Tag: Donald Trump

Trump Admin reining-in Obama plan to get more Central American children to US

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Barack Obama illegally expanded the US Refugee Admissions Program a few years ago with his Central American Minors Program (CAM) which allowed Central American parents (from 3 countries) already in the US to get their kids to America by claiming they are refugees.  Obama said it would stem the illegal border invasion by ‘children.’  (Begging the question—so how could these parents simply leave their kids behind in the first place!)

Technically to be a refugee one must prove that one is persecuted for one of several reasons (religion, race, political persuasion, etc.) and that the person (the wannabe refugee) has left his country and would be harmed if returned. This is a very large hurdle for kids who are still in their country of origin and who are mostly economically challenged and not truly persecuted. So Obama bent the law further by allowing them to be paroled in to the US.

Trump has now dumped the parole option. If the kid can meet the refugee standards, presumably he/she can still get here.

From the San Diego Union-Tribune:

I was looking for an illustration for this story, and although not what the story is about, I found this incredible graph showing the cost to taxpayers for the surge in so-called “unaccompanied children” arriving illegally. The Office of Refugee Resettlement (HHS) is responsible for them. Funny, the number of children crossing has declined while the cost keeps going up!

The Department of Homeland Security announced Tuesday it plans to shut down a program that offered some children and young adults from three Central Amercian countries a chance to lawfully immigrate to the U.S. to join their parents.

The decision will close down a portion of the Central American Minors program, established in 2014 under President Obama as a way to slow the stream of minors from strife-torn Central American countries.

The program allows unmarried youths under 21 years old from El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala who had one parent who had lawful status in the U.S. to apply for refugee status, from their home country.

If the refugee status was denied. they could still be allowed into the U.S. under humanitarian parole, a way to legally be in the country that is not permanent but must be renewed periodically.

In an announcement to be published in the Federal Register today DHS said that it was terminating the humanitarian parole part of the CAM program.

Children and young adults can still seek refugee status , but if that is denied the parole option will no longer be available.

Lisa Frydman, Kids in Need of Defense, is Angelina Jolies organization. https://supportkind.org/about/leadership/

No reason was given for the change to the program, though the administration of President Donald Trump has made both choking off the flow of youths and families from Central America and tightening the legal immigration avenues a priority as part of its overall crackdown on immigration.

[….]

The program began in 2014, and in late 2016 it was expanded to allow additional family members to apply. But that expansion came late in the Obama presidency and because of the length of time it takes to review, investigate and approve an application no one has been admitted under the expanded rules.

Earlier this year the State Department said 11,000 people had applied to the program and 2,400 had been admitted. Another 2,700 individuals had been granted conditional parole but had not yet traveled to the U.S., according to Lisa Frydman with the Kids In Need Of Defense, an advocacy group in San Francisco.

The announcement said that those conditional approvals are now rescinded.

More here.

What might you do today?  Contact the White House and thank the president for doing this, and tell him to dump the whole program.  It is Congress’s job to write laws about who is and who isn’t a refugee.

By the way, much of the cost of the UACs in that graph above is because some of our usual contractors are being paid to care for the kids!

Trump loses (with the media) on Australia refugee swap deal….

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

…..but he can still win with the voters!

His first instincts were correct—-this is a “dumb” deal.  And, whoever advised him to move forward with a completely ridiculous (unprecedented!) Obama Administration last minute ‘deal’ should be fired.

(See my extensive archive on the Australia deal by clicking here.)

Update: Iranian detainee kills himself.  He had mental health issues now being blamed on Australian policy and by extension, Trump. See here at Australia News Corp (see video, are you ready for these men as neighbors?)

Turnbull definitely wants the deal to save his political neck! Leftwing Australians want these mostly men admitted to the mainland.

If the Trump State Department/Homeland Security ultimately admit hundreds of mostly Muslim men to American towns, voters will be truly ticked-off.

If he doesn’t go through with the ‘deal,’ get a taste of  the treatment he is already getting from the likes of CNN.

CNN managed to find a family and a single woman to interview (to criticize the leaked phone conversation) while most of the detainees are young men.

All of this could have been avoided if he had killed the ‘deal’ in the first weeks of his Presidency.

From CNN:

(CNN)In the wake of a leaked phone call in which US President Donald Trump repeatedly called them “bad” and “prisoners,” refugees at the center of a controversial deal between the US and Australia say they have lost faith in ever making it to America. [Think about this, they tried to reach Australia illegally and somehow they have some expectation of getting to America!—ed]

“We are really hopeless,” said Shirdel Eskandari Khah, an Iranian refugee who lives with his wife and seven-year-old son on the Pacific island of Nauru.

“We believe that it is another game from the US and Australian governments.”

Under the terms of a deal settled by the Obama administration, the US agreed to vet and then resettle nearly 1,200 refugees like Eskandari Khah, who have been living for years in or around offshore detention camps [So, not all in camps!—ed] run by the Australian government. In return, Canberra would take a group of Central American refugees who had been attempting to make it to the US.

Just think about that previous line.  So these Central Americans were trying to illegally get to the US and somehow it is the American taxpayers’ responsibility to admit them to our towns and cities, or send them on to Australia. BTW, HIAS is involved, see here. (Never a good thing!)

USCIS spokesman Carter Langston—No worries! We are coming back to do more interviews (build up hope, so if the deal falls through, Trump can be blamed further).

Australia was on the right track in its attempt to deter illegal migrants, but WHY IS THIS NOW OUR PROBLEM?

The offshore camps — on Nauru and Papua New Guinea — are key to Australia’s immigration policy. Anyone who arrives by boat without a visa is told they will never be able to settle on Australian soil and sent to the island camps for processing.

[….]

Last week, refugees on Nauru began to hold regular demonstrations, with one of the demands being for an update on the status of the US program.

Carter Langston, a spokesman for the US Citizenship and Immigration Services, said the resettlement deal was ongoing and the department was planning upcoming trips to the camps.

There is a lot more, especially whining questionable refugees, go here.

It is not too late, Trump can still get out of the ‘deal’—at least some American voters will be happy. If he goes forward with the swap, he just gets deeper and deeper in to the muck and shouldn’t expect any praise from the media.

And, whoever convinced him to move forward with the rotten deal in the early days of this Administration needs to be fired!

Memory lane! CT Senator Richard Blumenthal sought to REDUCE security screening for Syrians in 2015

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Editor: This is a repost of a repost!  Since President Trump was ‘highlighting’ the storied career of Connecticut Senator Richard Blumenthal yesterday (so that Blumenthal today is all over the Leftwing cable news), I thought new readers might like to know more about the man.

Come to think of it, I haven’t heard Blumenthal lately asking for more Syrian refugees for Connecticut.

Here is my post from earlier this year, which is a repost itself from 2015:

Because he is all over the news today as the focal point in one more attack on President Donald Trump, I’m re-posting this story from 2015 so you know just who Senator Blumenthal is and why he must be pretty unhappy with Trump.

In 2015 Senator Blumenthal held a press conference with the director of CAIR Connecticut seeking to speed up Syrian refugees to America by reducing security screening requirements. 98% of Syrians entering the US are Muslims.

This is what I said October 7, 2015:

Update: Who was that man over Senator Blumenthal’s left shoulder?

Yesterday we told you that Senator Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) is leading the charge to lessen the security screening for Syrian and other Middle Eastern refugees and he wants to expand the so-called P-3 (fraud ridden!) family reunification program.

See yesterday’s post by clicking here. (Go there to see exactly how Senator Blumenthal wanted to make it easier for Syrians to get  through the refugee screening process.)

That is CAIR-Connecticut’s Executive Director behind Senator Blumenthal. Getting pretty brazen aren’t they, or is Blumenthal just pretty dense to invite CAIR to be so prominently involved in lessening security screening for refugees?

 

Now we know the answer to the question I asked all of you to help answer.  Looming over Blumenthal’s shoulder is none other than Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR)- Connecticut director Mongi Dhaouadi.

(When I mentioned to a friend that I had updated my post with that information (thanks to Kyle), she suggested I write a second post because as a subscriber, who received the earlier one, she would not see the update.)

But it is worth mentioning again because this is now the second time we have seen CAIR involving itself directly in the Syrian (mostly Muslim) resettlement issue (and you can bet they are not advocating for the persecuted Syrian Christians).

Clearly their interest is in boosting the Muslim population in the US.

CAIR was here in the St. Louis ‘Bring them here march’ last month.

Here is Mr. Dhaouadi’s bio at CAIR’s website:  (update: Apparently Mr. Dhaouadi has moved on since I first wrote this story)

Mongi Dhaouadi
Executive Director

Mongi S. Dhaouadi was born and raised in Tunisia. He moved to the US when he was 19 years old and studied Electrical Engineering at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. As The Executive director of CAIR-CT, he conducts civil rights workshops throughout the state of Connecticut under the title “Know Your Rights.” Also, he leads several workshops and discussions on Islamophobia and the Muslim experience before and after 9/11. He has participated in and led several media campaigns and press conferences on issues concerning the Muslim community ranging from discrimination cases to advocating for the change of racial profiling laws in the state of Connecticut. Dhaouadi was featured in countless local, national, and international media outlets including NPR, FOX News, and Democracy Now with Amy Goodman. During the summer, he runs a youth internship program during which high school and college students work on several projects ranging from preparing a toolkit on Islamic cultural competency for schools, to writing and publishing articles from a Muslim youth perspective in the local papers and publications. Dhaouadi leads a Connecticut delegation at the Capitol Hill visits; an event that is organized every year by CAIR National, where members of the Muslim community visit their representatives in Wasington, DC and advocate for issues of concern domestic and foreign. Prior to joining CAIR-CT on a full time bases Dhaouadi was the Head Administrator at SKF Academy in Hamden Connecticut. Dhaouadi is married with three children: ages 11, 14 and 18. He lives with his family in New London, Connecticut. His favorite past time is playing or coaching soccer.

So far Connecticut doesn’t get very many refugees compared to other states.  I guess Blumenthal and Dhaouadi would like to change that.

Is CAIR getting into the refugee resettlement program where you live?  Let me know.  And, while you are at it, see if you notice the involvement of Islamic Relief (USA) as well.

Go here to find the regional offices of Islamic Relief (USA) thanks to reader Cathy.

More on Connecticut here.

Refugee contractors launch August recess campaign; minimum 75,000 refugees for FY18

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment
From the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society website: https://www.hias.org/support-presidential-determination-least-75000-refugees

 

In mid-September the Trump Administration will be sending its ‘Presidential determination’ to the Hill.

The determination will set the CEILING for the number of refugees the President would like to see admitted to the US and sets priorities for what regions of the world will be the source of those refugees.

It also tells Congress how much money the Administration needs to get that job done.

Obama’s average admissions for 8 years was 69,683. Do they really think that Donald Trump will ask for 75,000?

For the umpteenth time, the number is a ceiling that is rarely reached.

The contractors*** are telling their followers that the magic number for FY18 is 75,000.  They must be taking a new tack because at this time last year they were asking Obama for 200,000.  I suspect they know the situation is bad for their budgets and they need more than 50,000 (paying refugee clients) to stay afloat.

By the way, Trump reset the ceiling for FY17 to 50,000.

And, as  of this morning (according to Wrapsnet) Trump is at 50,672.  This is the first time in the history of the program that the ceiling has been surpassed.

For the eight years of the Obama Administration the average number of admissions was 69,683 (see here). The average would have been much lower if it weren’t for his last year, an outlier, of nearly 85,000.

So, if Trump goes to 75,000 for FY18, which begins October 1, he will be proposing to bring in more refugees than Obama’s average.

Ginning up their base!

Just one portion of the “members” page at the RCUSA. http://www.rcusa.org/members/

In an August recess toolkit prepared by the Refugee Council USA (the lobbying arm of the refugee industry), here is what they are telling their activists (and using your tax dollars for their community organizing!):

Trump’s attacks on refugees, immigrants, and their families are morally detestable, discriminatory, and violate our sacred honor to protect the most vulnerable among us. Right now, we need Congress to urge the administration to resettle at least 75,000 refugees next year and protect DACA. Congress must also robustly fund refugee assistance overseas and the U.S. refugee resettlement program, at minimum at last year’s levels, and reduce funding for mass immigration detention, deportation, and border militarization.

One of the most active of the activist groups is the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society (HIAS) which has instructions to its supporters on what to say to Washington Representatives and Senators.

Scratching your head about why Jews would import their enemy? Learn about “Stalinist Jews” where “ideology over reality” rules. Watch starting at minute 46 in this new documentary: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FmhfRi5j8aA

They know that the Republican Congress can be manipulated easily by public opinion on this issue because the establishment GOP fears being labeled racist AND many R’s are beholden to the Chamber of Commerce, big business and global corporations looking for more consumers and a ready supply of cheap labor.

***The Federal contractors/middlemen/employment agencies/propagandists/lobbyists/community organizers? paid by you to place refugees in your towns and cities are below.  Under the nine major contractors are hundreds of subcontractors.

The contractors income is largely dependent on taxpayer dollars based on the number of refugees admitted to the US, but they also receive myriad grants to service their “New Americans.”

If you are a good-hearted soul and think refugee resettlement is all about humanitarianism, think again! Big businesses depend on the free flow of cheap (some call it slave) labor.

The only way for real reform of how the US admits refugees is to remove these contractors/Leftwing activists from the process.

Australia refugee deal murkier by the minute; poster story for refugee program gone wrong!

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

I’ve lost track of how many posts I’ve written on a refugee swap deal that Obama (and Anne Richard) engineered in the closing months of the Obama administration that would bring over 1,000 rejected ‘refugees’ to your towns in the coming months. (See archive here)

These are mostly men illegal aliens who, with the help of people smugglers, tried to reach Australia by boat, but were intercepted and taken to detention facilities where they have protested, rioted, and occasionally set fire to their living facilities.

Australian leftwing NO Borders activists want the mostly Muslim men admitted to Australia. So why should we take them to America? NOT OUR PROBLEM! http://www.huffingtonpost.com.au/2017/02/19/1900-manus-asylum-seekers-in-massive-class-action-against-the-go_a_21717262/

This week, as it looks like their admission to the US is stalled, efforts were being made to move some of them to another facility until violence and protests erupted.

The detainees say they won’t be safe if moved. It is unclear to me (and apparently the NYT too) who exactly would attempt to harm them as they wait to see if they hit the jackpot with a airplane ticket to America.

From the New York Times:

Hundreds of refugees and migrants living in limbo on a remote Pacific island refused Tuesday to vacate the detention facility where they have been held for years, the latest protest of their treatment under Australia’s offshore detention program.

The protest was a response to cuts to water and electricity to parts of the facility on Manus Island, in Papua New Guinea, where 800 men were still being held since attempting to reach Australia by boat.

The Australian authorities want the refugees to move to a new site; the protesters say they are being aggressively relocated and denied protection.

[….]

East Lorengau Refugee Transit Center, the new facility on Manus Island, is intended to temporarily house refugees awaiting resettlement. Those who are not considered refugees will be returned to their home countries.

These are men being considered by the Trump State Department to be your new neighbors!

The police commander on Manus, David Yapu, told the New Zealand news outlet Radio NZ that minor confrontations between the protesters and police officers had occurred in recent days.

“There was tension. We decided to withdraw,” Mr. Yapu said, saying his officers pulled back from the compound where the protest happened. “But our men are still there just to assist, to move the refugees from the Foxtrot compound.”

[….]

Most of the men on Manus Island have been formally recognized as refugees, but Australia refuses to allow them to be resettled.

The Obama administration had agreed to resettle hundreds of the refugees from Manus and Nauru, but this year President Trump questioned that decision.

He later confirmed he would follow through on the commitment for the one-time resettlement agreement after “extreme vetting” of the refugees, but it is unclear when this will take place.

Trump v. Turnbull phone call transcript leaked.

Trump ‘got it’ in January when he called it a “dumb deal.” It is about saving Turnbull from his radical Leftwing human rights agitators.

Remember, as I told you here, the reason these mostly men from Muslim countries are not being admitted to the mainland of Australia (when we are told repeatedly that they are legit refugees) is that Australia has a policy of never admitting anyone who tried to break into the country by boat.

We get that, and it is a good deterrent, but why is your US city or town to be punished with their US taxpayer-supported placement? 

Does anyone really think these men, who have learned from the Leftwing how to protest, are going to quietly go to work for BIG MEAT OR BIG CHICKEN?

(BTW, did anyone tell those detainees that they would come to America and be expected to do this kind of manual labor?)

Now we have the snarky Washington Post suggesting that Trump didn’t ‘get it’ (doesn’t understand the refugee program) when he discussed the swap in January with Prime Minister Turnbull.  Trump got it and understood intuitively that it is a DUMB deal.

WaPo:

In November, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman, responsible for the USRAP in the Senate, could not get the exact number out of the Obama bureacrats at the State Department.

We’ve known for a while that President Trump berated Australia’s prime minister on a Jan. 28 phone call; The Washington Post reported on it back then.

What we didn’t know then was how little Trump understood the policy that was discussed on the call.

According to a transcript of the call unearthed by The Post’s Greg Miller, the deal to resettle refugees was actually brought up first on the call by Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, who wanted assurance that the U.S. government would stand by its commitment in light of Trump’s stance on other refugees. After some discussion of the Islamic State and Christian refugees more generally, Turnbull says, “This is a very big issue for us, particularly domestically, and I do understand you are inclined to a different point of view than the vice president.” 

[This is revealing, so Pence was already talking to Turnbull about the refugee swap deal, sooner than eight days after the inauguration?—ed]

Trump then starts the back-and-forth by noting that someone had just described the deal to him. But then he uses inaccurate numbers: “Somebody told me yesterday that close to 2,000 people are coming who are really probably troublesome.”

The reporter shows his ignorance (and bias!) because it wasn’t until recently that the target number discussed (to be admitted to your towns) is in the range of 1,250.  Back when Trump talked to Turnbull we know that it was close to 2,000 as noted by Senator Grassley, here.  Grassley reported in November that the number being considered is CLASSIFIED.

Continue reading the WaPo here as reporter (Aaron Blake) twists himself into a pretzel trying to make Trump look foolish.  I think it is clear Trump understood exactly why Turnbull was so desperate for a deal!

For new readers, know this:

This sort of deal is outside of the ordinary resettlement process. It would set a horrible precedent!

So, if it goes through in October (the new fiscal year), as the Aussie government hopes it will, Trump will lose me for sure.