Trump has not yet signed refugee determination, therefore zero refugees being admitted to the US right now

10/04/2018 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

“Whatever that number is, it will absolutely be driven principally by the capacity of my agency and the law enforcement, security, and vetting practices.”

(Francis Cissna, director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS))

Granted we are only 4 days into the month of October so things could change tomorrow or the next day, but so far zero refugees have been placed since the new fiscal year began on Monday (October 1).

Here we hear from Voice of America and a distressed resettlement lobbyist about the disappointment in the refugee industry.

Trump Administration Misses Refugee Admissions Deadline

The Trump administration has missed the end-of-fiscal-year deadline to set the maximum number of refugees that will be allowed in the United States in the next 12 months.

Mary Giovagnoli1 — An “extraordinarily disappointed” Mary Giovagnoli of the Refugee Council USA, the lobbying arm for the refugee contractors.

“Consultations and the subsequent Presidential Determination (PD) normally take place by Oct. 1. However, on some occasions, the consultations and subsequent PD have been completed later,” a U.S. State Department spokesperson said in an emailed statement to VOA. “We do not expect this will have any operational impact on the Refugee Admissions Program.”

The agency declined a request from VOA to provide a timeline for the consultations.

[….]

Last month, the administration proposed a record-low refugee ceiling for the 2019 fiscal year of 30,000 refugees. By law, Congress must be consulted about the cap before a final number can be issued.

“We are extraordinarily disappointed that the administration has failed to honor the spirit and the letter of the law when it comes to consultations,” said Mary Giovagnoli. executive director of Refugee Council USA. “For two years in a row now, the administration has just failed to take it seriously.”

President Donald Trump has dramatically cut refugee arrivals to the United States since taking office.

[….]

Francis Cissna, director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), said at a conference Monday that new vetting measures have increased processing times for refugee admissions.

He added that the suggested ceiling of 30,000 for FY2019 takes into account the “operational realities” of those measures for “national security and public safety.”

“The number is not final yet. The president has not signed the proclamation. Whatever that number is, it will absolutely be driven principally by the capacity of my agency and the law enforcement, security, and vetting practices,” Cissna said.

More here.

Click here for my complete file on RCUSA (Refugee Council USA).

Libertarian think tank continues criticism of Trump refugee policy

10/04/2018 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

I really don’t get it—why a Libertarian think tank, the CATO Institute is so hot for more refugees for America. I can only assume it has to do with a pro-business orientation (the LEGAL worker issue again). I’m not going to try to figure it out today.

david-bier-cropped — CATO immigration policy analyst David Bier

However, they had a handy graph in a story yesterday criticizing Trump for reducing the overall number of refugees entering the US and pointing out that the number of Christians entering has declined (which is actually a function of the overall decline in numbers). Muslim entrants have declined at an even greater percentage.

This is the latest talking point from the refugee industry—that Trump isn’t admitting enough Christians—and CATO is carrying their public relations water.

Let’s have the debate!

I would really like to see a serious and honest public debate about the economic need for refugee workers, rather than the continued appeals to Americans’ emotions as CATO does here.

This is one of Bier’s wrap-up sentences:

By cutting the refugee program across the board, the Trump administration has not just violated a campaign promise to resettle more Christian refugees—it has condemned many more to desperate poverty, persecution, or death.

Have a debate about labor needs, but leave out the ‘humanitarian’ appeal because we know that isn’t was this is all about.

Here is Bier at CATO:

Trump Has Cut Christian Refugees 64%, Muslim Refugees 93%

Below is the graph from the story that you might find useful.

Screenshot (712)

This post is filed in my ‘Where to find information’ and ‘refugee statistics’ categories.

It’s official: US admits lowest number of refugees since Jimmy Carter’s Refugee Act signed in to law

10/01/2018 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Yesterday ended Donald Trump’s first full fiscal year for refugee admissions as FY18 officially came to a close.

Trump and GW Bush — President Trump breaks the GW Bush record for the lowest refugee admissions. However, I’m going to say it over and over again—-lowering the numbers for a few years is meaningless without a serious push for robust reform of the entire US Refugee Admissions Program!

The previous low admission year record belongs to George Bush who put the breaks on the US Refugee Admissions Program in 2002 with 27,070 arrivals due to fear of another 9/11.

Expect the media today to make comparisons to the mythical 110,000 refugee CEILING that Obama proposed as he was walking out the door. They never mention that their hero had a couple of low years when he admitted tens of thousands below the ceiling he had proposed (click that link above and see the chart).

George Bush’s home state of Texas was the top resettlement state in the nation this past year! (Turning red states blue and the Rs can’t see it!):

Here is a map from Wrapsnet this morning. Total for the year is 22,491.

Screenshot (703)

map fy 18 total

Since the numbers are hard to read, Wrapsnet has an accompanying list.

Here below are the Top Ten Welcoming States.

By the way, for most of the years I’ve been writing about the refugee program, California, New York and Florida were always at or near the top:

Texas (so much for withdrawing from the program!)

Washington

Ohio

California

New York

Arizona

North Carolina

Pennsylvania

Kentucky

Georgia

Since I know some faithful readers will be wondering, Minnesota was #11 , Michigan was #13, Florida #14, Maryland #19, Virginia #21 and Tennessee #23.

The bottom five states are below. I always chuckle when I consider that former VP Joe Biden of Delaware was one of the pushers of the Refugee Act of 1980 and yet his own home state is near the bottom always. In fact, 21 may be the highest number it ever ‘welcomed’ in one year!

Delaware (21)

District of Columbia (1)

West Virginia (1)

Hawaii (0) LOL! the state the loves diversity!

Wyoming (0) the state that has wisely stayed out of the program for these last 38 years!

Inquisitive readers might want to visit Wrapsnet and play around with the data. Click on the ‘reports’ tab and then go to ‘Interactive reporting.’ You then put in your own parameters for the search. You can find out which towns and cities in your state received refugees.

Endnote: Since the fiscal year ended on a weekend, there could still be a few changes in the final tally. I’ll update this report if I see that in the next few days.

Refugee program costs US taxpayers $125 billion over ten years

09/29/2018 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

“The costs are staggering. The costs are truly staggering!”

(Don Barnett, Fellow at the Center for Immigration Studies)

I reported a few days ago on the ‘Report to Congress’ released by the US State Department as part of the consultation with Congress requirement of the Administration when determining how many refugees will be admitted to the US beginning on Monday.

cover fy19 report

Here LifeZette analyzed a portion of that report about what you pay for the program (actually only a small portion of the costs!).

America’s refugee program cost taxpayers more than $125 billion over a 10-year period, according to a Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) report to Congress on a proposed cut in the émigré cap.

The report accounts for refugees resettled from abroad, foreigners in the United States granted asylum, and people participating in special programs set up for Iraqis, Cubans, Haitians, and Amerasians from Vietnam.

The cost to federal taxpayers for refugees and individuals granted asylum in fiscal years 2005 through 2014 came to $74.7 billion, plus an additional $21.9 billion for state matching funds for programs available to refugees.

The total cost was $96.65 billion. Including spouses and children, the overall cost to state and federal taxpayers rises to $125.696 billion.

That total includes the cost of relocating refugees, services provided by the Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR), child care subsidies and three main welfare programs — Medicaid, Medicare, and Temporary Assistance to Needy Families.

In a speech to the U.N. General Assembly on Tuesday, President Donald Trump alluded to the cost in arguing that U.S. generosity is better demonstrated near locations from which refugees come.

[….]

The nearly $126 billion estimated cost over 10 years, however, represents but a fraction of the total taxpayer investment. It does not include more than a dozen other programs, such as Social Security, various tax credits, education spending, and other welfare.

[Other welfare supplied by federal and state taxpayers would include food stamps, and other costs include federally required interpreters for courts, medical care and schools, the criminal justice system and most often ignored—remittances—money the refugees send home and out of our economy.—-ed]

[….]

Don Barnett, a fellow at the Washington-based Center for Immigration Studies (CIS), told LifeZette that it makes sense to take a comprehensive approach to assessing refugee costs that go beyond just the relocation expenses.

Unlike other immigrants, who must wait five years before they are eligible for government-assistance programs, refugees and individuals granted asylum immediately can receive welfare.

“The costs are staggering. The costs are truly staggering,” said Barnett.

[….]

nowrasteh-aljazeera-10-25-13 — The Libertarian CATO Institute has been talking about reform that would include private citizens sponsoring refugees. It does have its appeal. But, he knows that not enough sponsors would be found especially if they were on the hook for all of the care of a refugee or refugee family, so CATO is not proposing abolishing the present contractor system of resettlement. **CATO wants both systems at the same time—the same as Canada!**

The government report estimates that in a typical year, major HHS programs cost about $3,300 per refugee.

A 2015 study by CIS, which favors lower levels of immigration, attempted to account for a broader range of costs imposed by refugees. The study found that the five-year cost of relocating refugees from the Middle East came to $64,370 per person and $257,481 per household.

[….]

Alex Nowrasteh, an immigration policy analyst at the libertarian Cato Institute, did not dispute the government’s cost estimates.

[….]

A better approach than a bureaucratic, taxpayer-funded refugee system, Nowrasteh said, is to allow private citizens and organizations to sponsor refugees and take financial responsibility for them. He said Canada has such a system and that the United States has had similar policies in the past.

More here.

Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society launches election year campaign

09/29/2018 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

They call it…. VOTE FOR WELCOME!

As a non-profit federal grantee they need to be especially careful about lobbying and getting in to electoral political activities. See here.

If the Refugee Admissions Program survives, the most important reform we need is a prohibition (in the law itself) on federal refugee contractors***, like HIAS, from political organizing and advocacy/lobbying while being funded by you and me, the taxpayers.

Better still, take all nine contractors out of the resettlement business completely!

HIAS received over $186 million from the federal Treasury since 2008, here. And, they have been organizing rallies like this one (with Keith Ellison) against President Trump.

Now this….

Screenshot (1464)

Screenshot (1466) — This is a screenshot so link is not hot. Go here: https://www.hias.org/election-campaign?utm_source=hias.org&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=election_campaign&utm_content=09_28_18

***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!