This is too funny! They are worried that they will not be able to whip up a public frenzy to demand more migration to American towns and cities once they have installed their man—Joe Biden—in the White House.
This is just one of many stories I’ve read in recent days in which the Socialist Dems worry that either Biden can’t possibly unwind all of the changes the Trump Administration made to our immigration system that slowed the invasion at the border, increased vetting for refugees, limited refugee numbers to help American low wage workers***, restricted the flow of migrants possibly carrying the Chinese virus, and saw the deportation of criminals who should not have been here.
What will Biden do when this happens? And, it will!
And, they are in a pickle if the flow across the border picks up (it has already started). Images of border wall crashers will be a public relations nightmare for the Biden team. The vast majority of Americans do not want to see an invasion repeat.
If Biden can’t or won’t act quickly to reverse what Trump has done to limit immigration, how on earth are they going to whip up a public frenzy after they destroyed our election system to get their candidate installed in the White House?
Here is a story that had me rolling on the floor laughing….
Let me be clear this is about Leftwing Jews! Just as there are Leftist Catholics and conservative Catholics, there are many conservative Jews who do strongly support the Trump Administration’s immigration restriction stance.
Jews rallied behind immigrants under Trump. Will they stop once Biden is president?
Alain Mentha, co-chair of the New Jersey Jewish Coalition for Refugees, watched with dismay last week as the board of Hudson County voted to extend a contract to hold Immigration and Customs Enforcement detainees at the local jail. The board consists entirely of Democrats, many of whom had pledged to stop working with ICE during the Trump presidency, and yet it approved the extension in a 6-3 vote.
Mentha’s frustration with the vote mirrors the concerns of some immigration advocates across the country who were heartened by Joe Biden’s victory in the presidential election, but fear it may not be enough to reverse Trump-era policies — especially if the public pressure over the issue dies down.
“I’m very worried, to be honest,” Mentha said in an interview. “I don’t want to be cynical or pessimistic, but I think it’s fair to wonder whether our elected officials are going to become complacent or suffer from inertia.”
Or, is it possible that even Democrat elected officials know that the general public will not tolerate loosening immigration policy!
The Trump administration took more than 400 executive actions over the last four years to break apart and reconstruct the nation’s immigration system, the Migration Policy Institute said in a recent report.
Liberal Jewish groups mobilized in opposition to these changes, which included the practice of separating children from their parents at the Mexican border, and the decision to make asylum-seekers wait in Mexico for their court hearings. Many advocates are optimistic that President-elect Biden will follow through on his campaign promises to reverse these policies, but they also fear that a Democratic administration may not face the same scrutiny that turned arcane border and refugee policy into frontpage news over the last four years.
What they are really saying is that they won’t have the orange monster to beat up (with the help of the media) and how on earth are they going to beat up Biden!
“There is that possibility that in January people feel like, ‘OK, everything is back to normal,’” said Melanie Nezer, a senior vice president at HIAS, the leading Jewish immigrant aid group.“We really have an opportunity here, but it won’t happen without intense pressure.”
Biden has pledged to resettle 125,000 refugees per year, more than in all but seven years since the program began in 1980 and well above average of 70,000 per year under President George W. Bush and 80,000 per year during the Obama administration. The ambitious goal would also be 10 times the 12,000 allowed to enter the United States during the past year.
He has also committed to end the current policy requiring asylum-seekers to await their hearings in Mexico; restore the program that allows undocumented immigrants who arrived in the country as children to receive legal residence; and prioritize the deportation of people who have committed crimes unrelated to their immigration status.
But Nezer said the immigration system has been so thoroughly altered by Trump and his senior adviser, Stephen Miller, that it will take years to repair. [LOL! She is lowering expectations to protect Biden.–ed]
No kidding!
Mentha said he fears that Biden may not prioritize immigration policy early in his term, as the country continues to grapple with a public health and economic crisis that could make Americans skeptical of allowing in foreigners.
“I’m very concerned that the climate as a whole isn’t very receptive,” he said.
It’s certainly not all doom and gloom for those active in the Jewish immigration-rights world, most of whom are optimistic about the next four years. Several activists interviewed cited Biden’s nomination of Alejandro Mayorkas, who arrived in the United States as an infant, to serve as secretary of the Department of Homeland Security.
Mayorkas, who is on the board of HIAS, comes from a family of Cuban-Jewish refugees. He helped craft DACA while serving in the Obama administrationand pledged after his nomination last week to protect “those who flee persecution in search of a better life for themselves and their loved ones.”
*** Here is one storyfrom recent days about how difficult it is going to be to unwind Trump’s policies.
Refugees under the Obama Administration were coming in in vast numbers to supply low wage workers for big business and the service industry (you know maids and janitors). But, the Chinese virus crisis has limited those jobs and here we see former Obama refugee honcho make that point:
“There are challenges that were not present during the Obama administration that are going to complicate or present obstacles to expanding the program,” Carey said. “And I think refugees generally enter entry-level jobs in the service industry, and that’s an area that’s been particularly hard hit in the economic downturn.”
So will Biden (if he makes it to the White House!) just bring in larger numbers than we have seen admitted for decades and simply put them all on welfare?
If you are new to RRW, you might want to learn more about the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society. I have an extensive archive on the federal government contractor (taxpayers pay them millions for their ‘work’) that has probably worked the hardest of the nine federal refugee contractors to remove President Trump from the White House.
The Open Borders Lobby with its lawyers is not happy with Trump’s “extreme vetting” and with the help of Maryland Senator Chris Van Hollenare prepping their friends in the media and in Congress for the day when they expect Harris/Biden will fling open America’s gates to tens of thousands of new refugees from countries like Somalia, Syria, Iraq and Iran.
Biden has already signaled that 125,000 is not out of the question beginning in January 2021. Any enhanced security screening would necessarily have to be discarded to facilitate numbers like that.
This report was made possible by the efforts of many people outside of IRAP, particularly our clients and co-counsel in JFS [Jewish Family Service of Seattle] v. Trump and Doe v. Wolf. In litigating JFS v. Trump, we worked with the National Immigration Law Center, HIAS, Perkins Coie LLP, and pro bono attorneys Lauren Aguiar, Mollie M. Kornreich, and Abigail Sheehan Davis.
In addition, we are grateful to the office of Senator Chris Van Hollen for his advocacy on behalf of refugees and for sharing the reports to Congress on refugee admissions and vetting that informed this report.
It really doesn’t matter what the report says, this is about setting the tone for the anticipated return of mass migration to make up for what they will call the ‘lost Trump years.’
The Jewish News Syndicatefinds that many Jews are wondering where HIAS (formerly the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society) is going with its policies and programs now that very few Jews arrive in America as refugees.
For readers who want to know more about who is changing America by changing the people, have a look at this story entitled:
With HIAS changing longtime focus, supporters question some of its priorities
The Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society, better known as HIAS, was for the better part of a century responsible for helping settle generations of Jewish refugees in their new homes in the United States. From 1881 through the release of Jews from the Soviet Union in the early 1990s, the organization worked not only to resettle the new arrivals, but was involved in assisting them legally as well. Yet in a way, HIAS was a product of its own success and the success of the American Jewish community, whose activism helped bring most Jews over who wanted or needed to leave other countries.
Mark Hetfield, President and CEO of HIAS, the global Jewish nonprofit that resettles refugees as one of nine federal contractors, led an anti-Trump rally in New York in 2017. The event was the first of many rallies HIAS organized or participated in working against the President. They have also been the lead plaintiffs in lawsuits attempting to stop the Trump Administration’s immigration reform efforts.
Today, nearly all of the refugees HIAS resettles on an average each year are non-Jews—many of them Muslims from Syria, Iraq, Libya, Afghanistan, Somalia and other Middle Eastern countries.
[….]
As an organization with deep Jewish roots, HIAS’s new mission and purpose are being questioned by some observers, especially during a time of global uncertainty and rising anti-Semitism.
In 1975, the U.S. State Department asked HIAS to expand its portfolio and assist in resettling 3,600 Vietnamese refugees after the end of the Vietnam War and nearly two decades of US involvement in Southeast Asia.
In 2014, HIAS dropped the word “Hebrew” from its name and was simply called HIAS. At the same time, HIAS announced relocation of its headquarters from New York City to suburban Maryland.
Most notable among criticisms is that several HIAS partners have been linked to organizations with ties to terrorism, including Islamic Relief USA and the Islamic Relief Worldwide (IRW), whose leadership recently called Jews “the grandchildren of monkeys and pigs” and referred to the terrorist group Hamas “the purest resistance movement in modern history.”
[….]
There’s a crucial difference between past Jewish refugees and current Muslims, argues Richard Landes, a retired Boston University history professor now living in Jerusalem. “Jews came into the country determined to contribute to America—to be American—but the Muslims arriving now don’t always feel that way. We like to think if we are nice enough to our enemies they will stop hating us, but our history has shown that the incapacity to see malevolent intent in others is itself very dangerous to Jews.”
Here is the first news I am seeing about where the Trump administration is on the decision to admit refugees for FY2021 which begins on October first.
I’ve been telling you in a series of posts (tagged FY2021) about the pressure the Leftist Open Borders agitators are putting on the White House to set a ceiling of 95,000 refugees for next year—a number way above anything the Obama administration ever admitted.
Trump administration considers postponing refugee admissions -U.S. official
WASHINGTON — U.S. officials are weighing whether to postpone or further cut refugee admissions in the coming year amid legal fights over President Donald Trump’s refugee policy and uncertainty caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, a senior official said.
The possible postponement – one of several options under discussion – would mean some or all refugee admissions could be frozen until a legal challenge to a 2019 Trump order on refugees is resolved “with some greater degree of finality,” the official told Reuters.
It is not clear when that lawsuit may be resolved, especially if the case goes all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, a process that could take months or even longer.
The president typically sets yearly refugee levels around the beginning of each fiscal year and the Trump administration has not yet announced its plans for fiscal 2021, which begins on Oct. 1.
The refugee cap was cut to 18,000 this year, the lowest level since the modern-day program began in 1980. So far, roughly half that many refugees have been let in as increased vetting and the coronavirus pandemic have slowed arrivals.
The senior official said that even if 2021 admissions are not delayed, next year’s cap could be cut below current levels.
“The arc of this administration’s refugee policy is going to continue,” said the official, who requested anonymity to discuss the ongoing deliberations.
Trump and his top officials have said refugees could pose threats to national security and that resettlement should take place closer to countries of origin. The administration also contends that refugee resettlement can be costly for local communities, although refugee backers reject those arguments.
The possible moves remain under discussion and no final decision has been reached, the official stressed.
[….]
In addition to greatly reducing refugee admissions to the United States, Trump also issued an executive order in September 2019 that required state and local elected officials to consent to receive refugees, saying it would better ensure refugees were sent to areas with adequate resources to receive them.
Three of nine federal refugee contractors successfully sued to stop the Trump order to give state and local governments a say in refugee resettlement. They have been deciding for four decades where to place refugees and they want to continue to have that power.
Below, partially federally-funded HIAS (Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society) CEO Mark Hetfield holds a press conference.
In January, a Maryland-based U.S. district judge blocked the order from taking effect, prompting Trump administration officials to consider a possible “deferral” of refugee admissions until the court case is resolved, the senior official said.
The case is now on appeal, so the administration has a very good reason to postpone making any decision about numbers.
The Refugee Act of 1980 leaves the discretion up to the President and there is no requirement in the law that says we must admit any refugees!
More here. See the discussion about how Biden wants 125,000 refugees this coming year, but that Trump has successfully severed the pipeline into America which refugee promoters say will take months (years!) to rebuild.
And, you can be sure that right now the “interfaith community” is getting in gear for what they anticipate will be a great blue wave in November and they will all be back in business when Biden/Harris fling open our borders to the third world beginning in January.
Of course you are probably reading this and thinking: don’t we need to get our people back to work and get through the Chinese virus panic before you hit the Hill with your strategic lobbying for more refugees and for more payola!
No! While you are distracted they are busy as they always are working all the angles to get more fundingand influence more members of Congress to see things their way.
If a member is Catholic—send in the Catholics! Jewish? Send in HIAS. If the Muslims want an entree? The Catholics and the Jews will help make that possible.
This article at Devexdescribes the basics of well-organized lobbying efforts in Washington that you, average citizens, can NEVER match.
These are all well-funded organizations with high paid staff working 40-hour work weeks, 52 weeks a year to influence Congress, and they hope very soon to get back into the White House.
(emphasis is mine)
‘We can be very strategic’: How faith-based NGOs advocate on Capitol Hill
WASHINGTON — Many NGOs dedicate time to advocacy (aka lobbying) on Capitol Hill to garner support for development and humanitarian policies and funding, but faith-based organizations work together to bring a different perspective to these lobbying efforts.
“We, at one level, are doing what everybody’s doing, which is trying to understand to the greatest extent we can what drives a particular member.And that is as varied as the membership in the House and Senate,” said Bill O’Keefe, executive vice president for mission, mobilization, and advocacy (aka lobbying) at Catholic Relief Services.***
“We do look at what is the religious background of this member, and is there a particular appeal that we can authentically make that would make a difference in this case?”
[….]
CRS aims to meet with every member of Congress regardless of the member’s religious affiliation, O’Keefe said. The organization’s work to eliminate causes of poverty and injustice is rooted in principles of Catholic social teaching, a tradition that bolsters the NGO’s reputation and allows it to work well with members on both sides of the aisle, he said.
[….]
CRS works closely with other faith-based organizations — both those that are part of what O’Keefe calls “Team Catholic,” as well as those of other faiths — on the Hill to coordinate advocacy (aka lobbying) efforts for certain bills or funding requests.
The NGOs determine what type of appeal may be most effective with particular members who may have seats on relevant committees or from whom they want support.
“If there is an office where the elected official is a strong Catholic, it wouldn’t necessarily make sense for HIAS to take the lead on that meeting,” said Naomi Steinberg, vice president of policy and advocacy (aka lobbying) at refugee resettlement organization HIAS.
“Every single day we are in partnership with other faith organizations and we work in coalition on a lot of different issues. What we find is that we are all heading in the same direction and certainly we sometimes might have different strategies, but through the coalition, we really do speak with one voice.
The value of us coming from different faith traditions is that we can be very strategic.”
HIAS began as an agency that resettled Jewish refugees in the U.S. Now, it is one of nine refugee resettlement agencies in the country that works with people of all faiths as well as with refugees abroad — issues Steinberg said have become unfortunately partisan during the Trump administration.
Her team works to develop relationships with congressional offices even when they are not pushing for a particular policy or funding so that when there is a tougher issue on which they seek support, they have existing contacts to tap.
I was a lobbyist decades ago and I can assure you that this is where they spend a lot of their time building their influence. They make friends with staff members and spend time with them, often outside of regular work hours, so that naturally when the lobbyist needs something, they can get a phone call returned or even get an entree to the member on short notice.
Devex continues….
HIAS also ties this advocacy (aka lobbying) closely with its grassroots efforts on refugee issues, which includes urging Jewish communities across the country to contact their members of Congress to express their support for more funding and higher refugee resettlement caps.
[….]
“One of the messages we share with our grassroots advocacy network … is you should never assume that even if your elected official has been on the right side of these refugee issues, that they know how important this is to you, to their constituency,” Steinberg said.
“Keep those calls coming, keep those emails coming. Because we want them to know that people in their district vote partially based on these issues.” [Other than NumbersUSA and FAIR, with limited staff and financing, I don’t know any other organizations doing this on the immigration restriction side of the debate.—ed]
Politics can also impact inroads faith-based organizations are able to make on Capitol Hill. Jihad Saleh Williams, senior advocacy (aka lobbying) and government affairs advisor at Islamic Relief USA, said his organization can have difficulty getting a response from Republican offices who are nervous to meet with a Muslim organization with which they may not be familiar.
As a former congressional aide, Williams said he understands the instinct of Hill staffers to protect their boss at all costs, and that IR USA must understand “discreetness” required for some of its meetings.
[….]
Williams said he often begins outreach with congressional offices by discussing IR USA’s domestic work in order to build relationships.
Many offices incorrectly believe that the organization only works in the Middle East, he said, or only deals with civil liberties and counterterrorism issues. By educating members about work to promote food security and health access — particularly during COVID-19 — in the U.S., Williams said he can gain an entry point to promote the value of international development and humanitarian work as well.
NGOs use interfaith coalitions to work together to counter such misconceptions about particular groups, positioning faith-based organizations as a united block that support the same issues, regardless of religious affiliation, to strengthen their power on the Hill.
[….]
“I really have tried to work hard over time, particularly with Islamic Relief and with other minority religious groups in the United States, to make sure … when people think of the faith community, they don’t just think of the Christian community,” O’Keefe said.
“We partner a lot with Islamic Relief and consider them brothers and sisters in this development and humanitarian world.”
***I just had a look at the most recent Form 990 for Catholic Reliefand learned that in 2018 they had an income stream of over $936 Million and of that $453,988,287 (nearly a half a billion!) came from you, the US taxpayer!
No wonder they are busy lobbying on the Hill.
Here is the salaries page from that Form 990. Sean Callahan sure is doing well by doing good!
Personal anecdote: About 20 years ago I had a reason for wanting to help a Catholic convent in Danang, VN. The sisters there are devout Catholics who had spent a couple of decades in the rice fields when the Communists took over the country. By the year 2000, the government had lightened up on them and they were back running an orphanage and a school for young children, but they needed financial help.
In my naivete I called Catholic Relief to see if they could help that convent and was told “That isn’t what we do!”
Now I have a better understanding of what they do—big fat salaries, lobbying efforts to garner more funding, and efforts to bring more Muslims into the US is what they do! Nuns in Vietnam who love America can go pound sand.
“There is that possibility that in January people feel like, ‘OK, everything is back to normal,’” said Melanie Nezer, a senior vice president at HIAS, the leading Jewish immigrant aid group. “We really have an opportunity here, but it won’t happen without intense pressure.”
