LOL! Don’t miss “notable rulings” by Clinton-appointed Judge Peter Jo Messitte at wikipedia. He banned use of words “Redskins” from his court in 2014. I think you can see how the POLITICAL winds are blowing! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Jo_Messitte
Of course I wasn’t there and you can never completely believe the media spin by major news outlets like the Associated Press, but past experience informs us that, yes, the federal judge hearing the refugee contractors’ case is sympathetic to the three federal refugee contractors and not the Trump Administration.
In fact, he asked the contractors’ attorney if this was a political move by the President.
Did he ask the complainers if they were operating with political motives? I bet not!
Why isn’t he simply looking at the LAW?
(By the way, be sure to see Michelle Malkin’s excellent pieceon the President vs. the contractors yesterday to see the long list of the Open Borders activists expected to be in attendance for the political press conference the contractors held after the hearing.)
Judge weighs bid to stop Trump’s refugee resettlement limit
But of course this isn’t political for the contractors (ha!) as they held a press conference outside the court house after the hearing. Looks like they had a small crowd.
GREENBELT, Md. — A federal judge on Wednesday pressed a government lawyer to explain why President Donald Trump signed an executive order allowing state and local governments to reject refugees, questioning whether the change was politically motivated.
U.S. District Judge Peter Messitte in Maryland didn’t immediately rule on a request by three national refugee resettlement agencies for a preliminary injunction stopping the Trump administration from enforcing the order.
During a hearing on the request, the judge said the president’s order essentially changed a federal law governing the resettlement of refugees.
“On what authority is the president acting?” Messitte asked Justice Department attorney Bradley Humphreys.
Humphreys said the 1980 Refugee Act gives the president “ample authority” to make such a change.
“Why change it now?” Messitte asked. “Is it purely a political thing?”
Humphreys said the executive order is designed to enhance the involvement of state and local officials in the process of resettling refugees. But he insisted it doesn’t give them a “veto” over resettlement decisions.
The Trump administration announced in November that resettlement agencies must get written consent from state and local officials in any jurisdiction where they want to help resettle refugees beyond June 2020.
Church World Service, Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service and HIAS — a Jewish nonprofit — filed the lawsuit in Greenbelt, Maryland, on Nov. 21. They are three of the nine national organizations*** agencies that have agreements with the federal government to provide housing and other services for refugees. [Notice AP won’t say that there is federal money involved for the contractors.—ed]
They have been providing these resettlement services for decades,” plaintiffs’ attorney Justin Cox said. [Makes it sound like it’s all being done with their private ‘religious’ charity.—ed]
At least 41 states have publicly agreed to accept refugees, but a governor’s decision doesn’t preclude local officials from refusing to give their consent.
For instance, the Democratic mayor of Springfield, Massachusetts, has refused to give written consent for refugees to be resettled in the city. [This especially grates on Hetfield because the subcontractor being shut out in Springfield is one of HIAS’s subcontractors.—ed]
HIAS President Mark Hetfield called it “unacceptable and un-American” that refugees could be banned from living in cities or even entire states.He said the executive order doesn’t explain how the secretary of state could override a governor or county official’s refusal to give consent.
“It’s even worse than a veto,” Hetfield said. “It’s very clear that we can’t even submit for a place unless we think that they’re going to consent.”
LOL! He says they can’t “submit for a place!”
That is code for ‘we can’t put our applications into the US State Department for our MONEY’—the money that flowed to them by the millions for decades from your (taxpayer) wallets to their salaries, overhead, travel and so forth.
***For new readers these (below) are the nine federally-funded refugee contractors that operate as a huge conveyor belt monopolizing all refugee placement in America.
A ‘religious’ message from CWS one of three federally funded contractors suing to stop the President’s effort to reform the UN-driven Refugee Admissions Program.
And, they do not limit their advocacy toward only legal immigration programs, but are heavily involved in supporting the lawlessness at our borders.
The question isn’t as much about refugees per se, but about who is running federal immigration policy now and into the future?
(I plan to say this once a day from now on!)
I continue to argue that these nine contractors are the heart of America’s Open Borders movement and thus there can never be long-lasting reform of US immigration policy when these nine un-elected phony non-profits are paid by the taxpayers to work as community organizers pushing an open borders agenda.
Previously, I reported that Appomattox County, Virginia had gone on record in response to the President’s refugee resettlement reform plan and said no thanks to refugee resettlement.
Every county in America is up for grabsas the US State Department hires its contractors for later in Fiscal Year 2020 to place the Africans, Asians and Middle Easterners (largely chosen by the UN) destined for Anytown, USA.
Now check this out, Beltrami County, Minnesota voted Tuesday to tell the State Department to count them out.
Even if Beltrami has not been a target site in the past, they want to make it clear that at least for FY2020 they don’t want to be like some other of the refugee hotbeds in the state.
Speaking of hotbeds, Stearns County (St. Cloud) voted to table the issue until the end of the month as did several other refugee resettlement locations in the state.
From theBemidji Pioneer where reporter Matthew Liedke did an excellent job of explaining the complex issue. H/T Ron
UPDATED: Beltrami County votes no to accepting refugees
Tuesday’s no vote in Bemidji was the first for any county in Minnesota.
An estimated 200 people came out to let their elected officials know that they don’t want to become a resettlement site for 2020.
BEMIDJI — With applause from a loud, passionate crowd Beltrami County on Tuesday, Jan. 7, became the first local government unit in Minnesota to refuse refugee resettlements.
In a 3-2 vote, the county’s Board of Commissioners chose to opt out of accepting refugee resettlements.The decision comes months after President Donald Trump signed an executive order enhancing state and local involvement in refugee resettlements. The order says the federal government “should resettle refugees only in those jurisdictions in which both the State and local governments have consented to receive refugees.”
While the order doesn’t take effect until June, though, resettlement affiliates and nonprofits are required to submit their placement strategies to the State Department by Jan. 31. Because of the short timeline, District 1 Commissioner Craig Gaasvig said organizing a public hearing wouldn’t be feasible, and as a result, the crowd of at least 200 people weren’t able to comment Tuesday at the meeting in Bemidji.
[….]
While no official comment period was held, the standing room only crowd extending out into the lobby of the County Administration Building did make itself heard at various times in the meeting.Additionally, when asked by Gaasvig for a show of hands on how many were opposed to accepting refugee resettlements, a clear majority of the crowd raised their hands. More than 200 people attended the meeting.
[….]
The refugee subject has been the talk of the area for the past few days.While it wasn’t on the agenda Monday for Bemidji’s City Council meeting, City Hall was still packed with individuals expressing concern over the matter.
Somalis have dominated the refugee flow to Minnesota, resettled there mostly thanks to Catholic Charities and Lutheran Social Services.
Earlier Tuesday, the St. Louis County Board voted 4-3 to delay its response to refugee resettlement until May after two-and-a-half hours of testimony in Duluth.
Counties to have approved accepting refugees after the executive order takes effect include Blue Earth, Kandiyohi and Nicollet. According to the Associated Press, the nation’s first county to ban refugee resettlement was Appomattox County, Va., where commissioners voted 4-1 on Dec. 17 to deny consent to resettlement.
[….]
Since 1980, more than 100,000 individuals have come to Minnesota through the United States Refugee Admissions Program.
Three big fish representing the Refugee Industry will be available to the press following the hearing.
This whole effort by the President to solicit consents (on non-consents) of governors and county elected officials throws a monkey wrench in the works for the nine contractors*** who have for decades been able to place refugees in pretty much any place they chose to set up a subcontractor office (of course in consultation with their ideological partners in the US State Department).
They will be in court to argue that you, taxpayers and citizens of Anytown, USA, have no right to voice your concerns about their ‘religious’ work of placing impoverished third worlders throughout America.
And, specifically that the President is blocking them “from fulfilling their faith calling and missions to ‘welcome the stranger,” says Church World Service’s Erol Kekic here.
Below is the news from something called Value Walk:
LIRS, CWS, HIAS vs Trump
This Wednesday [tomorrow!], on January 8, 2020, the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland will hear arguments on the Trump Administration’s Executive Order allowing state and local officials to stop refugees from being resettled in their jurisdictions.
The new order was signed on September 26, 2019, and for the first time ever, requires resettlement agencies to obtain written consent from all localities and states in which they plan to resettle refugees. This could prevent refugees who have waited years from being reunited with their U.S.-based families, and communities from welcoming refugees, even if they have long-standing and successful resettlement programs.
On November 21, three faith-based resettlement agencies, HIAS, Church World Service (CWS), and Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service (LIRS), filed a complaintagainst this new order, charging that it violates federal law and is yet another attempt by the Trump administration to restrict refugee resettlement in the United States.
WHAT:
The case being heard is:
HIAS v. Trump, brought by the International Refugee Assistance Project (IRAP), on behalf of HIAS, Church World Service (CWS), and Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service (LIRS).
WHEN:
Arguments: Wednesday, January 8, 2020, 10 a.m. ET
Immediately following the arguments, (approximately 12:30 p.m. ET), attorneys and plaintiffs will give statements and respond to questions outside the courthouse.
WHO:
Linda Evarts, Litigation Staff Attorney, IRAP
Mark Hetfield, President and CEO, HIAS [HIASFederal funding from recent Form 990: $19,138,737—ed]
Krish O’Mara Vignarajah, President and CEO, LIRS [LIRSFederal funding: 45,316,561—ed]
WHERE:
United States District Court
District of Maryland
6500 Cherrywood Lane
Greenbelt, MD 20770
The case is in the same court where an Obama-judge slapped the President on the so-called travel ban, but the judge is not the same one who made that decision.
See theschedule hereand note that the judge tomorrow is Peter Jo Messitte, a 79-year-old Clinton appointed judge. The pious contractors are surely ‘praying’ for a quick decision with the hope that Trump’s refugee program reform can be frozen in its tracks and they can go back to business as usual—changing America by changing the people and being paid for it!
I’m sure this information was posted so they could make sure some press showed up and maybe a little gaggle of supporters holding ‘Refugees Welcome’ signs (supplied by the contractors!).
I see that Alaska’s governor yesterday joined the bunch thumbing their noses at the President weeks before a flexible deadline—a deadline that could be moot depending on what happens with the contractors’ case tomorrow and in the coming weeks.
LOL! Now to my daily message for new readers….
***For new readers these (below) are the nine federally-funded refugee contractors that operate as a huge conveyor belt monopolizing all refugee placement in America.
A ‘religious’ message from CWS one of three federally funded contractors suing to stop the President’s effort to reform the UN-driven Refugee Admissions Program.
And, they do not limit their advocacy toward only legal immigration programs, but are heavily involved in supporting the lawlessness at our borders.
The question isn’t as much about refugees per se, but about who is running federal immigration policy now and into the future?
(I plan to say this once a day from now on!)
I continue to argue that these nine contractors are the heart of America’s Open Borders movement and thus there can never be long-lasting reform of US immigration policy when these nine un-elected phony non-profits are paid by the taxpayers to work as community organizers pushing an open borders agenda.
I am sick of writing about the governors and wasn’t going to start out with a tally this morning, that is until I saw this storyabout how the Lutherans are waiting on their big fish—Governor Abbott of Texas.
It is the same old boiler-plate BS, you can read it yourself at the Texas Tribune.
However, this made me laugh!
The reporter references the fact that Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service (LIRS) , one of nine federal refugee contractors***, headquartered in Baltimore’s posh Inner Harbor, has been keeping a tally of those who have consented (both the governors and the locals). I directed you to it here on Friday.
Well get this! They now have it password protected!
***Update***A reader reported that they have removed the password protection. LOL! You think they might be reading RRW!
Only special people can access their website. No deplorables allowed!
And, think about it! LIRS is 90% taxpayer funded! They are paid nearly $50 million a year to do their ‘good works’!
Requiring a password to access their website confirms once again that these Leftwing ‘religious’ charities take our money and then operate in secrecy!
(Because they are ostensibly private groups you can’t even use the Freedom of Information Act to get find out how exactly your money is spent.)
I wonder if they are paying Ms. Vignarajah that exorbitant salary as she presides over a quasi-government agency that is 90% funded by taxpayers.
Below she is quoted at the Texas Tribunestory (which of course doesn’t mention that these ‘humanitarians’ are funded, not by Christian charitable giving, but by the US taxpayers):
As of Thursday, 39 governors [actually 40–ed] and 86 mayors and other local authorities had provided consent, according to the Baltimore-based Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service, a resettlement agency keeping a regular tally of the latest decisions. Krish Vignarajah, the group’s president, said she is hopeful Abbott will join the other GOP governors who have stayed in the program despite the Trump administration’s efforts to crack down on immigration across the board.
However, just in case they can’t pull this off politically they have their ace-in-a-hole!
Lawsuit!
LIRS, which did I mention is 90% funded with your tax dollars, has filed a lawsuit in a friendly court against the President to stop this whole exercise.
They want to continue to place refugees in locations of their choosing as they have been doing for decades!
So, that is why I’ve been saying that the Republicans who have caved so far, virtue-signalling to their state’s Leftwing agitators, are dumb.
Before this month’s deadline, a federal judge could decide the matter for the states — at least temporarily. The Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service, the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society and the Church World Service sued the Trump administration in November alleging the executive order violates federal law.
[….]
A hearing on the matter is scheduled for Wednesday.
***For new readers these (below) are the nine federally-funded refugee contractors that operate as a huge conveyor belt monopolizing all refugee placement in America.
CWS poster girl! CWS is one of three federally funded contractors suing to stop the President’s effort to reform the UN-driven Refugee Admissions Program.
And, they do not limit their advocacy toward only legal immigration programs, but are heavily involved in supporting the lawlessness at our borders.
The question isn’t as much about refugees per se, but about who is running federal immigration policy now and into the future?
(I plan to say this once a day from now on!)
I continue to argue that these nine contractors are the heart of America’s Open Borders movement and thus there can never be long-lasting reform of US immigration policy when these nine un-elected phony non-profits are paid by the taxpayers to work as community organizers pushing an open borders agenda.
I meant to post on the numbers and geographic distribution of refugees in 2019 yesterday, but got sidetracked by the feckless GOP governors again.
So here is what I learned about calendar year 2019.
(We normally talk about refugee data on a fiscal year basis but because this is the time of year for look-backs on the previous year, I thought I would look back at 2019.)
We admitted a total of 27,513 refugees as your new neighbors during the course of 2019. 13% of those were Muslims from a variety of countries. The others represented many many religions, or none at all.
And, in light of the newest Middle East flare-up you should know that we admitted almost equal numbers of Shiites and Sunnis and so we have invited both of the warring factions to come live among us!
I’ll give you some more interesting data below, but first I want you to see where the federal refugee contractors*** placed the refugees.
Always humorous is the fact that Delaware hardly ever gets refugees, although it was then Senator Joe Biden who joined Ted Kennedy’s team to create the dysfunctional program back in 1979 (Jimmy Carter signed it into law in 1980).
(I love this pic of Joe and Ted! Do you think this pair had our best interests at heart when they figured out how to fund Leftwing ‘non-profit’ groups with taxpayer dollars to distribute refugees around America?But, of course we can’t expect Republican governors to know anything about the history of the program or how it works! That would be expecting way too much!).
I know it is hard to read the numbers, but the top five ‘welcoming’ states in calendar year 2019 were Texas, Washington, California, New York and Kentucky (slaughterhouse workers?).
The bottom five were Washington DC with 3, and big fat zeros for Delaware, Hawaii, West Virginia and Wyoming.
The top sending country was the DR Congo by far with 11,152 impoverished, poorly educated and low-skilled Africans delivered to many states(I need to do another post just on the DR Congo). Obama told the UN we would take 50,000 over five years and we are way beyond that number now.
Burma (4,681) and Ukraine (4,013) were the next two big senders. I need to look into this Ukraine conveyor belt because now that we have confirmed that refugees are used as pawns/bargaining chips for other purposes of the State Department, I’m wondering if that is driving that resettlement.
Of the 4,681 Burmese, 689 are the Muslim Rohingya which gets me to the point I made recently.
If you think that we are saving Middle Eastern Christians and other minorities from the three largest distribution centers in the Middle East—Iraq, Afghanistan and Syria—we are not.
During 2019 we admitted 1,364 Afghans and 1,290 of those were Muslims.
In addition to the 27,513 regular refugees we admitted in 2019, another 9,561 Special Immigrant Visa holders from Afghanistan and Iraq arrived. You can bet they are all Muslims and are treated just like regular refugees in that they can access social services and bring their families!
So we can safely say that in calendar year 2019 we admitted 37,000 refugees/SIVs and that approximately 38% of the total are Muslims.
And, get this! According to the Funding Guidance I’ve been yakking about for days, we will be taking another 10,000 SIVs from Iraq and Afghanistan (maybe Syria!) in the 2020 fiscal year. That is over and above the 18,000 ceiling that the President determined for the year.
The FY 2020 ceiling for refugee admissions established by the President, after consultation with Congress, is 18,000. In addition, applicants should include 10,000 Special Immigrant Visa (SIV) recipients in their planning. Applicants should assume similar admissions and recipient numbers for performance periods beyond FY 2020.
***For new readers these (below) are the nine federally-funded refugee contractors that operate as a huge conveyor belt monopolizing all refugee placement in America.
Church World Service poster girl!
For decades they have decidedin secrecy where to place refugees and they don’t want to lose that power because even as they pontificate about their religious convictions and humanitarian zeal, they are Leftwing political activist groups working to change America by changing the people and using your money to do it!
And, they do not limit their advocacy toward only legal immigration programs, but are heavily involved in supporting the lawlessness at our borders.
The question isn’t as much about refugees per se, but about who is running federal immigration policy now and into the future?
(I plan to say this once a day from now on!)
I continue to argue that these nine contractors are the heart of America’s Open Borders movement and thus there can never be long-lasting reform of US immigration policy when these nine un-elected phony non-profits are paid by the taxpayers to work as community organizers pushing an open borders agenda.
(If you are new and are confused because your local resettlement agency doesn’t have one of these names, just know that they are a subcontractor of one of the nine and you can usually find out which one by going to their website.)
