Episcopal church vote to remove George Washington memorial is just outward sign of a politicized church

10/29/2017 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

It is everywhere on the news in the last 24 hours!

In case you happened to miss it, here is Daniel Greenfield on George Washington’s Virginia church and the vote. (hat tip: Ed).

Christ Church Alexandria — Christ Church in Alexandria, Virginia where both Washington and Robert E. Lee worshiped. More details: https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2017/oct/27/george-washingtons-church-tear-down-memorial-honor/

So what does this have to do with refugees?

It is a news hook to tell you about Episcopal Migration Ministries!

We tell you daily that there are nine federal resettlement contractors*** placing third world refugees in to unsuspecting American towns and cities. Six of those, depending almost completely on taxpayer dollars, are supposed to be ‘religious’ church groups largely controlled now by the political LEFT. (The Socialists and Communists understand that in order to bring down America they need to control the churches and break up the family.)

The one federal resettlement contractor surviving almost exclusively on federal tax dollars is Episcopal Migration Ministries (EMM) that admitted in its own publication recently that it is 99.5% funded by the federal government.

And, it gets worse! The other eight federal contractors at least have set up separate legal entities as non-profit groups to receive their federal payola, not so EMM. The federal money destined to EMM goes directly to the Episcopal Church (USA) making it harder than normal to follow the (your!) money! See my post here.

I had always wondered why I couldn’t find an IRS Form 990 for them! Churches don’t have to tell the feds about their money (apparently even if it is the feds’ money!).

Screenshot (1027) — Check out this recent annual report from EMM. Have you ever seen an annual report that does not mention their income and spending at all? https://episcopalmigrationministries.org/wp-content/uploads/AR2017.1.pdf

Let me be clear, this Virginia church and the Episcopal Church (USA) can be political all they want to be, but not with taxpayer dollars!

From an April 2017 article in Episcopal News Service:

The executive order’s impact on EMM’s bottom line is especially drastic because EMM is a unique ministry of the Episcopal Church, both structurally and fiscally. While not separately incorporated, as is Episcopal Relief & Development, EMM receives very little money from the church-wide budget, instead receiving 99.5 percent of its funding from the federal government.

(By the way, if you are still an Episcopalian, you do need to either speak up or find another faith group! Just saying!).

Are federal dollars propping up the Episcopal Church (USA)?

This is not the only place I’ve heard this over the years, but here is one writer who believes the money the church gets from the feds for refugees, helps prop-up the failing church. Read the article which is focused on the US State Department’s travel loan repayment plan where the non-profit, in this case EMM, acts as a loan collection agency and pockets some of the money it wrings out of the refugees.

The Episcopal Church (USA) has two primary sources of income: according to its latest audited financial statements for the calendar year 2013, it received a little over $27 million from its member dioceses, and it received half as much again, or $13.8 million, from the federal government.

Where is Congress?

So why isn’t the House Immigration Subcommittee holding “oversight” hearings on the rackets these ‘church’ contractors have going for them?

***The nine federal refugee contractors who live off the taxpayer’s dime. Go here to see if EMM is operating a refugee resettlement office where you live.

New Charleston, WV refugee resettlement office will not open

08/31/2017 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

The US State Department has sent a notice to Episcopal Migration Ministries that an office approved for Charleston, WV in the waning days of the Obama Administration will not be opening after all.

Here is the news from the Charleston Gazette-Mail, a first sign that refugee numbers will continue to be low in the coming year, but maybe the whole program will be suspended (wishful thinking)!

Before I get to that good news, see my previous post.

America has its own refugees—‘Harvey’ refugees—so tell the President to suspend the entire UN/US Refugee Admissions Program for FY18.

He is required to make his decision in the coming weeks and send it to Congress before October first!

Charleston Gazette-Mail:

The U.S. State Department of State won’t move forward with resettling refugees this year through a Charleston-based affiliate of Episcopal Migration Ministries, according to organizers who had been working to bring more refugees to West Virginia.

Lynn S Clark — Lynn Clarke: Harvard educated lawyer. https://www.bestlawyers.com/lawyers/lynn-s-clarke/115940

Members of the West Virginia Interfaith Refugee Ministry had been working to bring more refugees — those fleeing violence or persecution in their native countries — to West Virginia, by establishing a Charleston-based affiliate of a national resettlement agency. Lynn Clarke, a leader with the group, said last month that they planned to open an affiliate of Episcopal Migration Ministries in Charleston on Aug. 1, and that they anticipated 85 refugees would arrive between October 2017 and September 2018.

The Rev. Canon E. Mark Stevenson, director of Episcopal Migration Ministries, and Antigona Mehani, who was hired to direct the office, both later said too much was unknown to anticipate how many refugees could arrive and when.

On Wednesday, Rabbi Victor Urecki, leader of Charleston’s B’nai Jacob Synagogue and a member of the West Virginia Interfaith Refugee Ministry, provided a statement from Episcopal Migration Ministries and the West Virginia Interfaith Refugee Ministry. [Urecki has been a leading advocate involved with the local ‘Interfaith’ effort to bring Syrian refugees to Charleston.—ed]

The statement from Episcopal Migration Ministries said that on Monday, Episcopal Migration Ministries “learned that the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration will not move forward with resettling refugees in several sites in the coming year,” including Charleston.

More here.

So, other sites won’t get refugees in the coming year—where are they?

By the way, two things made this Charleston site different in my view. First, those pushing the resettlement were pushing for Syrians from the outset, not any refugees from anywhere which is the normal case, but Syrians specifically.

And, secondly, that cash-strapped EMM had closed other established offices in other states, yet was hoping to open this one. Why?

Alex Mooney 3

I have a substantial archive on Charleston, click here, because citizens there were actively engaged against the idea of bringing more poverty to West Virginia.

See especially this post from last month.

LOL! Did any of you call Rep. Mooney’s office and ask him to get you the FY18 R & P Abstract for EMM in Charleston? Did he get it for you?

It is not too late. You will find the Abstract very informative (if they give you all the pages) because it will describe all the amenities Charleston has to offer its new third world refugees—jobs, housing, medical care, etc.

Episcopal Bishop in Maine: It is our moral obligation to take in refugees

06/29/2017 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

But, is it the obligation of the US taxpayer to pay the Episcopal Church millions annually for THEIR Christian charity? Of course that is one of the major moral questions that has driven this blog for ten years!

Bishop Lane in a 2009 story about the Episcopal church in Maine going bankrupt. http://www.virtueonline.org/episcopal-dioceses-face-downsizing-closing-parishes-more-departures

You can read the Bishop’s opinion piece at the Bangor Daily News:

With the news that the U.S. Supreme Court has allowed a limited version of the president’s travel ban to go into effect, we should recall our moral obligation to assist refugees seeking a chance to rebuild their lives and create a better future for their families. As the world searches for solutions to the largest refugee crisis in global history — more than 22 million people worldwide of whom fewer than 1 percent will ever be resettled in another country — we in Maine must do our part.

It is easy to be charitable with someone else’s money!

I searched the Bangor Daily News piece for any mention of the fact (published in their own publication) that the church is receiving 99.5% of its funds for refugee resettlement from the taxpayer.
Episcopal Migration Ministries (the church’s refugee resettlement wing) is not even a separate legal entity, so our money goes directly to the church!
Therefore we, or Mainers, don’t need any lectures about moral duties! Christian charity should be privately given, not extorted from every taxpaying American!
The first and foremost Congressional reform needed with our process of resettling refugees in the US is to bar the phony charitable non-profit middlemen*** from receiving federal dollars for their ‘charitable’ work.
I have a huge archive on Maine and its problems with refugees and asylum seekers, click here.
*** Nine federal contractors that monopolize refugee resettlement in the US:

Refugee contractor Episcopal Migration Ministries is 99.5% funded by you, will close some offices

06/16/2017 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

This is old news from back in April and I don’t know if they have changed their minds about closing offices after it was announced by the Dept. of State on May 26th that the number of refugees being admitted to the US is going to tick up to 1,500 a week.
Since the refugee contractors*** are paid by the head to place refugees in your towns and cities they may feel there is some hope for their finances to pick up with an increase in paying client (aka refugees) arrivals.
(As of June 11th, 47,434 refugees have been admitted to the US in FY17. This is 9,328 refugees since the supposed moratorium began and 17,312 since Trump was inaugurated.)

Rev. Canon E. Mark Stevenson and staff at EMM headquarters in NY city. http://episcopaldigitalnetwork.com/ens/2017/04/04/trumps-immigration-policies-force-reduction-of-episcopal-churchs-refugee-resettlement-network/

However, office closure news isn’t the primary reason I’m posting this news. I’m posting it because a reader has solved a mystery I’ve been wondering about for years—why is there no Form 990 (the IRS form required of non-profit groups) for Episcopal Migration Ministries (EMM)?
Before I get to the answer. Here is what the Episcopal News Service reported on April 4th (they are looking ahead to FY18 and even lower numbers of refugee clients):

As a result of changing U.S. policy that lowers the number of refugees to be resettled in this country annually by more than half, Episcopal Migration Ministries will be reducing the size of its affiliate network by six sites in the next fiscal year. Currently, the Episcopal Migration Ministries network consists of 31 affiliate locations.

Episcopal Migration Ministries is a ministry of the Episcopal Church, and is one of nine national agencies responsible for resettling refugees in the United States in partnership with the government.

“We are disappointed that we need to take these steps, but the current situation leaves us no choice,” commented the Rev. Canon E. Mark Stevenson, director of Episcopal Migration Ministries. “We have reduced our national core staff by 22% due to funding cuts and we are now looking at a similar cut in our network of affiliate partners through which refugees are resettled. While difficult, the decision making process regarding these reductions has been carried out carefully and strategically, with the welfare of refugees at the forefront of our minds.”

As Episcopal Migration Ministries prepares for fiscal year 2018, six offices will not be included in the resettlement plan submitted to the government. The affiliates, and the Episcopal dioceses in which they are located, are: Refugee One, Chicago, IL (Diocese of Chicago); Lutheran Social Services of Northeast Florida, Jacksonville, FL (Diocese of Florida); Lutheran Social Services of ND, Fargo, ND (Diocese of North Dakota); Lutheran Social Services of ND, Grand Forks, ND (Diocese of North Dakota); Ascentria Care Alliance, Concord, NH (Diocese of New Hampshire); and Ascentria Care Alliance, Westfield, MA (Diocese of Western Massachusetts).

More here.
Readers this does not mean that the entire refugee program in, for instance, Fargo, ND is closing. Many of these contractors double up in places where the flow coming in is pretty lucrative. See the page from the State Department’s affiliates directory. You will see for Fargo, for instance, that EMM shares an office with Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service. Presumably LIRS will stay in business.

If you are wondering what the DFMS stands for in the lefthand corner of two entries, it is for EMM’s other name Domestic and Foreign Missionary Society. You see how tricky this gets when trying to figure out what these secretive agencies are doing while using different names and housing their money in difficult-to-find places! (BTW, I was told by a DOS employee nearly ten years ago that there are no financial audits done of this particular group of federal contractors.)

They are not passing the plate on Sundays for their refugee program!

Take, for example, my quandary about trying to find EMM’s Form 990. Here is what one reader spotted in a lengthier story from Episcopal News Service in April:

EMM takes the prize! 99.5% of its funding is from you. And, you have no way of knowing where your money is going!

And, come to think of it, where is the ACLU on the issue of separation of church and state? Hmmmm?
The next highest contractors run at the 97%-98% federal funding level (US Conf. of Catholic Bishops, USCRI and LIRS).
Endnote: With all of this news about EMM closing offices, one wonders why the DOS is contemplating opening a new EMM office in Charleston, WV?
*** The nine federal contractors that depend largely on tax dollars to do their charitable good works are these:

Is your Episcopal Church attempting to make your town a new refugee resettlement site?

12/03/2016 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Here is a short story from Hendersonville, NC, a town in the western part of the state, where a little uproar occurred earlier this summer when a local Episcopal Church proposed making the town a new site to place mostly Syrians, Somalis, Iraqis and some of the other ethnic groups being brought in to the US right now in large numbers.
Turns out that the contractor the local ‘church’ people approached isn’t interested right now, so it looks like the idea is dead on arrival. I’m reporting this not for that bit of news, but to remind you that your local churches and INTERFAITH groups are on the offense to try to convince the feds and a resettlement contractor to add your town to the growing list of sites. (The Refugee Processing Center website has not put up the directory of sites we had for years been able to access. Maybe the State Dept. doesn’t want you to know!)

I recommend that you keep your eyes and ears open in your ‘church’ circles and if you have an Interfaith group, join it, so you can stay informed.
From WLOS ABC News 13:

HENDERSONVILLE, N.C. (WLOS) — Members of a Hendersonville church appeared to drop a proposal to bring refugees into the mountains.

A spokesperson for Episcopal Migration Ministries—the organization associated with the church that handles refugee programs—emailed News 13 this week stating:

“Episcopal Migration Ministries was approached by a grassroots group from the area and we have shared in conversation, but we are not actively engaged at this time in developing a resettlement site.”

Hendersonville City Council member Ron Stephens was against the proposal.

Continue reading here.
See our North Carolina archive here and don’t miss this recent post about North Carolina’s changing demographics.
EMM is trying right now to get an office open in Charleston, WV, see here.