Tag: Donald Trump

Refugees, which is it: Meatpacker laborers or helping the "oppressed?"

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Ali Noorani of the National Immigration Forum tries both arguments in USA Today.

ali noorani twitter
Ali Noorani on twitter: @anoorani  https://twitter.com/anoorani?lang=en

I wasn’t planning to post on one more hysterical story about Trump refugee numbers being low and thus decimating the refugee contractor industry, but I can’t resist mentioning one little bit of the story entitled:

Refugee admissions to U.S. plummet in 2017

Before I get to Noorani, Mark Krikorian summed it up with this:

“Elections have consequences,” said Mark Krikorian, executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies, which advocates for lower levels of legal and illegal immigration. “This is what he said he’s going to do, and he’s doing it.”

Readers, for years and years, refugee advocates pretended they have nothing to do with the global meatpacking industry and its ‘need’ for cheap migrant labor, but now even savvy DC operatives like Noorani trot out the argument feigning concern for Midwestern economies.

Ali Noorani, executive director of the National Immigration Forum, which has advocated for a higher refugee cap, said many Midwestern cities depend on refugees to work in the meat-packing and poultry plants that sustain their struggling economies.

Okay and if that establishment Rightwing argument doesn’t float your boat, he moves on to moral duties, historic roles and oppressed people so he can hit the Leftwingers too:

As more migrants are fleeing their homelands, Noorani said now is the worst possible time for the U.S. to retreat from its historic role as a “moral beacon” for the oppressed.

“There are ways to help refugees get to places of safety and begin a new life that serves the American interest,” Noorani said. “Past administrations have been able to do that. This administration is not that so interested.”

American interest? Or global meatpackers’ interest (subsidized by US taxpayers)?

Dakota Provisions
Photo credit: Me

This “new life to serve American interests” was on full display in a Washington Post story (hat tip: Melanie) the other day about a South Dakota turkey plant and how it gets its migrant laborers (this time plane loads from Puerto Rico to join the refugee labor force, but they have to pay back their airfare out of their paychecks!).
It made me sick, especially because I traveled to Huron in the summer of 2016 to see how that plant, Dakota Provisions, was changing (forever) the city of Huron.
Is this what Noorani thinks “serves the American interest?”  Grover’s interests maybe?

If I ever stop writing this blog, I’m writing a modern day “The Jungle.”  It is long overdue!

I can happily skip eating turkey!

Top USCIS refugee official leaving; more evidence admissions slowdown could continue

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

We reported here on January 1 that the Trump refugee numbers, at the present rate of arrival, would come in at half of the CEILING of 45,000 set for FY18.
By the way, George Bush had two years that saw refugee admissions in the 20,000 range.
Trump will set a record if he comes in below George W. Bush’s two lowest years of 27,070 (2002) and 28,117 (2003).
(Yesterday, Michael Leahy at Breitbart posted a more detailed look at the numbers so far.)

hans van de weerd bald
Hans Van de Weerd of the two hats (IRC and RCUSA) is the go-to-guy for media comments these days.  As you know RCUSA is the lobbying arm of the UN/US Refugee Admissions Program. My question: is Hans still a Dutch citizen? Bio here:   http://www.phocuswrightconference.com/Whos-Coming/Speakers/2016/Hans-Van-de-Weerd

Here Reuters reports on the retirement of Barbara Strack (hat tip: Joanne):

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – One of the top U.S. government officials working on refugee issues announced her impending retirement on Tuesday, and refugee advocates expressed concern about the fate of the country’s resettlement program which faces mounting pressure from the Trump administration.

Barbara Strack, a career official and chief of the Refugee Affairs Division at U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, did not specify when she will leave her post, but USCIS spokesman R. Carter Langston said it would be in January.

[….]

“It’s something I’ve been planning towards for a long time, and it’s not driven by policy considerations,” Strack said. “I will deeply miss the colleagues and friendships that I‘m leaving behind, and the important mission of refugee resettlement. It’s been a privilege to be part of this community for the last 12 years, working to make the U.S. refugee resettlement program robust and secure.”

Advocates expressed concern at the timing of Strack’s retirement, saying it could further hamper U.S. refugee admissions. It was unclear immediately who would replace her.

[….]

The Refugee Affairs Division, which Strack oversees, includes dozens of officers charged with interviewing refugees abroad for resettlement in the United States.

[….]

Advocates for resettlement and some U.S. officials have expressed alarm at what they see as a slowdown in trips abroad known as circuit rides, in which USCIS officers interview refugees.

“The number of circuit rides has gone down drastically with currently only a few planned,” said Hans Van de Weerd, chair of Refugee Council USA***, a coalition of non-governmental groups working on refugee issues. “Many more will need to be scheduled soon to resettle 45,000 refugees and we don’t have any information about whether they will.”

More from Reuters here.
*** See my recent post on RCUSA the lobbying shop for the nine federal contractors which receive the vast majority of their funding from the US taxpayer. With the reduction in paying clients (aka refugees) entering the US, their budgets are taking huge hits.  Go here and see IRC salaries, spokesman Hans does not make the top tier.

2017 RRW year in review

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Happy New Year to all of my faithful readers (and new ones too)!

RRW celebrated its 10th anniversary this past summer and I can say, without a doubt, that this has been the most monumental year for the refugee industry for the decade I’ve been observing it.  And, of course, that is because Donald J. Trump resides at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.

Trump in oval office 2
We will be watching in the year ahead!

The Trump Administration has been busy making changes to the UN/US Refugee Admissions Program with a very definite America First! orientation and we expect that to continue in the year that began 8 hours ago.

There is much the President can do administratively to begin the process of reforming how we deal with the UN and how refugees are admitted to the US. But….
Just as President Trump is undoing many policies Obama put in place with his phone and his pen, a new President in 3 (or 7) years can undo Trump’s administrative changes, so I will continue to argue that in order to bring about real change in what is an extremely flawed system of admitting third worlders (they aren’t all legitimate refugees) permanently to the US, Congress will have to make changes in the law!
Will they have the guts in 2018 to tackle the USRAP? My guess is no (remember the Republican leadership is driven by the Chamber and its ilk and wants the compliant low wage workers for its donor corporations) unless you continue to demand that they do (and the President pushes it!).
At this point in time, I plan to continue your education about how the Refugee Program impacts your communities and your wallets because, frankly, it is now or never for abolishing (or if you prefer to say reforming) the system.

Top Posts!

Now to the Three Top (most read) Posts of 2017:
This top story just goes to show how much readers want to hear from people who are living with the problems created by a refugee program that ignores the views of citizens who must live with it. Tens of thousands of people read these blog posts:

Comment worth noting from St. Cloud, MN

Aberdeen update: Efforts abound in South Dakota to keep citizens in the dark about refugees

Repost: US Cases of refugees arrested or convicted on terror charges, and other heinous crimes

There were three most important ways readers came to RRW, first through search engines as readers were looking for ‘Refugee Resettlement Watch’ or ‘Ann Corcoran,‘ followed by facebook and then twitter—all three combining to send the most readers my way.

Top countries!

And, here (below in descending order) are the Top Ten Countries from which readers arrived at RRW in 2017.
I had some fun looking over the countries that sent readers to RRW for all time (WordPress only supplied that information a few years ago) and am delighted to report that of 195 countries in the world, only one was not represented.  That country was Western Sahara (Africa).  All other countries, including small Pacific island countries, had residents who visited RRW.
For 2017 (excluding the US):

Canada

UK

Australia

Germany

South Africa

Turkey

India

Malaysia

Netherlands

France

For new readers! 

Visit my mid-December round-up here to learn more about the rules of the road at RRW.
This post, and others like it, is filed in my ‘blogging’ category, here.  If you missed it, you might like to see the top ten posts of the last decade which I reported here last week.

Again, Happy New Year!

Heritage Foundation finds over 100 missing comments late today; most very critical of refugee program

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Earlier today we told you that many of you had contacted me to say you had commented at the Heritage Foundation website where the venerable Washington DC think tank had sought comments on its proposal to “reform” the US Refugee Admissions Program (USRAP), but that your comments were only visible to you (the author).

Trump at Heritage foundation
The President spoke at the Heritage Foundation last month. Heritage may be right on a lot of issues, but they are way off base on the USRAP—an issue on which they have had very little experience.

See my post here yesterday and here this morning where we speculated that Heritage either had technical difficulties or was deliberately shadow-banning comments.

However, sometime late this afternoon, without explanation, the comment counter jumped from 28, where it had hovered all day, to 137 (where it is now).

Please go here to see that the vast majority of those commenting want a serious reform of the USRAP or a complete halt to the program, not the ‘reform’ prepared by Heritage Foundation experts that sounded more like a product drafted by the US State Department espousing its foreign policy goals with no consideration for the impact on US taxpayers and citizens in refugee-stressed towns.

In addition to concerns over refugees, many of those who commented demonstrated what we already knew from the election of Donald Trump last fall—American citizens want immigration brought under control and they want a wall!

It isn’t too late to comment so please do that, here.

Tell the President! Not foreign policy objectives first, America first!

But, more importantly, it is imperative that you take a few extra minutes and write to the White House and alert the President that the Heritage Foundation Refugee Reform proposal, that was presented to the National Security Council last week, is way off the mark and must not be given serious consideration by members of your Administration.

I guess the Heritage Foundation doesn’t want to hear from you after all

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Update #2:  Here is what I said about the missing comments being found.

***Update***  Happy news and happy reading! Some of you went to work today and just now I see that there are 137 comments posted (while the number had hovered around 28 since yesterday)!  All of you who contacted me are now posted for all to see!  Here !

Yesterday I told you about that completely inadequate “reform” proposal for the US Refugee Admissions Program that the Heritage Foundation took to the White House last week.  If you missed the story click here.

Heritage invited comment from the public on its plan, but has apparently failed to post many of your comments.  

I’m giving them the benefit of the doubt until tomorrow morning that their failure to post comments, or more accurately let the commenter believe his or her comment was posted, but then not make it visible for the general public is because they had a technical malfunction and that all comments would be posted on Monday when they return to work…..

However, the other scenario is that Heritage was practicing what is called “shadow banning” (a highly questionable trick in the tech world) where the commenter can see his comment as if it had been posted, but no one else can.  I wrote about it here in August when obviously twitter had briefly shadow-banned me.

Again, we will see what happens tomorrow when DC workers return to their offices and Heritage checks its system.

(I do know that Heritage says they screen comments and reject some, but if so, why do they appear to some readers and not to others if they had been outright rejected? And, if you are immediately thinking they are rejecting comments they don’t like, it doesn’t make sense.  Some of those that have disappeared don’t seem any more critical than some they did post for all to see. And, besides, is it reasonable to assume that a Heritage worker, knowledgeable about refugees, was screening comments on Saturday of a holiday weekend? No.)

This is why I suspect shadow-banning is possibly going on. It would be very shameful if the estimable Heritage Foundation is engaging in that unfair practice.  After all, they were soliciting comments!

Here is what they asked:

What do you think should be done about America’s refugee program?

Several readers wrote to me to tell me that they had posted comments, but I couldn’t see those comments. Some reported that they hadn’t seen mine.  Strange, I thought, because mine is right here in front of me.  This is a screenshot of what I saw.  (At that time there were about 16 comments and as of this writing there are 28.)

I was the first commenter on November 25th right under Ron and before Gail:

Screenshot (1117)_LI

 

I then tried something else.  I opened the site in another browsing window and what do you know, I was gone!  See screenshot below. Who is now missing between Ron and Gail? Me!

 

Screenshot (1118)

So, dear readers, how many of you can see my comment, and how many can’t?

About six other people reported that they had posted comments that they could see, but  were not visible to me.  Here are two of those.  Tell me, can you see Margaret Starry or Richard Falknor’s comments?  I can’t (other than in the screenshots they shared with me below)!

image1 (1)_LI

Look for her just before Thomas Stark, do you see her comment?

How about Richard Falknor’s?

Shadowbanners!_LI

Can you see Richard Falknor’s comment immediately following Stephen Palmer? Mr. Falknor could obviously see it in order to take this screenshot.

Since so many comments are missing, there is no way for me, or anyone!, to know if you posted a comment. Please send me an e-mail here:  refugeewatcher@gmail.com and I will tell you if your comment is visible.  I have already received e-mails from a few of you who sent me your comment’s text and I confirmed that it is not visible to me.

If you can, get a screenshot of your ‘posted’ comment and send it to me.

Or, ask one of your friends to go to Heritage’s comments and see if they can see your comment!

And, tomorrow if Heritage has a good explanation we will report that—stay tuned!