US shuts the door on refugees, wails 'Think Progress'

07/13/2017 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

…..and it is confirmed by their go-to commenter—Mark Hetfield of the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society— who says of Trump’s ceiling that it is “lower than it’s been in history.”
But, what he doesn’t say is that even at 50,086 (the number this morning), that is not the lowest ADMISSIONS number in the history of the program as we pointed out here (and will show you below).
Here is Think Progress (John Podesta):

“We’ve reached a low point in U.S. history today with the Trump administration setting and enforcing a refugee admission ceiling which is lower than it’s been in history,” HIAS President and CEO Mark Hetfield told ThinkProgress in a phone interview Wednesday.

I just told you two days ago (something Think Progress will never tell you), that groups like HIAS are quasi-government agencies paying CEO salaries at major corporation levels. Hetfield makes $358,718 (doing well by doing good!) annually. Only one of the nine CEOs makes more, and that is David Miliband of the IRC ($591,846). https://refugeeresettlementwatch.org/2017/07/11/updating-financial-data-on-refugee-contractors-big-bucks-for-humanitarian-work/

HIAS, a nonprofit organization that provides humanitarian assistance and aid to refugees, has long helped refugees resettle in the United States. Hetfield was immensely displeased that at least one HIAS client, who was approved as a refugee, will be unable to come in despite having a grandmother in the country. Others will also see their flight reservations cancelled.

[….]

“We’re at least grateful the Supreme Court prevented Trump from fully implementing his mean spirited executive order and that refugees will [with] ties to US will continue to be admitted,” Hetfield said. “It’s an embarrassment for our country to be taking in so few refugees when the needs are so great.”

Think Progress goes on to perpetuate a massive misunderstanding claiming that countries like Turkey (Lebanon and Jordan) take in more refugees than does the rich (mean-spirited) US.

Those countries do not take refugees permanently (another thing that Think Progress will never tell its readers!)

Those countries would never let large numbers of other ethnic groups (Iraqis, Syrians, Somalis, Pakistanis, Palestinians etc.) become PERMANENT VOTING CITIZENS. In our refugee program (the largest in the world even at 50,000) we do, and so….

….we are the number one country in the world admitting refugees for life!

Let’s look at historically low admissions levels (see charts here).

There were 4 years when we admitted fewer than Trump’s 50,086:

FY02: 27,070

FY03: 28,117

FY06: 41,279

FY07: 48,281

And, since the SCOTUS is allowing refugees with “bona fide” relationships to enter above Trump’s 50,000 ceiling, here are some other years that might easily be surpassed before September 30th (the end of FY17):

FY87: 58,863

FY04: 52,858

FY05: 53,813

And these next two are THE Man’s (Obama’s years):

FY11: 56,424

FY12: 58,238

I’m guessing that Trump will, in the end, be admitting in the low 60,000s, close to the average for the last ten years. The big question is—what will he propose for FY18???

First time in history of refugee program Presidential ceiling has been exceeded

07/13/2017 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

And, you can thank the Supreme Court for unconstitutionally legislating in its decision late last month.

Refugees arriving after today are the responsibility of nine unelected justices.

I showed you here over the weekend that no ceiling has been exceeded in the over 35 year history of the program.
My worry is that what SCOTUS has done has been to literally obliterate the responsibility for refugees the law gives to the President and to Congress by defining a new standard for admittance—to those with “bona fide” relationships—ceiling be damned!
Even if one argues it is temporary, it is still an outrage! How dare the Supreme Court say that those in a newly coined category—those prospective ‘refugees’ with bona fide relationships—are not a security threat to us! That is the President’s job! Did the justices even read the Refugee Act of 1980?
But, how do you challenge the Supreme Court? And, are the contractors secretly cheering because they have longed for the day when the CEILING would become meaningless.
To top it off, there is another legal challenge before the rogue Hawaii judge that might further gum up the works (see Breitbart’s Michael Leahy on that potential legal quagmire, here).
Chaos and confusion reign, just as Clarence Thomas (with Alito and Gorsuch) predicted.
And, this was completely unnecessary because the Trump Administration could have simply lowered the ceiling when they came in to office without any Executive Order. The most they had to do was notify Congress!
As of yesterday afternoon, we have admitted 50,086 refugees to the US in this fiscal year.
Here is where the 50,086 were placed.

Here are the top ten ‘welcoming’ states. LOL! Hawaii is near the bottom as always with 3 whole refugees!

So much for Texas removing itself from the USRAP!

All of my posts on the aftermath of the Supreme Court’s decision are archived here.
There are many stories in the media today about the ceiling having been exceeded, if there is anything useful (other than the same old babble), I’ll update this post.

50,000 refugee cap should be reached today, then what?

07/12/2017 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Then for the remainder of the 120-day ‘moratorium’ only refugees with certain relatives and certain “bona fide” connections to US entities will be admitted.

The Supremes—the US’s new legislative body!

Once we pass the CEILING for the first time in the history of the program, it is my view that the refugees will belong to the Supreme Court since it has taken it upon itself to unconstitutionally WRITE REFUGEE LAW!
Adding to the confusion going forward is the fact that the 120-day moratorium will run in to late October (Supremes will likely not have ruled on the merits of the case by then).

September will be the real test for Trump’s Presidency on the refugee issue….

Late October (when the 120 days will be up) is a month PAST the legally required deadline for the President to send his 2018 refugee determination to the Hill. (Here is one of many posts on the ‘determination’ for new readers.)
In September, how will the White House handle that wrinkle SCOTUS has handed them?

The real test for President Trump on refugees comes in September! What will he propose for FY18?

LOL! Of course one thing the President could do is send a Determination to the Hill for FY18 of zero and tell Congress to reform the program in a serious way during a year-long moratorium.

(The Labrador bill isn’t much.)
Here is the story at KPCC radio in Southern California that got me going on this subject again this morning:

Federal officials expect the national cap on refugee admissions for fiscal year 2017 to be reached Wednesday, ushering in the Trump administration’s temporary travel ban affecting refugees.

Once that happens, all refugees will have to prove they have close relatives in the United States or established ties such as a job before they can gain entry. The new rules will remain in effect for at least 120 days, starting from late June when the U.S Supreme Court ordered the partial reinstatement of the Trump travel policy.

[….]

The State Department posted guidance listing the accepted categories of relatives: “a parent (including parent-in-law), spouse, fiancé, fiancée, child, adult son or daughter, son-in-law, daughter-in-law, sibling, whether whole or half. This includes step relationships. The following relationships do not qualify: grandparents, grandchildren, aunts, uncles, nieces, nephews, cousins, brothers-in-law and sisters-in-law, and any other ‘extended’ family members.”

A department spokeswoman told KPCC by email that refugees scheduled to travel to the U.S. will be allowed in until the end of Wednesday. Then, “beginning July 13, only those individuals who have a credible claim to a bona fide relationship with a person or entity in the United States will be eligible for admission through the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program.”

A relationship with a U.S. entity, such as a university or employer, can also qualify a refugee for entry on a case-by-case basis. However, the spokeswoman said refugees are not likely to have such ties and are more likely to have connections to relatives.

The State Department made clear that a relationship with a U.S. resettlement agency does not count as a qualifying relationship.

Remember when Donald Trump rolled out his first Executive Order and wanted to prioritize Christians and the contractors*** went crazy and said that was not fair. The lead squawker was the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society!
Well, you need to know, before you read this next segment of the story, that we have been prioritizing Jews from, first Russia, and now Iran (processing them after they get to Austria as visitors) as refugees to America! Learn about Lautenberg here.

The agency that Castro directs settles many Iranian Jews who travel to the U.S. via Austria, arriving through a refugee program that benefits religious minorities. He said one of his agency’s refugee clients has been waiting in Austria. She is being vetted by U.S. officials but likely will be stuck in Austria because she has no close relatives in this country.

Resettlement agencies say they have yet to receive guidance from the federal government about what happens once the 120 days of the temporary refugee travel ban are up. [Again, the 120 days puts us in to the new fiscal year—what will Donald do in September?—ed]

“I suspect that what will happen is there will be a push to make this more permanent in some form,” Castro said. “I can’t imagine going back to the status quo prior to the order.”

I can’t imagine that either! It would be political suicide for Trump if he reverts to the old system of secret refugee seeding by phony ‘religious’ charities!
All of my posts on the Supreme Court’s overreach are here.
***Federal contractors/middlemen/lobbyists/community organizers paid by you to place refugees in your towns and cities. Because their income is largely dependent on taxpayer dollars based on the number of refugees admitted to the US, the only way for real reform of how the US admits refugees is to remove the contractors from the process.

Yet another appeal to the (soft touch) court in Hawaii

07/10/2017 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Frankly this is really getting in to the legal weeds as the Open Borders Left/refugee pushers try one more time to stop the Trump State Department’s (DOS) interpretation of the Supreme Court decision on the ‘travel ban’ and 120-day refugee moratorium.
Of course the ‘pushers’ want every possible relative and they want any and all non-profits and refugee contractors to be considered “bona fide entities” so they can continue to haul in as many paying clients to the US as possible.

Hawaii is begging for more diversity, so how about if all refugees admitted for the remainder of FY17 be sent to Hawaii! Artwork from Hawaii.edu https://www.ctahr.hawaii.edu/erl/CULTURAL%20DIV%20PAGE/cultural_diversity.htm

And, they don’t want any disruption to other of their pet programs at the DOS.
Michael Leahy at Breitbart can lead you through the legal weeds better than I can, see here.
But don’t miss Leahy’s closing lines:

Of the 49,803 refugees who have been resettled in the United States during the first nine months and seven days of FY 2017, only three–all from Burma–have been resettled in Hawaii, according to the State Department interactive website.

In FY 2016, the last full year of the Obama administration, not a single refugee was resettled in Hawaii out of the total of 84,995 that were resettled in the entire country.

In the fifteen plus fiscal years since FY 2002, a total of 127 refugees have been resettled in Hawaii.

What you can do (if you have the talent)!
Someone should come up with a bumper sticker idea or poster that we could send out widely along the lines of: “Hawaii lacks diversity, send them refugees!” (or something more clever)
If you don’t have the talent for creating a poster or bumper sticker, then write to the White House today and tell the President: all refugees entering the US in the coming months (year!) should be sent to Hawaii!
All of my posts on this issue, the Supreme Court ruling, are filed in my ‘Supreme Court’ category.

Linda Sarsour: Muslim immigrants must not "assimilate"

07/08/2017 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

The news is not surprising, so I’m bringing this Breitbart article by Neil Munro to your attention so I can once again mention the words “assimilate” and “integrate” in the Left/Open Borders agitators’ lexicon.

Linda Sarsour is the American-born daughter of Palestinian immigrant parents according to wikipedia and she is making news almost on a daily basis as she champions the cause of Islam in the age of Trump.
Here is Munro in a story entitled: ‘Muslim Immigrants Must Not Assimilate, Says Progressive Ally Linda Sarsour’

Muslims in the United States should not assimilate into American society, but should instead act “to please Allah and only Allah,” said Linda Sarsour, a rising star among progressive Democrats, last weekend.

Sarsour’s remarks were part of a July 1 speech given at the annual meeting of the Islamic Society of North America, or ISNA.

[….]

Sarsour’s speech was peppered with refusals to integrate into Americans’ Western-style blends of secular government, religious freedoms, and civic society, or to compromise any aspects of Islamic doctrines, such as support for Muslim Palestinians living alongside Israel.

[….]

She urged Muslim groups to build alliances – but to not integrate — with other groups in America, saying “You are not [numerous] enough on your own …. we need to build coalitions, we need allies.” [Not numerous enough yet!—ed]

Our number one and top priority is to protect and defend our community. It is not to assimilate and to please any other people in authority.

Read the whole thing by clicking here.

Integrate vs. assimilate?

Watch closely going forward. The open borders left is outright opposed to any assimilation by immigrants. They see assimilation as meaning that the immigrant must take on some American lifestyles and values (be a part of a national community) and is therefore a bad thing!
They prefer the word ‘integrate’ which they see as a side-by-side (separate and no compromising of principles) way of living.
Did you ever see Obama or any of his gang say ‘immigrant assimilation?’ Never! But, instead they said ‘immigrant integration’ was a worthy goal.
I’ve watched over the years and haven’t seen the refugee contractors use the word “assimilate” either as a desired goal. But, they will use the word “integrate” as a positive objective (LOL! and integration implies that you, Americans, must bend to accommodate the migrant community and its values!).
Be sure to see my 2015 post for further edification:

Migrant “integration” vs. “assimilation,” how the Obama Administration is changing the language with devastating results

The point I’m making is twofold, no well-trained progressive worth their salt would ever want immigrant “assimilation.” That is taboo! And, we must be careful in swapping those words back and forth because they don’t have the same meaning for the Left.

My recommendation is to use the word, and demand “assimilation”! Make them go ballistic!

And, avoid falling in to using their preferred word choice—integration.
I did not read Sarsour’s speech, let me know if she goes back and forth between those words as reporter Munro does.