Tag: Hawaii

Hawaii judge thumbs nose at AG Sessions: yes, my order applies to refugee ceiling/moratorium

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

You probably heard on the news over the weekend that the Department of Justice sought clarification from Obama’s friend, Judge Derrick Watson, in Hawaii and asked if he really meant to include a stop order on the President’s 120-day moratorium on refugee admissions and the FY17 ceiling reduction when he was aiming at the travel freeze.
The travel issue and the refugee admissions issue are two separate things. For the time being, take the so-called ‘travel ban’ from six countries out of your mind. It is not the main subject of this blog or what I want to try to make clear to readers (and the lazy, ignorant press).

A co-plaintiff in the case is Imam Ismail Elshikh. Is he even a US citizen? Photo and story here at a very unusual blog that I had never heard of: http://hlaoo1980.blogspot.com/2017/03/egypt-muslim-imam-suing-trump-for.html

The confusion comes from the fact that the first judge on the original order left the refugee admissions pause and ceiling portion of the EO intact and so did the Maryland judge last week.

It appears that Judge Derrick Watson believes he has the authority to set the ceiling for refugee admissions each year.

He emphatically does not have that authority.  He can’t make the Dept. of State resume overseas processing of refugees. He can’t make the Administration and Congress spend money on refugees.
The President has the explicit power in the Refugee Act of 1980 to set the CEILING (as we said here). In most years the President (Bush and Obama) has been well under the CEILING!
As I have said recently, the big mistake the Trump team made was putting the refugee pause in to an Executive Order.
They have the power to slow the flow and stay under a proposed CEILING without an explicit order.  The only thing I can see that they should have done (maybe they did it) was to notify the House and Senate Judiciary Committees that they were lowering the ceiling.  However, the original act only gave Congress the power to ‘consult’ not stop the President. (In 1980, Ted Kennedy, Joe Biden and Jimmy Carter put a lot of power in the President’s hands when it comes to refugee admissions!)

If the controversy continues, more taxpaying Americans will be educated!

That said, there could be a silver lining.  The Trump State Department can keep the flow low (or at zero) for months to come, and because the refugee ceiling is in Watson’s case (a case that surely will now work its way through the courts), the subject of the US Refugee Admissions Program will continue to be in the national news.  Thus more and more Americans will be learning the facts about what they have been paying for since 1980!
(See my right hand sidebar where I will attempt to keep you updated every few days on refugee admission numbers for FY17.)

Bill Frelick of Human Rights Watch: “…there is no requirement that the U.S. resettle a single refugee….”

As for the contractors***, they would have been better off just shutting up and taking the 120-day (16 week) pause because 7 weeks have already passed since the original EO was announced on January 28th and they would be on their way through the slowdown.
Before you read the latest news about the Judge sticking by his original decision last week, see what refugee advocate and longtime expert Bill Frelick (Human Rights Watch) said in November after Trump was elected and the refugee industry went in to shell-shock:

“In the U.S., there’s not a quota that has to be filled. The U.S. has a budgeted amount of money to do refugee resettlement, but there’s no requirement that the U.S. resettle a single refugee, and there’s no legal obligation to do it.”

Here is one of many stories (this one at Fox News) this morning about Judge Watson telling the DOJ—no way, not changing a thing!

The federal judge in Hawaii who halted President Trump’s new, revised travel ban denied the administration’s request for him to limit the scope of his ruling Sunday so that the United States can immediately stop taking in refugees worldwide.

U.S. District Judge Derrick Watson on Thursday issued a temporary restraining order on Trump’s order that prevents travelers from six mostly-Muslim countries entering the U.S. and suspends the United States’ worldwide refugee program.

Justice Department attorneys argued in a motion Friday that Watson’s temporary restraining order was essentially based on the argument that the ban appears to unconstitutionally target Muslims.

They questioned whether his ruling was limited to the part of Trump’s March 6 executive order that temporarily bans visas to travel from the six countries into the U.S., and not to the temporary refugee ban.

Watson responded Sunday by saying there was nothing unclear about the scope of his order and that the ruling remains unchanged.

More here.

As I said above, keep it up! The more public controversy surrounding the UN/US Refugee Admissions Program the better because then more American taxpayers will be educated!

For a laugh, don’t miss the news that Hawaii has taken only a tiny number of refugees for the last 14 years!
*** Here (below) are the nine major federal refugee contractors who now will see their budgets slashed (because they are largely funded by you, the taxpayer).  They know this judge is on thin ice on the President’s power to determine the number of refugees being admitted to the US.
Are they hoping that Watson can bully his way through and singlehandedly re-write the Refugee Act of 1980 turning a ceiling in to a target/goal—something the refugee industry has wanted for a long time!
By the way, for new readers, you need to know that your local resettlement agency will be a subcontractor of one of the nine fake charities that monopolize the federal refugee contracting system listed here:

 

Hawaii: Muslim Brotherhood-backed imam dictating US refugee policy

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

… instead of banning the Brotherhood, the U.S. is letting a Brotherhood-backed imam dictate U.S. refugee and visa policy.

(John Guandolo)

The Hawaiian judge (a personal friend of Obama) might have issued the order, but the drive to stop Trump’s travel and refugee admissions pause comes from Egyptian imam Ismail Elshikh.

Egyptian imam Ismail Elshikh is a co-plaintiff in case blocking Trump’s refugee pause.

See our previous two posts on Hawaii, here and here.
This is a must-read story from Leo Hohmann at World Net Daily:

The main plaintiff in the Hawaii case blocking President Trump’s revised temporary travel ban is an imam with ties to the Muslim Brotherhood.

The irony is hard to miss: Trump has talked about declaring the Muslim Brotherhood a terrorist organization, and now it is a Brotherhood-backed imam who is playing a key role in blocking his executive order on immigration.

Imam Ismail Elshikh, 39, leads the largest mosque in Hawaii and claims he is suffering “irreparable harm” from the president’s executive order, which places a 90-day ban on travel to the U.S. from six countries.

One of those six countries is Syria. Elshikh’s mother in law is Syrian and would not be able to visit her family in Hawaii for 90 days if Trump’s ban were allowed to go into effect.

Hawaii’s Obama-appointed federal judge, Derrick Watson, made sure the ban did not go into effect, striking it down Wednesday while buying Hawaii’s claim that it amounts to a “Muslim ban.” The state’s attorney general, along with co-plaintiff Elshikh, claims the ban would irreparably harm the state’s tourism industry and its Muslim families.

[….]

The vast majority of Hawaii’s roughly 5,000 Muslims attend Elshikh’s mosque, the Muslim Association of Hawaii, which is located in a residential area of Manoa, Honolulu. The mosque, despite its ties to what many believe is an extremist and subversive organization, the Muslim Brotherhood, may now hold the key to whether the Trump travel ban passes muster in the federal court system.

Elshikh was born and raised in Cairo, Egypt, the home base of the Muslim Brotherhood, whose stated goal is to spread Shariah law throughout the world.

The proof that his mosque is affiliated with the Brotherhood is found in the court records for Honolulu County, which lists the deed holder as the North American Islamic Trust.

John Guandolo spoke at MDCAN in Maryland a few years ago. I was there. Guandolo’s website is here: https://www.understandingthethreat.com/

John Guandolo, a former FBI counter-terrorism specialist and now private consultant to law enforcement at Understanding the Threat, said all mosques under the “Muslim Association of” moniker are typically affiliated with the Brotherhood.

But the clincher in this case is that the mosque property is traced to NAIT, “confirming it is a Muslim Brotherhood organization,” Guandolo told WND in an email.

The Trump administration has said it is considering banning the Muslim Brotherhood in the U.S. by including it on the State Department’s list of foreign terrorist organizations.

Hohmann continues…..

… instead of banning the Brotherhood, the U.S. is letting a Brotherhood-backed imam dictate U.S. refugee and visa policy, Guandolo said.

Judge Watson, who was a Harvard law classmate of Barack Obama’s, issued an injunction halting Trump’s executive order from going into effect, agreeing with Hawaii’s claim that the temporary ban, 90 days on visa travelers and 120 days for refugees, would irreparably harm the state’s tourism industry and its Muslim families.

As for refugees, Hawaii takes very few. Of the 49 states participating in the federal refugee resettlement program, only Mississippi has taken in fewer refugees than Hawaii since 2002. Only 127 refugees have been sent to Hawaii since 2002, and nearly zero have been Muslims from the six nations on Trump’s list. The vast majority sent to Hawaii have been from Burma and Vietnam.

For more, and to follow links, continue reading here.

You gotta hand it to Trump, he is flushing them out, but the big question is, what will he do with those he flushes!

Hawaii needs refugees! Sues feds over refugee pause, travel restrictions from certain Muslim countries

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

You can’t make this up.
Surely you have already seen the news that the state of Hawaii is claiming that the Trump Administration’s latest Executive Order limiting travel to the US from certain countries and pausing the UN/US Refugee Admissions Program will hurt Hawaii!

Hawaii Attorney General Doug Chin spoke at Muslim Association of Hawaii, alleges they aren’t getting enough Muslim refugees (he didn’t really say that exactly), but they clearly need some! http://www.civilbeat.org/2017/03/hawaii-becomes-first-state-to-challenge-trumps-new-travel-ban/

I’m going to propose (when the refugee pause and the travel restrictions are lifted) that the state of Hawaii be placed at the top of the refugee-receiving list and get its FAIR SHARE of refugees especially from Somalia, Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan etc. to make up for lost time in reaping the rewards of diversity!

Hawaii resettled a grand total of 123 refugees in 14 years, 5 months and ten days (up to today).

I’ll show you below with more numbers how completely ignorant and ill-informed Hawaii’s AG sounds.
Here is Seattlepi:

Hawaii has become the first state to mount a federal court challenge to President Trump’s revised executive order blocking travel from six predominantly Muslim countries and barring Syrian refugees for 120 days.

Attorneys for the Aloha State on Wednesday asked a U.S. District Court judge in Honolulu to block the new Trump order.

“This new executive order is nothing more than Muslim Ban 2.0; under the pretense of national security, it still targets immigrants and refugees,” Hawaii Attorney General Doug Chin said in a statement.

[….]

In its court filing, Hawaii argues that the rights of its citizens, and its tourism economy, will be damaged by the revised Trump order, which takes effect March 16.

The new executive order will damage Hawaii’s “economy, educational institutions and tourism industry,” the state argues in its brief.

Rolling on floor laughing my head off! Hawaii “welcoming persons from all nations around the world into the fabric of its society.”

“It is damaging Hawaii’s institutions, harming its economy and eroding Hawaii’s sovereign interest in maintaining the separation between church and state as well as in welcoming persons from all nations around the world into the fabric of its society.”

Ismail Elshikh, Muslim Association of Hawaii is a co-plaintiff in suit against Trump Administration. http://www.civilbeat.org/2017/03/hawaii-becomes-first-state-to-challenge-trumps-new-travel-ban/

Now, here is the real power behind the suit—Muslim Association of Hawaii!

Seattlepi continues….

The state’s suit has a co-plaintiff, Ismail Elshikh, the imam of the Muslim Association of Hawaii, saying the Trump order “inflicts a grave injury on Muslims in Hawaii, including Dr. Elshikh, his family and members of his mosque.”

Let’s look at Hawaii’s refugee program!

Checking Wrapsnet this morning, here is a summary of the refugees admitted to Hawaii in the last 14 years, 5 months and 10 days:
Of the total 123 refugees they “welcomed” to Hawaii, the largest number (66) were Vietnamese who came in the early years (FY03,04,05).  Another 40 were Burmese (most Burmese are Christians).  Only 5 from any Middle East country came.  In 2004, 1 Iranian was resettled there and in 2013 they got a grand total of 4 Iraqis.  None of the thousands of Syrians admitted to the US in the last 2 years were seeded in Hawaii!
A smattering of Russians and Ukrainians were placed there over the years.
There were no refugees sent to Hawaii at all in FY11 and last year!
Zero Africans were planted in Hawaii in all those years.  That is interesting since when I read some books on Obama’s father arriving in Hawaii in about 1960, see especially this book, I learned that Hawaiians were not partial to Africans and that Barack Sr. attracted much attention because of his race and demeanor.  Hmmmm?
Why wasn’t the state of Hawaii begging for refugees over the last 14 years, 5 months and 10 days?

Seems it might be just the right time to send Hawaii its fair share of Somalis, Ethiopians, Eritreans, and Congolese!

BTW, how is the welfare system in Hawaii, does anyone know?

Here is an idea!  There are no travel restrictions between Minnesota and Hawaii.  Maybe load up a few planes with excess refugees there and send them to Hawaii (I hear that the climate is much better!).

This post is archived in our ‘laugh of the day’ category, here.