Tag: Church World Service

Federal refugee resettlement contractors on board—have upped the number to 100,000 Syrians

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Only a week ago the US State Department contractors (who we hear are leading the State Dept. by the nose!) are now demanding that Obama admit 100,000 Syrians ASAP when only last week they said they would be satisfied with a mere 65,000.
Remember readers that the so-called “religious groups” mentioned in this article are PAID BY THE HEAD TO RESETTLE REFUGEES and that they decide to which towns and cities they will distribute them.

Rev. John McCullough
The Rev. John McCullough, CEO of Church World Service, pulls down a salary and related income package of just short of $300,000 while competing with other so-called “religious groups” in divvying up third world refugees to your towns and cities. http://www.guidestar.org/FinDocuments/2014/134/080/2014-134080201-0b0e1844-9.pdf

Reuters  (Hey Reuters, when are you ever going to do a little research and mention that these are US State Department contractors largely funded with US taxpayer dollars masquerading as Christian and Jewish not-for-profit charities!):

(Reuters) – Religious groups in the United States have urged the White House to step up its response to the Syrian refugee crisis, with one on Tuesday calling Washington’s efforts so far “disappointing.”

Church World Service, a global humanitarian organization that represents 37 Christian denominations, has called on the government to take in 100,000 Syrians over the next year, said Jen Smyers, who works on the group’s immigration and refugee program.

The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, the Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service, and the Jewish refugee assistance agency HIAS along with secular groups have also backed that figure.

The article goes on to tell us that the Lutherans think (in their infinite wisdom) that “the government’s definition of terrorism is overly broad.”
For new readers, below are the nine federal contractors paid with your tax dollars to resettle refugees in the towns of their choice!

“…assigning refugees to cities in the United States does not fall to the State Department. Those decisions are made by a consortium of nine national nongovernmental organizations.”

By the way, if your local church is doing a “Crop Walk,” then you are raising money for Church World Service which has 5 other employees in 6-figure salaries in addition to McCullough.
Reminder!  Obama will be making the all important decision on refugees for FY2016 any day now.

Daniel Greenfield: Chattanooga shooter possibly linked to Palestinian refugees

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Update 2: Shooter traveled to Jordan in 2014, WSJ here.
Update:  If Dad is a Palestinian who left Kuwait, this family could indeed be resettled refugees or successful asylum seekers we gave shelter to. Here is what wikipedia says about the expulsion of Palestinians (Jordanian citizens) from Kuwait after the first Gulf War.   I don’t have time to dig around, but if you do, I’ll post your links here!  I have to get on to my work on “Welcoming Ohio” this morning.
Everyone I know is asking if the Islamic-motivated shooting of 4 unarmed Marines is somehow linked to our refugee program.  I don’t have the answer yet.

Muhammad Youssef Abdulazeez

We don’t take very many refugees from Kuwait nor do we take very many Palestinians, but we do send many Muslim refugees to Tennessee.
If anyone sees a mention of the year the killer’s family entered the US it might help us narrow this down.  Remember there are several legal immigration programs through which this family could have been admitted to the US.
One possibility is that a family member (the father?) entered the US in some legal fashion (tourist visa?) then applied for asylum and subsequently brought the family over behind him (like the Tsarnaev Boston Bomber family did).
Everyone keep an eye out for any news about how they got into the US!
Holly Johnson
As the Director for the Tennessee Office for Refugees, Holly Johnson would be able to put the question to rest by telling us whether or not the killer’s family came to the US as refugees or possibly were granted asylum status after getting into the country through some other means.

The refugee program in Tennessee is a Wilson-Fish program which means it is run jointly by the US State Department and in this case Catholic Charities of Tennessee (Tennessee Office for Refugees)—they would both know if the Abdulazeez family came here as refugees or successful asylum seekers. 
Also, the primary resettlement contractor in Chattanooga is Bridge Refugee Services (a subcontractor of Church World Service and Episcopal Migration Ministries, two of nine major contractors).
Bridge has been operating in Chattanooga since 1982 so they would know if this family was one of theirs!
My guess is that the refugee contractors in Tennessee will not be forthcoming.
Daniel Greenfield writing at Frontpage magazine has this bit of information:

This is still preliminary as the story is developing. So take it as that.

The media is reporting that the Muslim attacker in the Chattanooga shootings is Kuwaiti. That may not be accurate, based on the current reporting, it would appear that his mother Rasmia Abdulazeez is indeed from Kuwait, but his father Youssuf Abdulazeez is from Nablus in Israel.

This is not especially significant as a lot of self-described “Palestinians” used to live in Kuwait. At least until the Kuwaitis kicked them out for collaborating with Saddam. With the approval of Bush I.

If you see more on how the family got into the US, please send it our way.
By the way, one of the first posts I ever wrote at RRW was about this agency, Bridge Refugee Services, joining the ACLU and CAIR to fight a 2003 request by the US Dept. of Homeland Security for information under the Patriot Act.  The national security agency was looking for information on resettled Iraqi refugees.  The resettlement contractor refused to cooperate.
So they are not likely to talk now!

Here is another Daniel Greenfield story on this topic.

Meanwhile Presidential candidate Bobby Jindal says Muslim immigration to America might more correctly be called “colonization.”

At Breitbart:

According to a recent report from the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS), approximately 2.5 million immigrants from “predominantly Muslim countries” reside inside the U.S. right now. Abdulazeez was apparently one of them. Jindal has questioned whether all the Muslims coming into the United States right now is really truly “immigration” or if it’s actually a “colonization.”

About Holly Johnson:  This is her contact information if any investigative reporters want to try to get an answer—good luck!

Holly Johnson, Director
Tennessee Office for Refugees
Office: (615) 352-9520 ext. 222
Fax: (615) 352-0701
Email: HJohnson@cctenn.org

Syrians coming to Amish country (Lancaster County, PA)

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Most people are very surprised to learn that Church World Service (one of nine federal resettlement contractors) has been busy for years flooding Lancaster, PA with third worlders.  Here we learn that the next big batch will be Syrians—Syrians who don’t speak English and who will need mental health counseling!

Lancaster Sheila
Sheila Mastropietro of CWS: Counseling is an area of concern. You betcha! Sure hope Lancaster has lots of good FREE counseling services. BTW, your tax dollars pay for 20 staff people in Mastropietro’s office! http://www.cwsglobal.org/what-we-do/refugees/us-offices/lancaster/lancaster-staff.html

And, big surprise (not!) they will work in factories and warehouses (jobs Americans won’t do for slave wages?).  Please explain to me why a ‘church’ group is acting as head hunter for businesses looking for cheap labor?
From WITF:

About 60 Syrian refugees already live in Lancaster County, and another 60 are expected to re-settle there in the next year.

Church groups secure and furnish apartments for the families, who also get help in finding work and staying healthy.

English classes will be available, and kids will go to schools in the county.

Speaking on WITF’s Smart Talk, Sheila Mastropietro with Church World Service in Lancaster also says counseling is an area of concern because many refugees have seen death and destruction in Syria.

“So it’s difficult but we do what we can and we certainly have interpretation services. And we expect that some people are going to need at least some counseling in the beginning at least,” she says.

Mastropietro says she expects the Syrians to find work quickly in a warehouse or factory.

Go here to listen to the Smart Talk interview.
And, if you didn’t know Church World Service is part of the National Council of Churches which has historical roots in the Communist movement of the 1950s.  They are hard Leftists in their political view.
See our archive on Lancaster by clicking here.
It was in Lancaster, in 2013, that I first heard about “pockets of resistance” (towns trying to stop the flow of refugees their way) and the Office of Refugee Resettlement’s new hire—‘Welcoming America.’
An afterthought:  I should have added this—over 90% of the Syrians we are taking are Muslims.

It's Sunday morning, is your church supporting the resettlement of third-worlders, Muslims, to America?

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Because we have so many new readers I decided to remind all of you that six of the nine major refugee resettlement contractors pretend they are working for all of you (good Christian and Jewish people) when they resettle thousands of refugees to hundreds of towns and cities across the country (and leave the refugees struggling on their own after only a few months!).

Welcome one and all to America! Bishop Eusebio Elizondo, M.Sp.S., auxiliary bishop of Seattle and chairman of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) Committee on Migration. Bishops cheer Obama: http://www.usccb.org/news/2014/14-196.cfm

If your church is affiliated with any of these ‘religious’ groups (federal government contractors all), you must begin to ask your local pastors, priests and rabbis what they are doing.  I bet most have no clue about what is being done in their name!

Maybe tell them if they want to give real Christian and Jewish charity they can give time or money to help refugees where they live in the world, or bring a family to America, take care of them and assimilate them without passing their care, or the cost of their care, on to US and local taxpayers. 

Now that would be real charity!

The groups in red are paid millions of your tax dollars to resettle refugees across the country.  As members of the Refugee Council USA, they all lobbied Senators this week to support bringing in 65,000 Syrians very soon.
They all lobbied for the ‘Gang of Eight’ Senate (so-called) Comprehensive Immigration Reform bill and they all support Obama’s decision to spread the tens of thousands of Unaccompanied Alien Children across the country.  And, no surprise, they endorsed Obama’s New Americans plan to “seed” your communities with “new” citizens.
~US Conference of Catholic Bishops (probably all Catholic Churches in America are ruled by the Bishops, correct me if I’m wrong!)
~Episcopal Migration Ministries (new name Domestic and Foreign Missionary Society) (Affiliates map)

~World Relief (National Association of Evangelicals) (Denominations):

Advent Christian General Conference
Anglican Mission in America
Assemblies of God
Brethren Church , The
Brethren in Christ Church
Christian & Missionary Alliance
Christian Reformed Church in North America
Christian Union
Church of God (Cleveland, Tenn.)
Church of the Nazarene
Conservative Congregational Christian Conference
Converge Worldwide
Elim Fellowship
Evangelical Assembly of Presbyterian Churches
Evangelical Church , The
Evangelical Congregational Church
Evangelical Free Church of America
Evangelical Friends Church International
Evangelical Presbyterian Church
Every Nation Churches
Fellowship of Evangelical Churches
Foursquare Church, The
Free Methodist Church USA
General Association of General Baptist
Grace Communion International
Great Commission Churches
International Pentecostal Church of Christ
International Pentecostal Holiness Church
Missionary Church, Inc.
North American Baptist Conference
Open Bible Churches
Presbyterian Church in America
Primitive Methodist Church USA
Salvation Army , The
Transformation Ministries
United Brethren in Christ
US Conference of the Mennonite Brethren Churches
Vineyard, USA
Wesleyan Church, The

~Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service (Denominations/church bodies):

Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA),

Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod LC-MS,

Latvian Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (LELCA).

~Church World Service (Denominations):
By the way, Church World Service does the Crop Hunger Walk.  Your local church may be helping fund CWS through that.

~Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society (see affiliates).
If you want to know more about how much money they receive, here is just a snapshot for one year (2012).  Check out some of the salaries they receive mostly from you!
An afterthought:  I plan to look into the Salvation Army’s involvement in World Relief.  We thought it was one safe place to donate without fearing our money would go to a political agenda!

Cubans speeding up arrival in US, fear possible change in law

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Getting away from Muslim migrants for a moment, we have a story this morning about how federal refugee resettlement contractor (one of the big nine***), Church World Service, helps Cubans who are ECONOMIC migrants, not refugees, get settled in America.

Miguel Laguna, a caseworker at Church World Service, a refugee resettlement agency, runs an orientation class about life in the US for a newly arrived Cuban family. Credit: Monica Campbell http://www.pri.org/stories/2015-01-22/youre-cuban-youve-reached-us-boat-now-what

I’ve been wondering lately what Obama’s change in US/Cuban relations will have on the thousands and thousands of Cubans still arriving in the US under that ridiculous “wet foot, dry foot” policy.

If we normalize relations with Cuba, why would there be any “refugees” coming here?  Or, will his policy simply open the pipeline completely for one and all to fly right in?

A refugee by definition is escaping persecution.  People wanting a job and social services are economic migrants and not eligible for refugee status (unless you are Cuban of course).

They are coming here for American jobs!  Remember! Your tax dollars pay for most of the services of Church World Service!  See how much here.

Here is the story from PRI.org (emphasis below is mine):

Forget for a second that you live in the United States, that you know its laws, know English, know what a Social Security number is, let alone worrying about having one.

Now imagine that’s the wave of information you are trying to absorb, quickly, in a small conference room in Miami. That’s exactly what happens to some families when they arrive in the United States.

Miguel Laguna helps guide them through the bewildering process. He’s a caseworker at Church World Service, a refugee resettlement agency with an office in the Miami area. Most of the Miami office’s clients are Cubans. [Miami office website is here–ed]

Laguna goes over with the family how to take the bus, apply for citizenship and where to study English. It’s a lot to take in.

[….]

Ramos sits with his wife, Ailén, and his son, also named Ismael. The family tells me it took two days and two nights in a small boat to reach Florida. They got lost in the Gulf of Mexico, but eventually made it. “The GPS broke, so we didn’t know where we were for a while,” Ailén says.

They say they left Cuba because there’s no work there. Ailén says she was a gym teacher making $12 a month, a pretty typical salary in Cuba. The family thought of leaving for years, but sped up their plans for fear that the United States’ unique and controversial “wet foot, dry foot” policy might disappear.

That policy says that Cuban migrants who make it to shore — “dry foot” — won’t be sent back, and will essentially be granted US residency after a year and one day in this country. The original intent was to drain the best and brightest from communist Cuba by dangling US visas, so some Cubans worry that better US-Cuba relations will lead to a change in policy.

Only Congress can make changes to “wet foot, dry foot,” and that could take a while. But the rumors that the policy might disappear persist in Cuba, and a rising number of people are leaving the island for the US on boats or, in some cases, by land through Latin America.

[….]

Laguna does note that this family has an advantage: They have relatives living in Miami. For Cuban refugees who arrive alone, there’s a lot of uncertainty.

[….]

I ask them why they left Cuba. They all say similar thing: “the economy,” “jobs,” “no work.”

It’s an answer that fuels a growing argument: Why treat Cubans differently than Guatemalans who flee gangs and poverty? What about Mexicans wanting to send money back to their relatives back home, or people fleeing war and repression elsewhere who must petition for asylum in the United States? Why give Cubans a special pass?

Of course what they are working up to is not changing the fact that Cubans get a pass with special treatment, but they want every other person in the world who needs a job or is fleeing crime to get the same pass without that messy business of applying for asylum!

By the way, we make 20,000 slots available every year IN CUBA for truly persecuted people, they don’t have to take risky voyages!  Those taking the risky trip are job seekers—economic migrants!

It was Church World Service’s role in the county where I live that is responsible for the birth of this blog.

*** For new readers, these are the nine major federal resettlement contractors: