Readers here at RRW know that the Dept. of Health and Human Services isn’t just about Obamacare. For us, it is the agency that does most of the spending on refugees and those so-called unaccompanied alien children we just told you about in the previous post. Rep. Tom Price, Trump’s pick for HHS Secretary
Here isTheSeattle Times educating its readers about HHS’s role involving immigration via its sub-agency the Office of Refugee Resettlement.
The examples given here of Trump nominee Georgia Rep. Tom Price’s (a medical doc btw) earlier positions on the subject of refugees doesn’t look very reassuring to me. So, if any of you know things about Price that would give us confidence he might draw in the reins on the RAP, let me know!
And, correct me if I am wrong!
Inmy earlier post this morning, I noted he did not back Rep. Babin on his bill. The Seattle Times:
WASHINGTON (AP) — The congressman named by Donald Trump to oversee the country’s health care system would also have an impact on another top issue: immigration.
It’s an area where Georgia Republican Tom Price has been at odds with the Obama administration.
If Price is confirmed by the Senate to lead the Department of Health and Human Services, he would head an office responsible for both resettling refugees in the United States and caring for immigrant children caught trying to cross the border on their own.
The five-term lawmaker has joined his Republican colleagues in objecting to President Barack Obama’s immigration enforcement policies, including those at the border. He co-sponsored a bill that sought to let states block Syrian refugees from settling in their communities. (I’m assuming they mean McCaul’s toothless bill, mentioned here at Breitbart)
Continue here.
And, again, if anyone has anything that would give us confidence that Price would be willing to dramatically decrease the budget at HHS for the Refugee Admissions Program and turn off its giant grantmaking machine, send it my way!
On the grants: There are millions of dollars of grants that ORR hands out to contractors that have no basis in the law—crazy stuff like those grants for planting refugee gardens for example!
If everything is so copacetic in Lancaster County, then why did it go 57% for Donald Trump?
This is what the Left is so good at—writing studies that are not completely accurate to paint a positive picture of the economic impact of refugees on a community and then use it as a news-hook. But, in this case the study (the propaganda!) which concluded that immigrants/refugees economically benefit Lancaster County, PA was produced by the real driver of the Open Borders movement, not the Leftwing, do-gooder, ‘humanitarians,’ but business interests who want the ready supply of cheap labor—-the Chamber of Commerce and Bloomberg’s New American Economy cheered on by federal refugee contractor Church World Servicewhich receives most of its funding from you, the taxpayer. [For more on the New American Economy, go here.–ed] Do not trust any propaganda from leading Open Borders advocates like Bloomberg: “Former Mayor of New York City Michael Bloomberg speaks at a press conference announcing a new initiative between the Clinton Foundation, United Nations Foundation and Bloomberg Philanthropies…” http://www.huffingtonpost.com/michael-bloomberg/bloomberg-what-works-cities-data_b_7097304.html (Photo by Andrew Burton/Getty Images)
The article at Philly.com (fake news?) seems to be promoting refugee resettlement, but when you look closely, the educated and hardworking immigrants cited are mostly not refugees—they are Vietnamese (we only take a handful of refugees from Vietnam now), Mexicans, Germans!, Dominicans, and a smaller number of Cubans which we do take as refugees, but shouldn’t be!
But, the most important and misleading aspect of the story is that there is no information in the study about what the refugees/immigrants cost Lancaster County and the federal taxpayer for welfare, subsidized housing, food stamps, medicare, the criminal justice system and a biggie—education for the kids. The low wages Tyson Foods and other big global corporations pay their labor is supplemented by you, so of course the business community loves this model! Philly.com:
Lancaster County is Donald Trump land. The president-elect won 57 percent of the 240,000 votes cast there, compared with Hillary Clinton’s 38 percent.
The county of about a half-million people also is home to fast-growing numbers of immigrants and refugees – 23,094 as of last count – whose rate of growth from 2009 to 2014 was nearly double the rate for the county as a whole. Nationwide, immigrants and refugees were among groups often lambasted by candidate Trump.
VP Lancaster Chamber of Commerce, Cheryl Irwin-Bass. http://www.lancasterchamber.com/article.aspx?page=executive-biographies&parent=media-center#.WDmpW1ygY2w
But in Lancaster County, according to a study released Tuesday, foreign-born residents have had “an outsize” positive impact on the local economy, and in 2014 contributed $62.8 million to Social Security, $16.4 million to Medicare, $52.5 million in state and local taxes, and $103.3 million in federal taxes. Their spending power was estimated at $440.5 million.
The study was a joint project of the Lancaster County Chamber of Commerce and Industry and the Lancaster County Refugee Coalition. It was conducted and underwritten by the bipartisan New American Economy, a Washington nonprofit whose cochairs include former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg and former Philadelphia Mayor Michael A. Nutter.
[….]
“With the very serious workforce challenges the business community faces, the findings in this report will help us to more fully leverage every person in this county,” Cheryl Irwin-Bass, vice president of the chamber, said when she presented the study at her group’s annual State of the County event.
[….]
The study cites manufacturing and health care as industries in which immigrants have played important roles. Some refugees have obtained jobs at Tyson Foods. [I wonder if refugees who sign up abroad to come here are forewarned about the meatpacking jobs they are expected to fill—ed]
[….]
Church World Service has an office in Lancaster City, and the refugees she helps include Syrians who have had to flee their war-ravaged homeland. The top five immigrant groups are from Vietnam, Dominican Republic, Mexico, Germany, and Cuba. [Mostly NOT refugees—ed]
Philly.com continues here. Rally earlier this year against more refugees for Lancaster. Trump voters! https://refugeeresettlementwatch.org/2016/01/03/pennsylvania-patriots-rally-against-more-muslim-refugees-for-lancaster/
Forget humanitarianism, it is all about money!
If I have done nothing else with this post and years of work on the subject of Refugee Resettlement I hope I have gotten one important message through to you dear reader—-Refugee Resettlement in America is NOT first and foremost about humanitarianism, it is about big business and cheap labor!
I’ve written a lot about Lancaster (Amish country) over the years. My interest began in 2007 when it was Lancaster’s spillover (there was some problem with crime there we were told by our police chief) that came to my county in western Maryland. Go herefor my archive on Lancaster. See especially posts where some very unhappy citizens protested against more refugee resettlement and where the school system endured a very expensive lawsuit filed by lawyers for refugees (I bet Bloomberg didn’t include that cost in his study!).
All over the country, as we have been reporting, refugee advocates are having pow-wows and crying sessions about what Donald Trump might do about refugees on January 21st.
Many of those advocates have gotten comfortable, and felt safe in their jobs, through several Presidents including Bush, Clinton, Bush and Obama, but all that is expected to change.
This is a story fromNew Hampshire Public Radio (Clinton country) where experts try to predict what is coming.
The first quotes are from Chris George from the New Haven, CT resettlement agency. We told you about him here last week. He is hoping we still take in Obama’s last wish—110,000 this fiscal year. Asst. Professor Ruxandra Paul (Amherst): Trump on solid ground to cut flow of refugees, but she worries that other countries will follow suit. However, one thing never mentioned is that we are far and away the world leader in PERMANENTLY resettling refugees, most countries, including most European countries, do not admit permanent refugees.
Then we hear from a law professor who argues that we have given Presidents too much power. As far as the Refugee Act of 1980goes, the crafters of the law (all Dems) gave the President power. Congress was expected to “consult” and weigh in, but that body has until very recently ignored its role.
(Only Senator Sessions held a required hearing on Obama’s plan, the House has been silent under Rep. Trey Gowdy’s chairmanship of the immigration subcommittee.) New Hampshire Public Radio:
“A president can exercise the highest level of authority, when it comes to border control or foreign policy,” says Sudha Setty from Western New England University Law. “So in terms of setting that refugee ceiling for future fiscal years, future President Trump does have the authority to set that ceiling very low.”
Setty said Trump’s freedom to exercise sweeping decisions, like banning Muslims from entering the U.S. continues a disturbing trend of the last two administrations.
“The lesson of the last 15 years has been that we have given the president a tremendous amount of power. And we have not put into place a lot of accountability measures when it comes to anything that is deemed to be national security or terrorism or national security related, and that’s not changing any time soon.”
Next up is another assistant professorwith a little nugget that is useful. The UN High Commissioner for Refugees gets $1.5 BILLION a year from us (and not mentioned here is the fact that the UN is choosing most of our refugees).
Amherst College Political Scientist Ruxandra Paul is watching both sides of the Atlantic right now. She says if U.S. leadership changes direction on its decades long commitment to refugee resettlement, more global uncertainty is sure to come.
“Donald Trump has been suggesting that the US has contributed too much and that allies from western Europe are not covering their share of the burden.”
Last year the U.S. gave the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) more than $1.5 billion. The European Union next in line, followed by several European countries, gave in the hundreds of millions. [We gave a half a billion here just in July—ed]
From a legal perspective President Donald Trump will be on solid ground if he chooses to lower the refugee ceiling. If he does, Paul says, it’s possible other countries will do likewise.
Nikki Haley?
In light of that bit of information, that the UNHCR gets $1.5 billion a year from us, is Nikki Haley going to be tough enough and would she be able to deal with the refugee issuewhich The News & Observer, a North Carolina paper, says is one of four major UN issues she will have to confront?
Will Senator Lindsey (Open Borders!) Graham be coaching from behind the curtain?
Ambassador to the UN is not a little out-of-the-way job and will depend greatly on who Trump picks for the Secretary of State which she will be reporting to! Placing Haley there is not putting her in a place to simply keep enemies close. A deputy assistant job in the Labor Department would have been a better fit. If Trump does go hardline on refugees and wants the UN funding cut would Haley resign and cause him a PR embarrassment down the road? I think she would (and the likes of Senator Lindsey Graham will be cheering her on from the sidelines as they prepare for 2020)!
Trump wants to end Muslim migration to the U.S. until terrorist threats are addressed, banning refugees fleeing violence in countries like Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan. This policy directly violates international law, which stipulates that other countries have an obligation to take in people seeking refuge from persecution in their home country and cannot bar refugees based on origin. [Trump (we hope) will follow US law which gives him the power to limit refugee flow, not international law!—ed]
Although Haley opposes Trump’s outright Muslim ban, she was among 30 governors who demanded Syrian refugees not be resettled in their states, citing security concerns. A spokeswoman for the governor said last year that until refugees can be properly vetted “it’s not appropriate for them to be sent to South Carolina or any other state.” [Just words and they all knew it!—ed]
New UN Secretary General, Antonio Guterres, is, from our point of view, the worst possible UN leader they could have chosen.
Refugees are not allowed into the country until they pass a series of background and health checks, a process that can take up to two years. Governors can’t legally stop refugees from being resettled in their states. [For the umpteenth time, the Syrian screening has been reduced to 3 months and we do admit refugees with TB and other diseases.—ed]
Incoming U.N. Secretary General Antonio Guterres is likely to resist any American efforts to dismantle refugee programs. He formerly served as the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees and is a strong advocate for wealthy countries doing their fair share to help the most vulnerable. He will take office Jan. 1.
This last makes me wonder (again) whether the Trump transition team has any idea of what they are up against at the UN and how those of us who voted for Trump feel about the ‘world body.’ Endnote: If you were digesting your Thanksgiving meal and didn’t read my post last night, here it is. Islamists say their long game is to take America down through immigration and out-breeding us!
Mr Trump! Forget Syrians for a minute! Are we going to suspend resettlement of all ‘high-risk aliens?’
Here is a story from Sky News Australiawhich links Trump advisor Kris Kobach’s proposals to Trump last weekend in NJ as evidence that the deal might well be dead on arrival. See my earlier post this morning about a letter from two powerful members of Congress who want the fishy Australia deal stopped now! Trump meets with Kris Kobach. Leftwing media has been having fun with the enlargement of the memo in Kobach’s hand.
An apparent bungle by US president-elect Donald Trump’s hardline immigration adviser shows just how difficult Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull’s US refugee re-settlement plan will likely be to pull off.
Kris Kobach, tipped to head the US Department of Homeland Security in the Trump administration, was clutching documents as he stood with a smiling and waving Mr Trump on Sunday in view of the media.
A photo taken by Associated Press, when zoomed in, shows the top page of the document is headlined ‘Department of Homeland Security. Kobach Strategic Plan for First 365 Days’.
It lists aggressive proposals aimed at ‘high-risk aliens.’
‘Reduce intake of Syrian refugees to zero, using authority under the 1980 Refugee Act,’ Mr Kobach’s plan states.
The plan also calls for ‘extreme vetting questions for high-risk aliens: question them regarding support for Sharia Law, jihad, equality of men and women, the United States Constitution’.
Mr Kobach was one of many potential Trump administration hires who met with the president-elect at the Trump National Golf Club in Bedminster, New Jersey on the weekend.
Readers, I am starting to get nervous about whether Trump’s closest advisors on immigration fully understand the US Refugee Admissions Program.
In myprevious postI said that if Trump picks Romney in combination with Nikki Haley at the UN (where the UN has plans for who comes to your towns!), we shouldn’t expect any major shakeup of the RAP.
Let’s talk about HIGH-RISK ALIENS!
There has been enormous national attention on the fact that FBI Director Comey testified to Congress that Syrians cannot be vetted because they come from a failed state where records are not obtainable. And, it is understandable that the focus has been on the Syrians, but…..
….if you are a longtime reader of RRW you know this is also true for the vast majority of Somalis (tens of thousands) we have admitted over the last two-three decades. In fact, in 2008 the State Department (DOS) cut off family reunification for Somalis because they discovered wide spread fraud—-Somalis lied about their family connections! Family reunification was closed for years (all documented here at RRW). See the most recent news on Somalis who thumbed their noses at your generosity.
The DOS and DHS say they can vet the Iraqis. But, they screwed up big time a few years ago and Iraqi refugee Al-Qaeda supporters were arrested and convicted on terror charges in Kentucky. One of them actually had fingerprints on an IED shard in US government hands and no one ever made the connection. That IED killed American service men. These two had lied on their refugee application.
And, how are we possibly screening the Rohingya Muslims who have fled Burma, many on boats that ended up in Malaysia and Indonesia. We are taking thousands of them! They don’t have ‘papers’ from the government of Burma (a Buddhist government that is all too happy to get rid of them)!
Other countries that produce unvettable (new word!) Muslims are Afghanistan, Ethiopia, Sudan and Uzbekistan. Just those few countries mentioned above account for probably half of the flow to the US right now! So, Mr. Trump and Mr. Kobach! Stop focusing on only Syrians! The problem is much much bigger!
But I guess we should be glad that she isn’t going to be Secretary of State. It would have been much better all around if she had been tapped as Ambassador to India (as several of our readers suggested!) See breaking news at The Hill. Disastrous duo! These two will not rein-in UN/US State Department Refugee Admissions Program!
At the UN, Haley will replace the truly awful Samantha Power (our lengthy Power archive is here), but will she have the gumption to stare down the new UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres, an avowed Socialist, who, as UN High Commissioner for Refugees, presided over (and encouraged!) the refugee invasion of Europe and has been pushing the US and other western countries to permanently resettle hundreds of thousands of Muslim migrants for the last decade.
For more on Guterres our archive is here.
Indeed the UN is picking the refugees the US has been taking and that is the reason almost all Syrians entering the US are Muslim and not persecuted Christians.
In recent months we have seen the Mormon Church (Mitt Romney is a Mormon) get behind the resettlement of refugees, including Syrians and Somalis, in a big way, see here. For eight of the nine years I’ve written about the program, Mormons stayed out of the issue. Also, remember that faced with the hard left calling him a racist, Romney squished-out on immigration in 2012 (one reason that cost him the election in my opinion).
A combo of Haley (who did nothing to stand in the way of the refugee resettlement program as it arrived full force in SC two years ago) at the UN and Romney in the State Department will (I predict) not bode well for reining-in the UN/US Refugee Admissions Program. (What is Trump thinking?) If Romney is selected as Secretary of State, he will show his true colors by who he picks (or encourages Trump to pick) to replace Anne Richard as Asst. Secretary of State for Population, Refugees and Migration.
However, keep fingers crossed that Trump picks a hard liner on Muslim migration for State who can also keep Haley under control at the UN.
We will be watching……
Guess I won’t be retiring anytime soon!
P.S. Here is what Grover Norquist (who has been pushing for more Muslim migration to America ever since I began writing RRW in 2007) said on twitter this morning on hearing the news:
