Rep. Brian Babin to Congress: Don't fund Obama refugee slush fund!

12/06/2016 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

As I have been saying, Congress is going to be deciding on the so-called Continuing Budget Resolution this week because they are all eager to get out of Dodge (DC).

mccarthy-and-ryan-2 — Big test!!! Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy and Speaker Paul Ryan will soon show their colors on Refugee Admissions Program if they cave and give the Obama ORR BILLIONS more of your dollars to spend before the end of March. We will be watching!

The Obama Administration is asking for a huge special funding addition because they claim the Office of Refugee Resettlement is going to run out of cash in February (the CR would, if as predicted, extend 2016 funding levels through March). ORR has (surprise!) a huge number of Unaccompanied Alien Children to take care of as the border is being assaulted by all those wanting in before Trump takes office.
I told you all about it here last week.
Now, Rep. Brian Babin of Texas pleads in an opinion piece at the Daily Caller for the REPUBLICAN led Congress to not fall for it because once appropriated it will literally be a slush fund available to ORR which they could distribute to the refugee contractors through all sorts of means even if Trump cuts off the flow of refugees on January 21st (which he can do!).
I’ll let you read Babin’s op-ed yourself because I have one more important warning for you and I have to get out of here shortly.

Warning!

Even if the House of Representatives does not capitulate to the Administration’s plea for BILLIONS more of your tax dollars, the Senate Appropriations Committee might very well be happy to accommodate Obama and add in the money. [For Marylanders remember Babs Mikulski is on this committee!!! Swan song? Money for more Muslims for Maryland?—ed]
If the Senate adds the money, when the House and Senate conference committee meets to iron-out differences between their respective versions of the funding bill, the House leadership (Paul Ryan!) could waffle and not fight for the House version on this important point.
We know their tricks and it goes like this: ‘Gosh we tried, but the Senate put the money in and there was nothing we could do about it! We sure don’t want to shut down the government over this.’ (Of course it would be Obama shutting down the government for not signing the CR!)
You need to put pressure on your House members to not add in the money and then to stick to their guns in conference committee—tall order I know!

And, tell the Trump transition team what could go down here! This is a test for Speaker Ryan and whether he will work with Trump on Trump’s promises about the refugee program.

All of our posts, on the all important funding issue, are tagged ‘Where is Congress.’

Refugee Industry lobbyists want to talk to Trump transition team

12/04/2016 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

As we have reported on several occasions already, they are worried of course about the implications for their futures with Trump in the White House.
The UN/US Refugee Admissions Program is built on massive amounts of federal dollars going to nine major refugee contractors (to be precise they have grants and contracts with the US State Department and the Office of Refugee Resettlement in HHS) to place refugees in hundreds and hundreds of American towns and cities.

naomi-steinberg — Naomi Steinberg, RCUSA Director: Closing refugee resettlement would “feed into narratives spread by ISIS that the U.S. is anti-Muslim.” So, we are trying to make ISIS happy with us?

When I read articles like this from Lansing, Michigan about how every one in the resettlement industry is worried that the US will be diminished in the eyes of the world, that ISIS will have a recruiting tool (ISIS would be angry because we are not letting in Muslims!), or that many refugees will not be able to bring their extended families to America, I look for any reference made to the issue of their funding.
Usually there isn’t any—no mention of the fact that Catholic Charities or whichever agency it is, would have to close offices and eliminate staff if their per head payment for refugees, and their grants from ORR stopped coming.
It would be hard for me to list all the reasons I continue writing and educating about the Refugee Admissions Program, but near the top of the list is the fact that there are millions of your tax dollars going to supposed ‘religious’ charities and they never mention it. They pretend, when speaking to reporters who don’t know better, that their work is completely charitable and driven purely by humanitarian zeal. It is a big lie!
‘Humanitarianism’ is a fabulous cover for all sorts of other goals like bringing in cheap immigrant labor for BIG MEAT, etc., or bringing in reliable Democrat voters, or stirring tension in communities by shoving diversity down the throats of Americans who don’t want it. Or, in some sort of sick leftist assuaging of guilt, showing Muslims how loving and open-minded we are by bringing them to your towns by the thousands and putting them on welfare!

stacie-blake — Stacie Blake, right, fielding questions from angry citizens in Rutland, VT in June where her agency, USCRI, had been quietly working with the mayor to bring 100 Syrians to the small city. https://refugeeresettlementwatch.org/2016/06/26/lack-of-transparency-got-citizens-steamed-in-rutland-vt-in-the-first-place/

Sorry, I’m getting off track, but remember all those things as I tell you that the resettlement industry has a lobbying consortium in Washington, DC—Refugee Council USA—and they want to meet with the Trump team. They have a transition document they would like to present to Trump.

By the way, in August we reported that RCUSA, never satisfied with the number we admit, wanted 200,000 refugees admitted in FY17.

Near the end of the Lansing State Journal story we learn this:

“Yes, we look forward to speaking to the Trump transition team. … We don’t know exactly what the president-elect is planning on doing,” said Naomi Steinberg, director of Refugee Council USA, a coalition of refugee resettlement groups that has reached out to people close to Trump.

She said that while much of the Trump campaign’s rhetoric was “deeply troubling and deeply inaccurate,” the community still wants to work with him and explain the broader value of welcoming refugees. [If there is inaccuracy about the program the fault lies with the feds and the contractors because of the incredible secrecy that has surrounded the program for decades, and continues today!—ed]

Closing off the U.S. from refugee resettlements, she and others said, would break humanitarian commitments made by the West, feed into narratives spread by ISIS that the U.S. is anti-Muslim and poison relationships with key military allies. [Military allies like Turkey? So we have to take in tens of thousands of Middle Eastern Muslim refugees to please Turkey?—ed]

“The idea that America would no longer lead on this issue is unfathomable,” said Stacie Blake, a spokeswoman with the U.S. Committee for Refugees and Immigrants, an advocacy and resettlement organization in northern Virginia. “We’ve been fielding calls already from individuals very worried about whether their adult child, their sibling, (their) mother will be able to join them as planned.”

Read the whole article, here, especially if you live in Michigan.
See all of our previous posts on the Refugee Council USA by clicking here.
For new readers here are the nine federal resettlement contractors that like to call themselves VOLAGs (that is short for Voluntary Agencies, which they definitely are not!):

Big smooch from Obama to new UN Secretary General Guterres

12/03/2016 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Of course Obama would love him, they are both socialists who believe in distributing the world’s refugees throughout wealthy western countries. (And redistributing your wealth to the third world!)

U.S. President Barack Obama (R) delivers remarks to reporters as he welcomes U.N. Secretary General-designate Antonio Guterres (C), of Portugal, in the Oval Office at the White House in Washington, U.S. December 2, 2016. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst http://mobile.reuters.com/article/politicsNews/idUSKBN13R23Z

Yesterday Obama welcomed Antonio Guterres to the White House, here at Reuters:

U.S. President Barack Obama on Friday said he was confident that United Nations secretary general-elect Antonio Guterres would be an effective leader of the international organization.

“He has an extraordinary reputation,” Obama told reporters ahead of his meeting at the White House with Guterres, a former prime minister of Portugal.

[….]

Obama and Guterres were expected to discuss cooperation between the United States and the United Nations.

Guterres said he was ready to forge a relationship with U.S. President-elect Donald Trump’s administration.

He said he was totally committed “to work closely with the United States in the present administration” and “also with the next administration.”

Trump, who takes office Jan. 20, has named South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley, who has relatively little foreign policy experience, as the next U.S. ambassador to the United Nations.

Continue reading here.
We will try to stay on top of this, because as I said here, Nikki Haley has demonstrated weakness when it comes to refugees being admitted to the US. Will she succumb to the arguments Guterres will surely make: Gov. Haley your family benefited from immigration to America, are you going to deny that same privilege to _____ (pick an ethnic group!). And, I have a suspicion that Senator Lindsey (Open Borders) Graham will be hovering behind the curtain.
As UN High Commissioner for Refugees for the past ten years, we naturally followed Guterres’ career, go here for more.
Heard him speak in Washington, here, in 2015.

What are the major Muslim ethnic groups entering the US right now through the RAP?

12/03/2016 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Can Trump stop the flow this coming year, maybe, maybe not!

I was doing research at Wrapsnet (Refugee Processing Center) recently for another purpose and did a search on the major Muslim ethnic groups entering the US from Oct. 1, 2016 to Nov. 15, 2016 (approximately the first 6 weeks of FY2017).
The numbers below are only for Muslims in the top ten sending countries (all Muslim sects) that entered in that time frame (about 6 weeks) and only those who entered the US through the Refugee Admissions Program (RAP):

Somalia: 1,894

Syria: 1,867

Iraq: 1,388

Afghanistan: 298

Burma: 289

Sudan: 147

DR Congo: 141

Ethiopia: 118

Eritrea: 58

Iran: 56

This is the highest number of Somalis we have brought in since we began taking Somalis 30 years ago.

At this rate (315 weekly) we could have over 16,000 placed in a large number of states by September 30th. Go here to see my summary of how many Somalis we resettled through the RAP since the early 1980’s. The highest previous year (2004) was 12,814 during the Bush Administration.

Donald Trump arrives at the Miss USA 2013 pageant, Sunday, June 16, 2013, in Las Vegas. (AP Photo/Jeff Bottari) — President-elect Trump needs to know that the Obama Admin. is pouring refugees in to the US at an unheard of rate in the first weeks of the fiscal year. Congress must cut their funding now to help Trump in January. Appropriating the extra billion or so the Administration says they need through March could tie Trump’s hands!

It is also 1,000 more in the first six weeks this year than it was last year at this time! Holy cow! See here.
I maintain that the Somalis and many other Muslim ethnic groups cannot be screened any better than Syrians, especially the Somalis and the Burmese!
By the way, most of the Iranians we bring in are Christians or other religious minorities, but clearly we are bringing in Muslim Iranians. Why?

These numbers indicate that the feds and their contractors are pouring refugees in at an unsustainable rate!

We have admitted 14,568 total refugees of all persuasions in those approximately first 6 weeks. That is a rate of about 2,428 a week. And at this rate we would admit 126,256 by September 30th when Obama’s wish for the year was (only, LOL!) 110,000. (During Obama’s 8 years he admitted an average of about 70,000 a year, here.)

Just as we predicted, they are front-loading refugee admissions in advance of Trump’s Inauguration in January.
It is imperative that Congress NOT give the Office of Refugee Resettlement (HHS) the over $1 BILLION extra in funding it wants right now. (See ‘Running out of money’) The Obama Administration encouraged the ‘kids’ (with its policies) to come to the US and, if the budget must be re-prioritized for them, so be it. That means only one thing: cutting the resettled refugee numbers.

If Continuing Budget Resolution (as is) extends to late March, ORR will run out of money

12/02/2016 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

“HHS anticipates that it would run out of funding under the CR for these activities in February 2017“

(Leaked document)

That is what the Administration is telling House and Senate Appropriations Committees according to language leaked from an Administration request to Congress.
It is no surprise as we have been reporting this morning here, that the Unaccompanied Alien Children are literally depleting the budget by the day.

donald-trump-grouchy — Calling Donald Trump! Keep your eye on the Republican leadership, they could tie your hands now by appropriating the extra MILLIONS Obama wants for refugees/illegal alien kids in the CR for 2017.

We reported this too many times to repeat: since Congress never finished the budget for FY2017 (that began on October 1, 2016) and extended last year’s budget to December 9th, they need to either complete a whole year budget next week, or they can pass another Continuing Resolution (at the 2016 level) to March which gives the incoming Trump Administration some say over what the government will spend in the second six months of the fiscal year.
They can’t run this program without a lot of money….
And, if they don’t get more of it, if they have a budget shortfall, there is no way the Obama Administration can keep pouring refugees in to the US at the rate it has for the last 2 months. Therefore, they also won’t be able to open all of those new offices they are trying to get open in 47 new locations. (Unless Congress appropriates the money in the Continuing Resolution expected on the floor by December 8th!)

We know for sure that the Obama Dept. of Health and Human Services is begging for bucks from Congress right now in the Continuing Resolution.

Here is some language that has apparently ‘gotten loose’ in Washington. The big question is whether the House and the Senate Appropriations Committees will be inclined to do Obama’s bidding! Why should they?

Language is needed to provide a rate for operations of $3,874 million for the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), Refugee and Entrant Assistance account and to authorize additional transfers of funding from other HHS accounts to the Refugee and Entrant Assistance account, in the event caseloads are higher than anticipated. To support the Administration’s refugee admissions target as well as high projected flows of other humanitarian entrants, an annualized rate of $1,051 million is needed to cover cash and medical expenses and social services for these populations. In addition, HHS is experiencing the highest number of unaccompanied children in care and the largest footprint of funded capacity in the program’s history, and flows of unaccompanied children have continued to grow over the last months; an annualized rate of $2,823 million is needed for HHS to meet its legal obligations to shelter and care for unaccompanied children referred to HHS. Given current shelter needs and flows of unaccompanied children, without this anomaly, HHS anticipates that it would run out of funding under the CR for these activities in February 2017. At a minimum, HHS anticipates needing an additional $500 million above the current CR rate during the period of the CR through March 31, 2017, $430 million for the unaccompanied children program and $70 million for refugee and humanitarian entrant programs, as well as additional transfer authority to protect against higher than expected costs.

Consider this:
First, this administration is making sure (at this very minute) that “caseloads are higher than anticipated.”
Second, the Obama Administration has encouraged the great flow of “unaccompanied children” and now they whine they don’t have the money to care for them.
And, third, Congress holds the purse strings. Will they starve the beast now, or feed it through March. What will Rep. Tom Price (as Trump’s pick for HHS) signal to his House colleagues in the coming days.
Does Trump understand that he might not be able to turn the spigot off completely on January 21, if Congress has appropriated the money? I bet Speaker Paul Ryan and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell know! Will they roll him on this?

You need to let your members of Congress and your Senators know they must disapprove this request!

So far, we don’t know of any move to completely defund the program on the CR, but will keep you posted if we hear.
Endnote: All of our posts on this topic are tagged ‘Where is Congress.’