t sell this program to a community when they put all the facts on the table!

Asheville, NC

Rutland, VT

Reno, NV

Ithaca, NY

Missoula, MT

Aberdeen, SD (may have been thwarted!)

Charleston, WV

Fayetteville, AR

Blacksburg, VA

Pittsfield, MA

Northhampton, MA

Flint, MI

Bloomington, IN

Traverse City, MI

Poughkeepsie, NY

Wilmington, DE

Watertown, NY (maybe)

Youngstown, OH (maybe)

Heads up Poughkeepsie, New York: 'Christian' charity to bring you Syrian Muslims likely before January 2017

10/28/2016 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Update November 12th: Church World Service counts on fact that local communities don’t know much about refugee program/history of terrorism, here.
Update November 8th: Information meeting (Nov. 10th) moved to larger venue as criticism mounts. Federal contractor admits little information given to local elected body, here.
Update November 5th: Sitting Democrat Congressman should have known all this was coming to his district, here.
Update November 3rd: Mayor says he didn’t know anything about it, here.
Update October 30th: Issue becomes a campaign issue. Democrat Congressman supports Syrian refugees for the area, Republican candidate says, create safe zones in Middle East, here.
We have heard that the US Department of State has secretly identified 47 new resettlement office locations to add to their 200 or so sites listed here.
Readers are asking me how can they find out if their town is targeted. There are only two ways to know (there is NO list provided by the feds) either someone leaks the planning process, or you see an article like this one at WPDH Hudson Valley.

However, by the time they are at this stage of the planning, months of work as well as an R & P Abstract has been prepared and most likely the skids have been greased with local elected officials.
If you live in or near Poughkeepsie, and you care, you have work to do.
Here is the short news article which announces a public meeting (that will be structured in such a way to limit criticism).
By the way, it is ‘Christian’ charities like Church World Service, Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service and Catholic Charities that have been changing the demographic make-up of New York State to the point that churches are being converted to mosques in the region.
Remember at the present rate we could be admitting 135,000 refugees this fiscal year with 20,000 of them being Syrian Muslims (because Congress does not have the guts to cut the funding!).
They are trying to get these offices open before Inauguration Day in case Donald Trump is elected. It will be much harder for him to slow the flow if the offices are up and running! If Hillary wins they will be on the glide path to 135,000 or more!
From WPDH:

A new resettlement office is opening up in Poughkeepsie to help Syrian refugees integrate into the Hudson Valley after arriving in the United States.

Church World Service announced in a press release that they will be opening up a new location in Poughkeepsie. The global humanitarian organization is one of nine U.S. resettlement agencies and has already been working to resettle refugees in Buffalo, Rochester and Syracuse.

[….]

According to CWS, the Poughkeepsie office will offer newly-arrived refugees a case manager that will assist in finding employment and give support for basic needs like access to health services, cultural orientation and job prep.

A public information session is scheduled to educate the public on what the office will be doing and how the community can help. For those who are interested in learning more about the program, the information session will take place on November 10 at the Adriance Memorial Library from 4:30 to 7pm.

Go here for more on the meeting on November 10th, but be forewarned, this will be a very CONTROLLED meeting so if you are strongly opposed you must do homework in advance. Note that you must RSVP. Do it now!
Start your research here at RRW by going to ‘Ten things you need to know!’
And, see also Frequently Asked Questions, here.
*** Here are the new sites we have identified so far (Poughkeepsie has been added):

Asheville, NC

Rutland, VT

Reno, NV

Ithaca, NY

Missoula, MT

Aberdeen, SD (may have been thwarted!)

Charleston, WV

Fayetteville, AR

Blacksburg, VA

Pittsfield, MA

Northhampton, MA

Flint, MI

Bloomington, IN

Traverse City, MI

Poughkeepsie, NY

Watertown, NY (maybe)

Youngstown, OH (maybe)

Endnote: I am hoping to have more posts today (there is so much happening). So if you are one of those readers who says you are getting too many e-mails from me (actually from wordpress automatically) then simply unsubscribe. This is a blog for serious students of the UN/US State Department Refugee Admissions Program willing to learn and take action!

Church World Service's NJ refugee agency head, Mahmoud Mahmoud, frets about Brexit

06/25/2016 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

They were having a World Refugee Day event in the shadow of the World Trade Center this week as news of the Brexit vote sent shock waves to the US refugee contractors.

Church World Service’s Mahmoud Mahmoud blasts opposition to refugee resettlement here: http://www.nj.com/hudson/index.ssf/2015/11/jersey_city_syrian_refugees_group_resettlement.html

It is pretty obvious that America’s immigration control movement got a huge boost from the British vote to leave the EU on Thursday. And as we said previously, if German Chancellor Merkel hadn’t opened the floodgates of Europe, this vote would likely have had a different outcome.
I believe that critical mass is being reached on the issue of immigration control and refugees. Mahmoud knows it too, in spite of his optimistic prediction at the end of this story.
From NJTV News:

Families, advocates and officials gathered to celebrate World Refugee Day in the long shadow cast by the UK’s Brexit vote to leave the European Union — a vote some call anti-immigrant.

“I was a bit shocked, you know, because you never thought that the EU was going to break. But I do think that this is going to have a ripple effect throughout Europe,” said Mahmoud Mahmoud, Church World Service director of the Jersey City office.

Donald Trump praised the vote while visiting his golf course in Scotland.

“I really do see a parallel between what’s happening in the United States and what’s happening here. People want to see borders. They don’t necessarily want people pouring into their country that they don’t know who they are and where they come from,” Trump said.

[….]

Whether Brexit’s ripple effect reaches here: “Donald Trump has his views, but at the end of the day, the majority of Americans have shown that they want to welcome individuals and we are a nation of immigrants,” Mahmoud said. [I’m not so sure, the polls were wrong on Brexit after all—-ed]

In a political atmosphere fraught with division, nonprofits in New Jersey keep hoping to add more refugee families.

More here.
Readers may recall that NJ Governor Chris Christie has stopped cooperating with the UN/US Refugee Admissions Program, but he hasn’t done all he could do to slow the flow to NJ.

Buffalo, NY: Are refugees being placed in unsafe housing

03/25/2016 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

More housing issues involving refugees—this time New York—see our previous post this morning on Michigan.
I saw this news the other day, but didn’t find time to post it. As I said in my previous post, look for many housing problems especially this year as federal contractors like Journey’s End in this story are desperate to find housing for the 85,000 refugees Obama is bringing to America.
They will argue that they don’t get enough of a federal hand-out to put them in decent housing, but they will never argue that that means the flow has to be slowed or cut off! Just get them in, get their per head payment and move on! That is how they roll!
From WIVB.com:

Karen_M._Andolina_Scott-225x300 — Karen Andolina Scott is the Executive Director of Journey’s End in Buffalo. No comment on ceiling collapse story. http://www.jersbuffalo.org/index.php/news/entries/journeys_end_refugee_services_announces_new_executive_director

BUFFALO, N.Y. (WIVB)- A refugee family living on Buffalo’s West Side is having a difficult first few weeks in the United States. On Sunday night, the ceiling collapsed in the kitchen of their rental home on Grant St.

“It fell on me and my kids we were all inside,” said Roger, who was visiting a family friend that lives in the home.

Roger told News 4 he was taking a call in the kitchen when the collapse happened.

“It’s really discouraging when someone comes here seeking a house and you find yourself in these conditions, this situation,” he said.

His family friend, Ley Baunda, lives in the house with his wife and seven children. They are refugees from the Democratic Republic of Congo.***

They told us they blame local resettlement organizations for placing them in an unsafe house.

“I’m afraid because there is many, many things that is not good in the house,” said Baunda.

Baunda’s landlord wouldn’t talk to News 4.

We reached out to resettlement agency Journey’s End who wouldn’t comment on this case.

Continue reading to learn more as Ms. Scott explains the “federal program.”
From our handy list we learn that Journey’s End (a “Christian based” organization) is a subcontractor of both Church World Service and Episcopal Migration Ministries (two of the nine major federal contractors).
See our very large archive on Buffalo by clicking here.
***Just a reminder, on refugees from the DR Congo, we are in the process of bringing in 50,000, see one of many posts, here.

Refugee Resettlement contractors find new House bill "offensive" (blah, blah, blah)

03/16/2016 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Of course, what else do you expect. They will never admit that the UN/US Refugee Admissions Program is flawed and should be reformed because their whole livelihoods depend on it continuing exactly like it is with their phony non-profit organizations almost completely funded by you, the taxpayer.
They want you to keep paying for their ‘religious’ charity, but leave them alone to run their ‘businesses’ and their ‘clients’ their way—the way they have been since their hero Teddy Kennedy pushed the bill that became the Refugee Act of 1980 through Congress.

mccullough-cws (1) — I find it “offensive” that as a taxpayer I pay McCullough’s salary! CWS CEO Rev. John L. McCullough arrested at the White House in 2014 while protesting for amnesty for illegal aliens. These are not ‘churches’ but are Leftwing community organizers. McCullough pulls down a handsome six-figure salary partially funded by US taxpayers to do his NO borders political activities. Photo at Sojourners: https://sojo.net/articles/faith-leaders-arrested-white-house-calling-immigration-reform

I told you about the bill they are all worked up about here, yesterday, but it’s hard for me to get excited about it because it strikes me as window dressing too late in the legislative calendar to be meaningful.
And, with Obama in the White House there is no way it will ever become law. If by a miracle it passed both the House and the Senate, would the leadership even have the guts to send it to Obama, I doubt it.
It will be interesting to see if these same Congressional leaders push any measure to reform the refugee program if Donald Trump should be in the White House in 2017. And, at that point, do we want the pro-cheap labor pushers, the water-carriers for the Chamber of Commerce, Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell, ‘reforming’ it when Trump will have the power to cut it back himself?
All that said, it is always fun to watch the contractors whine and moan as they did in a conference call with reporters as we learned from CNS News (emphasis is mine):

…..during a conference call with reporters on Tuesday, opponents of the legislation called it “punitive” and “mean-spirited”, and claimed it would “dismantle the U.S. refugee program.”

“It ties the hands of the U.S. government to respond to humanitarian crises,” said Melanie Nezer, vice president for policy and advocacy at HIAS (formerly the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society), who criticized provisions in the bill that would strip refugee status from those who return to their home country and extends by two years the time period for refugees to be eligible to apply for permanent resident status “for no legitimate reason,” she said.

Melanie Nezer Syrians — I find it “mean-spirited” that Melanie Nezer wants to subject your community to refugees from countries that hate us—she was among the first to demand Obama admit 100,000 Syrians this year in spite of an FBI warning.

Nezer also objected to prioritizing “certain religious minorities” which, she said, would “hinder our ability to take in anybody.”

The bill “clearly discriminates against Muslims as the intended target,” said Rev. John McCullough, a United Methodist minister from New Jersey and president of Church World Service, which resettled 14,228 refugees from sub-Saharan Africa in the U.S. in FY2014, according to its website.

Church World Service head honcho, THE Reverend John McCullough finds it “offensive” that you, citizens in towns across America, should have any say in who they seed into your towns.

CNS continues…..

McCullough told reporters that he finds it “offensive” that under the bill, states and localities would be allowed to “determine who is welcome” instead of the federal government.

“This is very contrary to everything our country represents,” he said. “We have to call on the moral courage of Congress to reject this anti-refugee legislative proposal.”

Continue reading here.
More here on Church World Service.

P.S. Melanie Nezer authored a report, here, which urged the Southern Poverty Law Center to go after this blog (and me!) to try to expose us and silence us for disagreeing with her.