Refugee lobby in high dudgeon over Trump refugee numbers slump

03/27/2018 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Their paying client numbers are very low right now and could hit an all-time low if this trend continues.
I started this post simply wanting to let readers know what the normal sequence is in a given year as the feds move toward the next fiscal year, but then I noticed the press release from the Refugee Council USA-–the lobbying arm of the refugee industry.
I wanted to get the jump on them as we approach the 6-month mark in the refugee admission year of FY18 by telling you what the time table for their action will be. (Fiscal years begin on October 1 and extend to September 30th, so April first marks the 6 month mark.) So, I’ll do that, then tell you about the press release.

Mary and Eleanor — Ms. Giovagnoli is now the director of the Refugee Council USA the lobbying arm of the refugee industry and on the left is Eleanor Acer of Human Rights First at an earlier event.

And, I said here yesterday, admission numbers are way below where they would normally be at this time of year (that isn’t to say they won’t rebound in the second half of the year because some of that depends on how much cash Congress put in the recent gigantic omnibus).
Abstract prep
At about this time in a normal year, the subcontractors are busy as beavers in hundreds of US towns and cities putting together their ‘Abstracts’ in secrecy. That is the plan for your community with how many refugees your local agency desires.
Scoping meeting sham
In a normal year the US State Department holds a scoping meeting in about May to basically see how many refugees the contractors want in the upcoming year and where they might come from. (The State Dept. did not hold such a meeting last year that we know of, and I’m betting the newbies in there don’t even know about it.)
Ostensibly the scoping meeting is to gauge your views too, but in a number of years where we participated and many of you, my readers, sent in comments, it was pretty clear that the State Department did not want to hear about objections to the program. If anyone is interested in what we said, there are dozens and dozens of posts filed here about what happened in 2012-2016 with those “scoping meetings.” (See category drop-down for State Department Testimony.)
It would be nice (and fair!) if the State Department reinstated scoping meetings and made them available to all Americans. Heck, it would be great if they went on the road and held hearings!
Presidential determination for coming year
The Abstract prep and the scoping meetings were (are) lead-ups to August when the President’s people supposedly meet with Congressional committees in the House and Senate to discuss the coming year. There are supposed to be Congressional hearings (before the submission of the ceiling) at this point, but that never happens.
The President then sends a ‘determination’ letter (and report) to Congress for the new fiscal year which begins October 1. The President decides what the CEILING will be for the coming fiscal year—how many refugees and from where. This is a CEILING, A CAP, and is not a goal although the contractors want it to be a goal or target.
I told you yesterday about the myriad stories in the media about “plummeting” numbers.
And, also yesterday, the lobbying arm of the refugee industry—Refugee Council USA sent out a press release to whack the Trump Administration and beg for this year’s 45,000.
Right now, for new readers, the CEILING is 45,000, but at the present rate of entry we will get no where near that (thus the press blast yesterday from RCUSA).

Washington, D.C. – Midway through Fiscal Year 2018, the Trump administration has admitted only a quarter of the 45,000 refugees it pledged to take in, making it highly unlikely that the United States will meets its anticipated admissions goal. Instead, the administration appears to be on track to admit roughly 22,000 refugees, far below any admissions number since the modern refugee program began in 1980. Today, Refugee Council USA (RCUSA) gathered experts to discuss the immediate and long-term implications of this failure.

More here. Mary, Eleanor and others participated.

Trump and Pompeo — Mike Pompeo at the State Department is still a wildcard!

Get ready for the big FY19 push to start at any time
Although they are still in panic-mode and pushing for the 45,000, this is about the time of year the yammering begins for next year’s numbers. The contractors shoot really high.
Watch them ask for 100,000 or more (to make up for lost time and lost revenue for them).
Last year, because of Trump’s campaign promises they were pushing for a paltry 75,000. What will it be this year? We will be watching!
The Refugee Council USA has an Activist Toolkit that you might benefit from seeing. Click here. It might give you some ideas!

I sure hope that none of this is being paid for with our tax dollars! Congress are you paying attention?

And lastly, I got a chuckle seeing this sample letter (from the toolkit) that refugees are encouraged to send to newspapers:

RCUSA sample letter

Another Uzbek refugee on trial on terror charges

03/26/2018 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

I’m getting sick of these Uzbek refugees who should never have been admitted to the US under questionable circumstances in the first place—both George W. Bush and Obama were doing it!
Uzbekistan is a Muslim country, supposedly moderate, so the refugees we got are apparently the trouble makers the moderate government wanted removed. Our Presidents said, sure we’ll take care of it for you.
This isn’t going to be a thorough post of Uzbek terrorists because I want to move on this morning, however I see just last month an Uzbek Islamic terrorist pleaded guilty to killing five in a Sweden truck attack.
Ten days ago we reported on Uzbek convicted terrorist Fazliddin Kurbanov who was found guilty of trying to kill a California prison warden (tried to behead him!).***

Trump and Turnbull — Trump agreed to take Australia’s rejected refugees, why? https://refugeeresettlementwatch.org/2018/03/05/more-of-australias-rejected-asylum-seekers-leave-for-us/

My Uzbek archive is here.
Someone should write a book! See if you can get the Dept. of State and the CIA to cough up the real story on why we brought so many Uzbek fake ‘refugees’ to the US and distributed them around the country.

BTW, one of my major complaints with the US Refugee Admissions Program is that we aren’t picking the most needy people to be our refugees, we often use the program for extracurricular foreign policy objectives.

Trump is doing it with the “dumb” Australia deal. Bush did it with Uzbeks and Meskhetians. Before him Clinton did it with Albanians. Obama continued the Uzbek flow, and was doing it with Central Americans among others.
jamshid-muhtorov-bakhtiyor-jumaev (1)
Here is some news on Bahktiyor Jumaev and his alleged former Islamic jihadist roommate Jamshid Muhtorov—refugees who should never have been here!
From Breitbart:
(hat tip: Chris)

The trial for a refugee from Uzbekistan charged with providing material support to a terrorist organization by wiring money to the “Islamic Jihad Union” (IJU) began in Denver, Colorado, on Thursday.

Prosecutors claim Bahktiyor Jumaev developed a closeness with fellow Uzbek Jamshid Muhtorov when the pair shared an apartment and that the two men discussed joining the IJU through phone calls and emails by using code words such as “wedding” to describe jihad.

“It’s a crime to send money or property to a terrorist organization,” said prosecutor Gregory Holloway at a courthouse in Denver. “That’s why we’re here.”

[….]

In January, Jumaev’s lawyers asked a judge not to allow the prosecution to show jurors a video showing the beheading of FBI agents found on Muhtorov’s computer.

“There is no evidence that Mr. Jumaev viewed any or most of the Muhtorov electronic evidence, particularly the most violent ones,” the motion read.

Muhtorov was first arrested before boarding a flight in Chicago back in 2012 and is currently being tried separately. He has already served five years in jail without trial, and a decision last year to release him on bail was eventually reversed by a federal judge.

The men are two of a number Uzbek migrants charged with terrorism-related offenses in the past year. Last August, 22-year-old Uzbek-American Abror Habibo pled guilty to charges of agreeing to fund terrorist activity, after buying another man a plane ticket to Syria in order to join the Islamic State.

Uzbek migrant Sayfullo Saipov also faces charges of terrorist after carrying out a truck attack that killed eight people and injured at least a dozen others in the city’s deadliest attack since 9/11.

***Breitbart forgot to mention Fazliddin Kurbanov. The pair in Colorado were sending money supposedly, Kurbanov was actually planning bombings and tried to kill the prison warden.
And, don’t you wonder why Jamshid Muhtorov hasn’t gone to trial yet?

Refugee numbers "plummet" under Trump (so far)

03/26/2018 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

I laughed this morning as I noticed more new articles from all over the place using the word “plummet” in their headlines, a sure sign that talking points have gone out (probably from the Refugee Council USA) and the media lemmings have followed the instructions.

(I’ll report on the 6 month of FY18 numbers a week from today, but it looks like Trump’s State Department is on target to reach just over 20,000 this year far below the admission ceiling of 45,000 the Trump Admin set back in September. However, don’t forget that paying clients are coming in as SIVs from Iraq and Afghanistan to help put money in the contractors’*** pockets.)

This is the one today that got me thinking about that ‘P’ word:

Refugee resettlements in U.S., Maine plummet under Trump administration

Here are more:

San Diego County refugee numbers plummet following Trump’s block on arrivals

Trump lifts refugee ban, but admissions still plummet, data shows

Refugee admissions to U.S. plummet in 2017

Number of refugees moving to Buffalo plummets under Trump administration

Refugee Resettlement Agency Revenues Plummet Under Trump

Refugee Admissions Plummet to 1,242 in First Month of FY 2018

Refugee Resettlements Plummet Under Trump

Resettlement of Somalis in Minnesota plummets in wake of Trump policies

You get my drift! LOL! Even I have used the word to describe resettlement numbers since President Trump arrived in the White House.

US Refugee admissions plummet even further

Other words that are being used include: “tumble,” “dip,” and “dropped dramatically,” but none have the ring or impact of “plummet.” ***Update*** Add “drastic decline.”
Note to Minnesotans!
When I looked at the admission numbers (Wrapsnet) for this month so far—March 1 to today—I was surprised to see that MN was the top receiving state for refugees. Now remember this is only for a few weeks, but the top receiving states are usually California, Texas, Ohio, Florida, New York (big population states).
In the last 3 weeks MN ‘welcomed’ 124 new Minnesotans (only 10 were Somalis). The largest group were Burmese (78). When I do my monthly accounting a week from today I’m going to check to see how many Burmese Muslims (Rohingya) we are bringing in now. So far, our refugee flow from Burma has been dominated by Christian and other religious minorities, but the Rohingya numbers are picking up.

***For new readers, these (below) are the nine federally-funded refugee resettlement contractors that work with over 300 subcontractors around the country to place refugees in your towns. They also are leading community organizing (political agitation) groups that outright oppose Donald Trump and his policies on, not just refugees, but all types of immigration including the fact that they support amnesty for illegal aliens.
Reform of the UN/US Refugee Admissions Program is not possible until they are stripped of their power which you provide through your tax dollars.
The number in parenthesis is the percentage of the nine VOLAGs’ income paid by you (the taxpayer) to place the refugees, line them up with jobs, and get them signed up for their services! From most recent accounting, here.

Jewish groups disagree about Muslim migration to US; internal pact revealed

03/25/2018 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

It seems that the fifty or so Jewish groups operating in the US have a secret pact to not speak ill of each other. However, that agreement seems to be coming apart as complaints involving the more conservative Zionist Organization of America (ZOA) have been filed.
One of those complaints appears (no one is revealing complete details) to involve a possible complaint by the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society (HIAS) which is not happy with ZOA pointing out HIAS’s financial incentive to admit and resettle more Muslim ‘refugees’ to America.

Hetfield in DC synagogue — Mark Hetfield, CEO of the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society speaking at one of many anti-Trump events he was involved in. See more on the schism among American Jews here: http://jewishexponent.com/2017/11/08/groups-see-surge-activism-since-2016-election/

(HIAS, for new readers, is one of the nine major federal resettlement contractors*** placing refugees as secretively as they can into your towns and cities. HIAS played a major role in filing lawsuits against the Trump Administration’s so-called Muslim ban.)
First here is information from Forward in a story entitled:

Presidents Conference’s Secret Rules Bar Jewish Groups From Attacking Each Other

(President refers to the Presidents of each of the Jewish advocacy groups.)

Top American Jewish organizations agreed last year to adhere to rules that ban them from attacking each other, the Forward has learned.

The rules, which regulate the discourse of American Jewish leaders, have never been publicized, and are unknown to the vast majority of the constituents of the organizations that have agreed to abide by them. First written in 1995, they were quietly revamped in early 2017.

All of the fifty-odd Jewish groups that belong to the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations are subject to the rules, which now ban “insults, ad hominem attacks, and name calling” against the Presidents Conference or its member organizations, and statements that are “false, inaccurate or unfairly exaggerated.”

Alleged violations of the rules are referred to a committee that has the power to recommend that organizations guilty of serial violations be expelled from the Presidents Conference. The membership and procedures of that committee, which also were updated last year, have never been made public.

At least four alleged infractions of the rules are currently pending before the committee, the Forward has learned. Those four all involve the Zionist Organization of America, a hawkish pro-Israel group, which is the subject of two of the complaints and has filed two more.

“I criticize other organizations all the time,” said Mort Klein, the ZOA’s president. “You just can’t lie, and you can’t say don’t support them. You can’t call names.”

[….]

The Presidents Conference did not respond to a request for its current governing documents. It also did not respond to questions about what complaints are currently pending before the tribunal, and whether the tribunal had ever acted against a member organization.

[….]

According to one person active in the Presidents Conference, both the Jewish refugee aid organization HIAS and the Anti-Defamation League currently have complaints that have long been pending against the ZOA. The ZOA’s Klein told the Forward that his group has brought its own complaints against the ADL and Ameinu, a progressive Zionist organization.

None of the organizations would describe the content of their complaints. But that they relate to the ZOA is not surprising, given the organization’s willingness to publicly attack its colleagues. In a letter to the editor published in the Forward in 2017, Klein suggested that there was a “profit motive” behind the HIAS’s opposition to President Trump’s Muslim ban.

“Some refugee resettlement groups, such as HIAS, which have invoked ‘morality’ arguments….have been receiving millions of dollars of government grants to resettle refugees,” Klein wrote.

HIAS would not say whether the January 2017 letter, or some other public statement by the ZOA, was the subject of its complaint to the committee.

“I do not want to prejudice the proceedings in any way by commenting before the process has run its course, which I hope will be soon,” said Mark Hetfield, HIAS’s president and CEO.

More here.
The letter and the allegations against HIAS:

hetfield-at-wh — Here is Hetfield again protesting against the President. Hetfield pulls down an annual salary of over $350,000. Where is Congress? Cut their federal funding! https://refugeeresettlementwatch.org/2018/03/05/dear-donald-give-bibi-a-gift-today-cut-federal-funding-to-hias/

This is a portion of the 2017 ‘Letter to the Editor’ by Morton Klein (supporting President Trump) that seems to have Hetfield steamed:

…. under Jewish law, someone with a potential “profit motive” to favor a particular position is in no position to judge. Some refugee resettlement groups, such as HIAS, which have invoked “morality” arguments to promote admitting poorly vetted refugees have been receiving millions of dollars of government grants to resettle refugees.

There is also no moral equivalence between Trump’s executive order and Franklin Delano Roosevelt slamming the doors on Jews trying to escape from Nazi Europe. The 1930s Jews posed no terror threat to the U.S., were in imminent danger of annihilation, and had nowhere else to go. By contrast, immigrants from the seven countries of concern are infiltrated by terrorists, are often already in Turkey or Jordan where there is no imminent danger, and have 50 other Muslim nations that can be pressured to accept them. (ZOA also favors safe zones in the Middle East.)

The Pew Research Center’s Global Attitudes survey (2009) found that over 90% of Muslims in surveyed majority Muslim nations held strongly unfavorable (anti-Semitic) attitudes towards Jews. Bringing more Jew-haters into the U.S., who will join surging vicious anti-Semitic activities on college campuses and the anti-Israel Congressional lobby, is dangerous and immoral.

More here.
Our complete Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society archive is here. HIAS is very close to the SPLC, by the way.

*** These (below) are the nine federal refugee resettlement contractors and I say all of them have a profit motive (including Catholics, Lutherans, Episcopalians, etc) to resettle more refugees including Muslim refugees.
And, I think one of the greatest insults to taxpayers is that these same groups, which are paid by us to take care of refugees, have become super-sized Leftwing community organizing and agitating groups. HIAS is the leader in attacking Trump!
The number in parenthesis is the percentage of the nine VOLAGs’ income paid by you (the taxpayer) to place the refugees, line them up with jobs, and get them signed up for their services! From most recent accounting, here.

ORR: two federal grants available to benefit refugees and their resettlement contractors

03/21/2018 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

This post falls in my ‘Special deals for special (non-citizen) people’ archive!

I see that although Congress is debating the budget for the remainder of the year, there are still millions of taxpayer funds sloshing around HHS’s Office of Refugee Resettlement and those have been offered up for grabs starting this week.
We’ve been reporting on the fact that the nine federal refugee contractors,*** which monopolize all resettlement in the US, are paid by the head to place refugees in your towns and that they are hurting financially as the Trump Administration slows the flow of new paying clients.

However, know that those per head payments are not the only federal funding available to them. The Office of Refugee Resettlement has myriad other grants, like these two announced a few days ago.

The first is one of the most outrageous ones we have ever discussed. It is the ‘Refugee Individual Development Accounts (IDA) Program.’
In a nutshell, to be eligible, refugees must save some money toward a house, a car, a business or education and their savings are MATCHED by you up to a limited amount. For example, if a family saves $4,000, you, dear taxpayer, will match them another $4,000.
The match-money is managed (and doled out) by middlemen NGOs awarded the grant—the contractors or their subcontractors usually. Don’t believe me, see here.
Incidentally, one of the side benefits of the Leftwing government contractors/community organizers as middlemen is that it endears the refugees to that local non-profit. I’m sure the refugees think the non-profit group is giving them money!

The Trump Administration is not starving the beast!

This is the grant availability for the coming year for refugee savings accounts….

Screenshot (300)

And, here I went back to look at previous grants for the IDA and it sure looks like Idaho’s Mountain States/Janus Inc. (they are one and the same) have figured out the racket as the organization got a couple of big dips into the federal trough.

Screenshot (301)_LI

Feds help refugees set up licensed childcare facilities for their kids!

The second grant announcement from ORR is the ‘Refugee Family Child Care Microenterprise Development Program.’ See here.
Besides the fact that here we have the middlemen contractors and subcontractors getting paid to help refugees set up businesses that of course will compete with American businesses where the American citizen worked hard to establish her daycare service, we reported here in 2013 that the ORR program touted the fact that the children cared for by refugee day care workers would get “culturally appropriate” care.
So much for assimilating the kids!
And, this will surely steam you—-the money is only available to those not yet US citizens.
ORR, here.

All low income refugees who are not citizens are eligible for services under this program.

Here is the grant announcement:

Screenshot (297)

This post is filed in my ‘where to find information’ category.
***You can bet the nine contractors (below) and their subcontractors will be scrambling for these millions of dollars made available a few days ago.
The number in parenthesis is the percentage of their income paid by you (the taxpayer) to place the refugees, line them up with jobs, and get them signed up for their services! From most recent accounting, here.