Update: CWS didn’t have to wait for long. Secretary of State Pompeo has announced a ceiling of 30,000 refugees for FY19. But, will the administration be ready to welcome those ‘new Americans’ in two weeks from today? See the news here.
In what I thought was going to be another ho-hum whinny story about Church World Service, a Lancaster, PA refugee agency director dropped this bomb:
Mastropietro [Sheila Mastropietro, director of the CWS Lancaster office] said the CWS national office is being kept in the dark.They just found out this week that the fiscal year will be extended to Dec. 31, delaying the decision of who will be funded and leaving CWS “on pins and needles for an additional three months,” she said.
If you have been a regular student of Refugee Resettlement Watch, you know that the fiscal year ends on September 30th, and for decades September is the month when we learn how many refugees will be admitted in the following year and from where they will come.
And, surely you haven’t missed my many posts on the PR campaign the federal contractors*** have been promoting as they demand that Trump admit 75,000 refugees beginning on October 1.
I can only guess that if true, that there will be no announcement this month, it means there is an internal battle of ginormous proportions going on, or it could be a complex funding issue involving the whole federal government.
The story, thanks to Joanne for sending it!, is at LancsterOnline:
With funding at risk, Church World Service ‘on pins and needles’ about future of refugee program
As President Donald Trump took office in January 2017, the 30th year of Church World Service resettling refugees in the county, Lancaster city was deemed “America’s refugee capital” by BBC News for resettling 20 times the number of refugees per capita than the country as a whole.
The distinction led to a visit from Nobel Peace Prize winner Malala Yousafzai, who went on to promote Lancaster’s efforts on a national stage.
Now, in the 20 months since Trump’s travel ban, Church World Service has resettled about half as many refugees here as it did in the previous 20 months, according to data provided by CWS.
The reporter continues with many paragraphs featuring personal refugee stories and about what President Trump is doing to the refugee program. Then this:
Church World Service, headquartered in Elkhart, Indiana, is one of nine national organizations funded by the Department of State for refugee resettlement. Each of them is a large operation with multiple local offices spread throughout the country.
Indiana?
Actually, CWS still has it original headquarters at the famous 475 Riverside Dr. building in New York City, home to dozens of hard Left ‘religious’ groups, like the National Council of Churches, and other similar socialist organizations. I’m guessing the lower level staffers work in Indiana to keep costs down.
But with fewer refugees making it to America’s doorstep, the Department of State’s Bureau of Population, Refugees and Migration “expects to fund a smaller number of recipient agencies” in the next fiscal year, according to a notice provided by a State Department spokesperson.
How many fewer agencies — and what factors might lead to the decision — is unclear. Mastropietro said the CWS national office is being kept in the dark. They just found out this week that the fiscal year will be extended to Dec. 31, delaying the decision of who will be funded and leaving CWS “on pins and needles for an additional three months,” she said.
While stripping refugee resettlement funding may be a fatal blow for some of the nine agencies, Mastropietro said CWS in Lancaster will carry on even if resettlement — its largest program — goes away.
Carrying-on will be tough!
Lancaster Online continues….
With other public [public of course means taxpayer dollars!–ed] and private funding avenues, CWS would continue operating programs such as legal immigration counseling, employment services and advocacy. And if it does lose the resettlement money, Mastropietro is convinced it will be a temporary, if difficult, setback.
And, she confirms what I have been saying!
“We’re just going to wait it out,” she said. “If anything happens, we’ll wait it out until the next president.”
Ambitious readers might like to learn more about refugees in Amish country. See my complete archive on Lancaster by clicking here.
Do not become complacent!
If the Trump Administration only reduces numbers of refugees and funding for a few years nothing will change!
A few of the smaller contractors may go belly-up, but it only will mean a greater monopoly for the surviving contractors like Church World Service.
Those contractors will be working to elect the next president, they will continue to lobby for more federal dollars and more refugees, and they will resume placing refugees quietly in to your unsuspecting towns and cities!
***Here below are the nine federal refugee resettlement contractors.
You might be sick of seeing this list almost every day, but a friend once told me that people need to see something seven times before it completely sinks in, so it seems to me that 70, or even 700 isn’t too much!
And, besides I have new readers every day.
The present US Refugee Admissions Program will never be reformed if the system of paying the contractors by the head stays in place and the contractors are permitted to act as Leftwing political agitation groups, community organizers and lobbyists paid on our dime!
And, to add insult to injury they pretend it is all about ‘humanitarianism.’
The number in parenthesis is the percentage of their income paid by you (the taxpayer) to place the refugees into your towns and cities and get them signed up for their services (aka welfare)! And, get them registered to vote eventually!
From my most recent accounting, here. However, please see that Nayla Rush at the Center for Immigration Studies has done an update of their income, as has James Simpson at the Capital Research Center!
- Church World Service (CWS) (71%)
- Ethiopian Community Development Council (ECDC) (secular)(93%)
- Episcopal Migration Ministries (EMM) (99.5%)
- Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society (HIAS) (57%)
- International Rescue Committee (IRC) (secular) (66.5%)
- US Committee for Refugees and Immigrants (USCRI) (secular) (98%)
- Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Services (LIRS) (97%)
- United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) (97%)
- World Relief Corporation (WR) (72.8%)
So, federal refugee contractor Church World Service is beefing up its political activist activities with new hires and holding events like this one on Sunday in the heart of Amish country. (And they are not just protesting for more refugees, they want open borders for all!).
