Tag: Donald Trump

AP perpetuates myth that numbers of refugees arriving in the US under Trump are "plummeting!"

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

It is really amazing to see how blatantly the mainstream media spins the facts!
Before I even get to the story, once again, here (below) is the data for the last ten plus years (from the Refugee Processing Center). FY2007 and FY2008 are Bush years.  FY2009-2016 are Obama years. And, like it or not, FY2017 is Trump (even though the FY began on October 1, 2016).
First look at the ceilings set over the years.  Did Obama ever set one near 110,000 (set in Sept. 2016) for any of his years prior to his final months in office?
Until Obama’s last years, he didn’t come close to the CEILING in his first 4 years, see especially FY11 and 12 (it is a ceiling not a TARGET)!  Obama had two years under 60,000! Did the resettlement contractors complain and moan about Obama—NO!
Much is being made in the media about Trump’s March number (2,070) but who had lower months—both Bush AND Obama. See Obama’s October 2014. It is 1,810! March 2011 is lower too!

Is Trump’s April that far out of line from some of Obama’s months? NO! Obama had some months lower than 3,316!
Now have a look at the first 4 months for the last eleven years. Until Obama’s last months in office, have you ever seen the numbers so high in the first 4 months for all of the years? The Obama State Department began pouring refugees in at record numbers (in anticipation of a Trump slowdown?) and I bet they also skipped a lot of screening to get the flow going at that incredible rate.
Again look at the numbers!  Trump is on target for a just below an average year of about 60,000 admissions, but much to my shock the AP is reporting that Congress has granted enough funds for 75,000 this year!  75,000 would put the admission number ABOVE any year from FY2007 to FY2015!
So who is AP trying to kid?
 

 
Here are some snips from the AP story by Meredith Hoffmann which begins with a Somali sob story.  Why does no one ever ask how it came to be that this Somali man abandoned his family for seven years, got in to the US without them and left them to deal with poverty and war in Africa?
Besides the effort to make it look like numbers are “plummeting,” Hoffmann actually helps make the case why this program needs to be dumped or reformed.  The first thing that Congress must do is stop the per head payment to NON-PROFIT resettlement agencies who then whine and moan whenever numbers drop (like Kekic here!).  She also points out the many states that are trying to get out of the program. So where is Congress?

The family’s case illustrates how Trump’s travel bans have caused the number of refugees coming into the U.S. to plummet in the last two months, despite his executive orders largely being blocked in the courts. The number of refugees arriving in the U.S. dipped to 2,070 in March, which was a six-year low except for a period in 2013 when the federal government was shut down. The figure was slightly higher in April, 3,200, but it was still much lower than the months preceding Trump’s order. [Note that we pointed out above that Obama had a couple of months below 2,070! I don’t recall any crying and moaning then!—ed]

[….]

It can’t be turned on and off like a faucet because the NGO contractors then can’t figure out how to pay their salaries! This is why Congress must get these middlemen phony religious contractors out this business!

“This program simply can’t be turned on and off like a faucet,” said Erol Kekic, executive director of the Immigration and Refugee Program for Church World Service, one of the world’s largest resettlement organizations.

[….]

Conservatives praise the decrease but insist a total halt in admissions is necessary. Refugee groups say the drop has forced them to lay off employees while trapping thousands of people in war-torn nations, overflowing refugee camps and dangerous living conditions amid the world’s largest refugee crisis in modern history.

At the same time, Republican-controlled [state—ed] legislatures have been doing their part to limit the flow of refugees into their states.

[….]

The legal challenges returned the refugee cap number to 110,000, [No, see the chart above, it is in legal limbo—ed] but the slowdown from January to March and actions in Congress mean the U.S. will likely come nowhere close to reaching that number by the end of the fiscal year in October.

The U.S. is currently on pace for about 60,000, but a State Department spokesman said the agency was “not in a position to speculate as to the final number of refugees that will be admitted by the end of Fiscal Year 2017.” [Obama had two years under 60,000!—ed]

“Tickets were canceled, exit permits were canceled,” said Kay Bellor, vice president of programs for the resettlement agency Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Services. “You can’t just turn around and say, ‘everybody get back on the plane.'”

Congress has approved a budget for only 75,000 for this fiscal year. A U.S. State Department spokesman said the country is now resettling 900 refugee arrivals weekly, to remain within that budget.

On this next point, this for me is the Trump test!
Trump has the legal right to set the arrival number for FY2018 at zero if he wants to. What number will he propose in September?  The other part of my personal Trump test is this: Will the Trump administration tell Congress (or lead Congress) to dump the law or do a complete legal re-write of the program?  If he does not do it this year, it will never happen!
AP continues….

And Trump can set his preferred limit for fiscal year 2018 — likely a steep drop from former President Obama’s 110,000, said Anna Greene, senior director of policy for U.S. programs with the resettlement agency International Rescue Committee. [It is maddening how this 110,000, nothing more that a wish from a departing president, becomes the number the program is expected to submit!—ed]

Resettlement agencies get paid per refugee, causing them to cut back once the flow slowed down. Church World Service cut about 600 of its 640 employees in Sub-Saharan Africa but later rehired some of them, said Kekic.

You can read the rest of the AP story by clicking here.

Jeff Sessions' Justice Department planning to ask for dismissal of TN refugee case; feds say they lack time to deal with it!

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Gee, I wonder why they are so busy?  Of course, you would be living under a rock if you didn’t know that the Dept. of Justice recommended (and the President concurred) firing the Obama-appointed Director of the FBI, James Comey, yesterday.
I joked on twitter that the reason for the firing was because Comey admitted to Congress (without prompting!) that 300 refugees are in the pool of 2,000 cases being investigated by the FBI for reaching out to foreign terrorists.  See yesterday’s pre-firing post here.
In my opinion, in the long run, this Tennessee case is more important for the future of this country than anything to do with James Comey’s firing!

So why does the Trump Justice Department not have enough lawyers to handle a couple of big issues at once?

Now here is what The Tennessean is reporting yesterday about the lawsuit we watched being developed for years.  New readers might want to check this post when the case was filed in March for some background.

The federal government will ask for a dismissal of Tennessee’s lawsuit over refugee resettlement, according to document filed in federal court on Monday.

While seeking more time to file their request, attorneys for the Department of Justice said Tennessee lacks standing and “their claim is unripe.”

In March, Tennessee became the first state in the nation to sue the federal government over refugee resettlement, citing a violation by federal officials of the 10th Amendment. The amendment says the federal government possesses only the powers delegated to it by the U.S. Constitution, with all other powers reserved for the states.

The lawsuit argues the federal government has unduly forced states to pay for refugee resettlement programs.

The federal refugee act was designed to create a permanent procedure for the admission of refugees into the United States.

The lawsuit asks the court to force the federal government to stop resettling refugees in Tennessee until all costs associated with the settlement are incurred by the federal government.

In a brief response to the state’s lawsuit, federal attorneys say the state’s claims “lacks merit.”

Chad Readler, former Jones Day attorney, heads the Civil Rights Division responsible for the case. http://www.law.umich.edu/newsandinfo/features/Pages/ChadReadler_050917.aspx

Give me a break! Hire more lawyers if you can’t get the work done!

While explaining that they’d like until June 1 to prepare for their request for dismissal of the lawsuit, DOJ attorneys say they’ve been preoccupied with other matters.

“Defendants’ counsel have worked diligently to prepare their motion to dismiss, but due to the number and complexity of the issues, and the unexpectedly heavy press and urgency of business in other litigation for which undersigned counsel is responsible, Defendants require additional time,” the filing states.

Chad Readler, who has been involved in federal court cases related to President Donald Trump’s executive action on sanctuary cities, is among several attorneys for the federal government handling Tennessee’s lawsuit.

Continue reading here.
Silver lining….
The Thomas More Law Center does excellent work and if Trump’s Justice Department doesn’t keep the case out of court (as they appear to be aiming to do!) then a lack of knowledgeable and skilled federal attorneys defending the UN/US Refugee Admissions Program may be a good thing!
Always a very wild card these days is if the case is heard by a politicized judge!

Trump immigration Executive Order to go to appeals court in Virginia today

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

The Trump Administration will defend the so-called “travel ban” in the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals today in Richmond, Virginia. Next week, the 9th Circuit will hear the case that includes the “travel ban” and the refugee moratorium.

Omar Jadwat (ACLU attorney) will argue the case against Trump in Richmond today where the entire 4th Circuit Court of Appeals will be present (in order to put on a good media show?). Photo: https://www.aclu.org/blog/speak-freely/his-name-omar-jadwat-and-hes-aclu-lawyer-arguing-against-muslim-ban-heres-what-he

USA Today cites the extraordinary efforts the 4th Circuit will make as the entire court will hear it:

….Both courts are among the most liberal in the country.

The Richmond hearing will be held in front of the entire 15-member U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit, which is extremely unusual. Appeals court cases usually go before three-judge panels; the full court only rarely agrees to hear cases even after a panel rules.

“It’s been more than half a century since the court has done it,” Tumlin [Karen Tumlin, NILC’s legal director] says. “It’s a bit of a legal unicorn. You don’t get this very often.”

Here is what Reuters is saying about the cases which most assume will end up in the Supreme Court, but not until the fall. By the way, one of the main issues the opponents of Trump are hanging their legal hats on is what Trump said while campaigning.  I’m not a lawyer but I can’t see that as anything the Supreme Court would want to turn into a precedent.
Imagine the legal fun later if candidates’ campaign words were used in legal cases against them when they attempted to legislate after they were elected (by the voters!). It would truly mean that courts are ruling America and not elected representatives of the people.
Reuters on Friday:

Legal challenges to President Donald Trump’s temporary travel ban on people from some Muslim-majority countries heat up again next week when two U.S. appeals courts consider whether it is constitutional.

[….]

Omar Jadwat, an attorney at the American Civil Liberties Union, who will be arguing the case at the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Virginia on Monday, said the fact that so much time has passed since the ban was issued is proof that there was no pressing national security need for it in the first place. [Ha!  Not much of a legal argument! We can’t possibly know that yet! Someone admitted in the last few weeks could be an Islamic terrorist who doesn’t act for years!—ed]

[….]

The Department of Homeland Security “is, and will be, continuously examining ways to enhance the screening and vetting process to shut down terrorist and criminal pathways into the United States,” agency spokesman David Lapan said. “Some improvements will be classified, others will be public, but the Department has only just begun ways to enhance the security of our immigration system,” he said in an email.

Opponents – including states and civil rights groups – say that both the first ban and the revised ban, which also put a halt to all refugee admissions to the country for four months, discriminates against Muslims.

[….]

The 4th Circuit will decide the fate of a ruling from a Maryland district judge that struck down a section of the revised executive order barring visitors from Syria, Iran, Libya, Sudan, Yemen and Somalia.

The hearing will take place before 14 full-time judges of the appellate court. Ten of them were appointed by Democrats, and four by Republicans.

Then, on March 15 [Must be May 15, thanks to a reader for catching this!—ed], a three-judge panel at the San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals will review a decision from a Hawaii judge that halted not just the travel portion of the ban but also the section that barred refugees. The judges – who will sit on a panel in Seattle – have been assigned but their identities have not been made public.

More from Reuters here.
Please see that the refugee portion of the EO is not being considered today in Richmond.  Only the Hawaii judge was aggressive enough to include the refugee moratorium and reduced ceiling in his decision.  The Maryland judge clearly must have recognized that refugee admissions across the board are within the power of the President to regulate according to the Refugee Act of 1980.  Trump should have ignored the rogue Hawaiian judge on refugee admissions, but alas, he didn’t!
See RRW’s right hand side bar where I track numbers admitted in FY2017 every few days.  This is from last Friday:

May 5, 2017: 43,241 admitted (this is 5,135 refugees since the supposed moratorium began and 13,119 since Trump was inaugurated).

Watch the 4th Circuit/ACLU show live today (2:30 Eastern) by going here: https://www.c-span.org/video/?427706-1/fourth-circuit-hears-oral-argument-travel-ban

Another 50,000 wannabe migrants to US learned if they won the lottery to America this week

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

I’ve concluded that I need to start writing more about other ways legal immigrants get to the US from Islamic terror-producing parts of the world.
This week tens of thousands learned whether they won the “diversity visa lottery” (aka green card lottery) and will soon be on the way to your town.

Overlooked by most everyone is this insane lottery set up with the premise that the US is lacking in diversity and needs more of it!

Previously, I wrote about the ‘Diversity Visa Lottery’ (see category here) a lot, but it has fallen off my radar screen as the UN/US Refugee Admissions Program has drawn so much attention.

The WaPo tells us that Trump has not mentioned the Diversity Visa Lottery. Has any staff member told him about it?

Frankly I’ve been disappointed that no other private citizen investigators have taken up the cause of writing about this program, or about Temporary Protected Status, or Immigrant Food Stamp/welfare fraud.  Those are all areas where someone should write exclusively on the topic!
Goodness knows there is enough material to keep someone going daily on just one of those topics.
Here the Washington Post tells us that earlier this week the new ‘winners’ were announced.  By the way, refugee numbers do not count when determining ineligible countries, so we take lottery applicants from Cuba, Iraq, Burma, and Iran to name just a few.
WaPo (at The Denver Post):

On Tuesday, more than 14 million anxious people around the world will begin checking computers and smartphones in one of the strangest rituals of the U.S. immigration system. When the clock strikes noon in Washington, they will be able to visit a State Department website, enter their names, years of birth and 16-digit identification numbers. Then they will press “submit” to learn whether they have won one of the world’s most coveted contests: the U.S. green card lottery.

Each year, the Diversity Visa Lottery, as it is officially known, provides up to 55,000 randomly selected foreigners – fewer than 1 percent of those who enter the drawing – with permanent residency in the United States.

I learned something I didn’t know! Mohammad Atta tried twice to win the lottery, but ultimately got in (as sadly we know) using another legal visa.

The current lottery coincides with an intense debate over immigration and comes amid policy changes that have made the country less welcoming to new arrivals. President Donald Trump has cracked down on illegal immigration and pressed forward with plans to build a wall along the border with Mexico. He has issued executive orders targeting foreign workers, refugees and travelers from certain majority-Muslim countries.

But he hasn’t said a word about the green card lottery.

Its days may be numbered, nonetheless. The lottery appears to conflict with the president’s call for a “merit-based” immigration system. And at least two bills in the Republican-controlled Congress seek to eliminate the program.

“The Diversity Lottery is plagued with fraud, advances no economic or humanitarian interest, and does not even deliver the diversity of its namesake,” according to a news release from Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., a co-sponsor of one of the bills.

Just what we need, 50,000 people annually, some with barely a high school education, and with spouses and families along for the ride!

The lottery’s premise is simple. It’s not connected to employment or family members in the United States. Instead, the only requirement is that entrants be adults with a high school diploma or two years of work experience. Winners can bring spouses and children. Citizens of countries that have sent 50,000 people to the United States in the past five years – such as Canada, China, India, Nigeria and Mexico – are ineligible to participate.

The lottery, which was launched in its present form in 1995, is especially beloved in Eastern Europe and Africa. In recent years, the two regions have accounted for more than two-thirds of lottery winners. In Liberia and other West African countries, nearly 10 percent of the population applies each year.

[….]

The program – operated from a consular center in Williamsburg, Kentucky [Mitch McConnell country!—ed] – has been on the chopping block before. It came under attack in 2002 after an Egyptian terrorist who killed two people in Los Angeles was found to be in the United States through his wife’s diversity visa. Mohamed Atta, another Egyptian and one of the 9/11 suicide pilots, had entered the lottery twice before entering the United States on a different visa to study aviation.

“If you’re a terrorist organization and you can get a few hundred people to apply to this from several countries . . . odds are you’d get one or two of them picked,” Rep. Bob Goodlatte, R-Va., told The Washington Post in 2011 after introducing an ill-fated bill to kill the program.

Continue reading here.
I couldn’t find a list of the numbers (selected for 2018) from each country, but here are the countries eligible to participate in 2018 from Africa and Asia.

Can we call Minnesota Somali Measles outbreak an epidemic yet?

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Michael Patrick Leahy at Breitbart has been doing great work digging in to the Minnesota Somali measles outbreak which we first reported here on April 20th.
Health officials in Minnesota predict it is going to get worse before it gets better and you can bet it is costing the state taxpayers a bundle to track and treat.

Kris Ehresmann is director of the Infectious Disease Epidemiology, Prevention and Control Division at the Minnesota Department of Health. Photo: http://www.mprnews.org/story/2009/10/16/ehresmann

Did you know that Measles was considered eradicated in the US in 2000?  I didn’t!
New cases are coming in with the new immigrants, most likely the refugee flow that Trump has not curtailed!
Here is Leahy yesterday:

The Minnesota Department of Health (MDH) announced on Friday afternoon that the number of confirmed cases of measles in the state has now increased to 44, three more than had been confirmed 24 hours ago, and ten more than had been confirmed 48 hours ago.

Of the 44 total cases, 41 are in Hennepin County, two are in Ramsey County, and one is in Crow Wing County.

Forty-two are “confirmed to be unvaccinated.” Two “had 2 doses of MMR.”

Forty-three of the cases are “in children ages 0 through 10 years,” while there is “1 case in an adult.”

MDH reports that “38 of the cases are Somali Minnesotan.”

[….]

“Once measles begins to spread in unvaccinated populations, it can be very difficult to stop,” Kris Ehresmann, director of infectious disease control for MDH, said in the statement.

“We would not be surprised if we saw additional cases in other parts of the state where there are clusters of unvaccinated people before this is over,” Ehresmann added.

[….]

“Measles was declared eliminated in the U.S. in 2000, but it is still common in other parts of the world. Ehresmann noted that Europe is currently experiencing a significant measles outbreak. [Gee, I wonder why?—-ed]

Continue reading here.

So where have Trump’s Somalis been placed in Minnesota?


When trying to figure out the source of the initial case of Measles in the state, the first group to be analyzed should be refugees admitted to the US in recent months! 
As we have reported on many occasions, the US State Department and DHS do not weed-out sick refugees.
The Minnesota Department of  Health should find out which Somalis entered the state within the disease’s incubation period.  Of course they will have trouble finding out who is ‘just visiting’ since there is no travel ban in place and as far as I know there is no way to track those who get in as visitors.  And, never forget, Somali, so-called refugees, are traveling back and forth to Africa all the time (so much for fearing persecution!).
For your edification, here (below) is where 193 new Somali refugees were placed in Minnesota since President Trump was inaugurated.
Overall (as of today, May 6th) Trump has welcomed 1,394 Somalis since inauguration day. Minnesota is the number one state, but as we reported here, some placed in other states pack up quickly to get to Minnesota as ‘secondary migrants’ to join their own kind of people and avail themselves of the more generous welfare that they get in MN.
(I am having trouble with screen shots these days, so forgive the lousy shots below).
From Wrapsnet:


For new readers, we have 328 previous posts in our ‘Health Issues’ category, click here to learn more about the many diseases, parasites, and mental health issues involving the refugee flow to America. You will see that TB is an especially big problem in the refugee flow.