GoFundMe page demonstrates again: US can’t afford more refugees!

08/29/2017 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

What a coincidence, just as I posted my previous report from California about refugees adding poverty to already impoverished areas, here comes more news about refugees who can’t afford housing (Afghans again too). Hat tip:Joanne

It is commendable that citizens may now take up the cause of this mother and son (private charity should be the primary source of support anyway!), but notice this is temporary until this Afghan ‘refugee’ can get her Social Security Disability!

GoFundMe:

We (Chuck Ackerman & Catherine Donnelly) are looking to raise rent for our new neighbors on Cleveland’s west side, a mother and her 14-year-old son who are refugees from Afghanistan. We will call them “Aisha” and “Majid”. Because of the situation they have fled, we’re not using their real names.

As volunteers with refugee settlement agency US Together, we met the family soon after they arrived in the U.S. in December 2016. Aisha is an amazing cook and host while soccer-loving Majid wants to be a doctor someday. Although Aisha is working on her English, Majid uses his great English skills to translate for his mother.

But the violence they left behind has left Aisha with many physical and mental traumas that prevent her from working. As an educated woman, Aisha faced persecution in Afghanistan and bears the scars. Since her medical history has been tough to document, her first application for Social Security Disability was denied.

She is working with a great local lawyer to appeal and we feel they have a strong case. But the appeal is expected to take 12-18 months and in the meantime, the family needs to pay rent.

Their rent is $550 per month, so we are looking to raise $6,600, or 12 months of rent. That said, every cent counts! Each month of rent we can raise will get the family closer to the date they can get the benefits they need to meet their own needs. The next date they need $ for rent is December 1, 2017. We’ll be keeping the fundraiser going until we meet the goal or the family wins their appeal.

As refugee support groups face drastic funding cuts these days, the resources available for families like this one who are already here are dwindling. That’s why we are turning to you for help.

By giving to this fundraiser, you will help this family achieve the peace of mind and breathing room they need for Aisha to work on her health and recovery from trauma and for Majid to focus on succeeding in high school and build the foundation he needs to one day become a doctor and help others. [I don’t want to sound too cynical but I swear in every refugee story there is a kid who wants to be a doctor!—ed]

It’s true that the family has other needs, though this fundraiser is focused on the basics of maintaining their housing. But if you have any ideas or resources you’d like to share or have questions about their other needs, please let us know!

We are so grateful for your support!

Watch this space for updates—we may plan a good, old-fashioned rent party!
Help spread the word!

Bringing poverty to America…..

New readers need to know that when the original Refugee Act of 1980 was debated in Congress, sponsors like Ted Kennedy, promised it was not about importing poverty!

Resettlement contractors like US Together get federal support for the family for about 3 months at which point they drop them like hot potatoes to get ready for their next paying clients.

They actually call them clients!

By the way, US Together is a subcontractor of the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society where its CEO makes over $300,000 a year. Sure hope Mark Hetfield is contributing to this poor woman’s rent as he is busy lobbying Congress for more refugees (and trashing Trump!).

Refugee contractors planning lawsuits: are resettlement contractors 'bona fide entities?'

07/01/2017 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

So far, the US Department of State says no….
Justice Clarence Thomas (Alito and Gorsuch) were right that the Supreme Court’s effort to ‘split the baby,’ with its decision on Trump’s ‘travel ban’ and refugee moratorium, will invite litigation through the remainder of the summer.
I wasn’t planning to write today (except maybe a post about this being RRW’s Tenth Anniversary) because it is Saturday of a big holiday weekend, but I want you to see that, yes, the contractors*** are getting in gear to sue the feds claiming that since refugees are assigned to them for placement in your towns, they are bona fide entities.
They sue while we pay their salaries!
Longtime readers know that it is my contention that the system in place for decades, where a federal contractor is hired to place refugees in your towns and the contractor is ostensibly a non-profit (some are ‘religious’) charitable organization being paid with your tax dollars yet can file lawsuits and lobby Congress, is an outrage.
Congress could do something about this, if it had the will (the Labrador bill is insufficient), but since leading Congressional Republicans are in the pockets of lobbyists (Tyson Foods for instance!) and the Chamber of Commerce in need of cheap labor, no real reform ever happens.
Carving itself out as the leader of the pack for political advocacy is the politically aggressive Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society (HIAS). HIAS was a litigant in one of the cases before the Court.

I just checked USA Spending and found that HIAS got over $104 MILLION from taxpayers since FY08.
And, what do you know, the feds paid them over $4.1 million in the 5 days before Donald Trump was inaugurated.
Here, about 3 weeks later, HIAS organized a NYC rally against Trump featuring speaker Rep. Keith Ellison. How much of your money was used for their protest?
Yesterday we learned a lot about what they plan to do next—sue!
And, LOL!, the Christian Post says not one word about how the do-gooder organizations are paid per refugee head to do their good works!

Refugees with connections to the nine refugee resettlement organizations in the United States should be allowed to enter the country in accordance with the Supreme Court’s ruling Monday that allowed a limited version of President Donald Trump’s travel ban to go into effect, advocates argue.

[….]

After the nation’s high court decided Monday that it would allow a scaled-back version of Trump’s March 6 executive order on immigration to be enacted, opponents of the travel ban were left wondering whether the the Supreme Court considers relationships with a refugee resettlement organization to be the type of “bona fide” relationships necessary to allow them to enter the country, once the 50,000 refugee cap set for fiscal year 2017 is met in July.

In 2016, Nezer of the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society was the chair of the Refugee Council USA (this lobbying consortium of the refugee industry has revolving chairmanship). RCUSA in August of 2016 said they wanted Obama to set a ceiling of 200,000 for FY17. https://refugeeresettlementwatch.org/2016/08/02/lobbying-arm-for-refugee-resettlement-contractors-wants-us-to-take-200000-refugees-in-fy2017/

As the travel ban — which bans immigration from six Muslim majority countries for 90 days and refugee resettlement for 120 days — took effect on Thursday, the Trump administration explained in guidelines sent to U.S. embassies and consulates what it considers to a “bona fide relationship.”

[….]

As for entities, the guidelines state that people seeking access to the United States must show formal proof of their relationship with the a business or educational institution. However, an administration official declared in a press call Thursday that “the fact that a resettlement agency in the United States has provided a formal assurance for refugees seeking admission is not sufficient, in and of itself, to establish a bona fide relationship under the ruling.”

[….]

Legal action has already been filed to seek clarity on the Supreme Court’s order, which was somewhat vague about what constitutes a “bona fide” relationship. On Thursday, the state of Hawaii asked a federal judge to clarify the ruling and argued that the administration’s interpretation is too narrow and violates the ruling.

On a press call Friday, leaders of resettlement agencies authorized to resettle refugees in the United States decried the administration’s interpretation of the ruling. [You see how deceptive the press is—“authorized”—how about “contracted and paid!”—ed]

“Our argument is that under an interpretation of a clear reading of the Supreme Court decision is that a relationship with a resettlement agency does establish a ‘bona fide’ relationship for purposes of the ban,” said Melanie Nezer, the senior vice president of public affairs for HIAS, which was founded as the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society. [They dumped “Hebrew” from their name a few years ago. I guess when you are resettling large numbers of Muslim refugees, the word Hebrew was an impediment.—ed]

[….]

“We also imagine the debate about this in the administration, thinking that there was significant debate among people who really do understand resettlement in the administration and those who don’t,” Nezer said. “It seems pretty clear that this decision was made by people who don’t know or don’t much care about how resettlement works.”

[By the way, I don’t think the Supreme Court knew much about resettlement either or perhaps they wouldn’t have been rewriting refugee law, but that would be the fault of whoever presented the case for the Justice Department.—ed]

[….]

Director of the lobbying arm of the refugee industry Naomi Steinberg says 26,000 refugees are in the pipeline. What a convenient number. We are at 50,000 and Congress has appropriated enough money to admit 75,000 this fiscal year. If we hit 75,000, it will be about 10,000 ABOVE the average for the last ten years!

Around July 6 is when the United States is expected to hit the 50,000 refugee cap for fiscal year 2017 that Trump set in his executive order. After that, the “bona fide” standard will be going into effect for refugees, Nezer explained.

See my post yesterday about July 6th.
As of today we are at 49,225 refugees admitted this fiscal year. We may not see new numbers reported at Wrapsnet until the 5th or 6th.

[….]

Naomi Steinberg, the director of Refugee Council USA, added that there are over 26,000 refugees total who have gone through security vetting and have been approved to the come the United States and be resettled around the United States.

More here.
All of my posts related to what the Supreme Court ruled last week are archived in my category—Supreme Court.
*** For new readers, these are the nine contractors that monopolize refugee resettlement in America. Saying they are “authorized” to resettle refugees is a media deception. They are paid out of the US Treasury per head for every refugee they resettle. The incentive is always to bring more while they pretend to be doing this work completely from humanitarian motives!
The UN/US Refugee Admissions Program will never be reformed until we stop paying non-profit groups to advocate and lobby for their vested (Leftist!) interests.

Ninth Circuit rules, HIAS crows as Judicial coup is confirmed

06/13/2017 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

It is not a surprise that the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled against the President and his legal Constitutional power to keep America safe.
I’m in a hurry this morning to get to my chores, so just want to give you Daniel Greenfield’s reading of the decision here at Frontpage magazine:

9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals Announces It Is In Charge of Determining National Interests

Here is his opening paragraph:

The Judicial coup against democracy rolls on. The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals announced with its latest ruling that it has the powers of the executive branch. To understand how insane the latest illegal and unconstitutional judicial effort to block common sense migration reform is, here are the powers that the 9th has decided it possesses.

Continue reading his excellent analysis.
As I have said till I’m blue in the face, I regret the fact that the 50,000 CEILING was announced in an Executive Order when the President already had the power to admit any number under the 110,000 CEILING set by Obama last September without even mentioning any cap. He could have quietly slowed the flow the minute he took office. At that time we had admitted just over 30,000 refugees in this fiscal year. Now, the Trump State Department is approaching 50,000 with months yet to go.
But, more troubling is the utter confusion created by proposing a complete ‘travel ban’ from six countries in the same EO as an announcement on refugee admission numbers and a temporary moratorium from across the world (across all nationalities and all religions). What a mess!

Hetfield is so excited! More paying ‘clients’ coming their way!

Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society cheers along with two other federal resettlement contractors which have a financial stake in keeping numbers of refugees high—they are paid by the head to place them in your towns and cities.
HIAS was joined in its amicus brief by the International Rescue Committee and the US Committee for Refugees and Immigrants—all multi-million dollar federal resettlement contractors who have a pecuniary interest in the outcome.
HIAS press release yesterday begins:

WASHINGTON—Today, the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit issued a ruling in the challenge to President Trump’s March 6 executive order barring the resettlement of refugees for 120 days, banning the entry of people from six Muslim-majority countries for 90 days, and cutting the overall number of refugee admissions for the year by more than half. The challenge was initiated by the State of Hawaii on behalf of individuals impacted by the executive order, and supported by HIAS and other refugee and human rights advocates in the public and private sector.

After hearing oral arguments before a three-judge panel on May 15, the court has affirmed the injunction on the parts of the order that would suspend entry of nationals from the six designated countries, suspend refugee admissions for 120 days, and cap the number of refugees to be admitted this fiscal year at 50,000. This ruling will allow refugees to continue finding safety in the United States through the refugee admissions program, unless the Supreme Court chooses to reverse the Ninth Circuit.

The Fourth Circuit case does not address the 50,000 CEILING issue. So, let’s hope that lawyers for the Justice Department are doing their homework and separating the CEILING issue from the ‘travel ban.’
And, HIAS knows they are on shaky ground regarding the President’s power to limit the numbers from all over the world (all religions/all ethnic groups) and so they continue to mix the ‘Muslim travel ban’ issue with the 50,000 cap to confuse their donors and the uninformed public.
If you missed it, see (here) how far below the CEILING other Presidents have gone—even Obama was tens of thousands below some of his earlier CEILINGS.
Also, see that HIAS, a federal contractor dependent on millions of your tax dollars, organized an anti-Trump rally, here in February. There ought to be a law—federal contractors shouldn’t be able to stage anti-government protests! Did they use any federal dollars???
Imagine the outrage if a military contractor was staging demonstrations because they wanted more federally-funded work!

Costa Rica: Are US taxpayers supporting HIAS office?

06/05/2017 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

“What we’re doing here is unprecedented in the current system.”

(Kathya Araya)

HIAS dropped the word Hebrew from its name a few years back.

The Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society, one of nine federal refugee contracting agencies (largely funded by you), has a new office in Costa Rica (opened in February of this year!).
Normally I wouldn’t have noticed this item on their website but because Costa Rica is somehow part of that Australian “dumb deal” it piqued my interest.
Here and here are news items on HIAS’s website about the new office.
And, here is one of several posts of mine on the Australia deal where we will take up to 1,250 illegal alien boat people (mostly from Muslim countries) that Australia is holding in detention centers, and ‘refugees’ in Costa Rica will be shipped to Australia in exchange.
I’ll ask again, what do we get in this deal because illegal migrants and asylum seekers in Costa Rica are not our problem—or are they now that HIAS is there processing people?
Most of those in Costa Rica are economic migrants and others (some running from crime) who are really not persecuted people legitimately in need of refugee protection.
It sure looks to me like our US Department of State is getting out of control!
Is HIAS paying for this “legal” office with private charitable donations? Or, is this ‘program’ one more little gift the Obama Administration left for you—the US taxpayer! And, if Costa Rica’s immigration issues are of concern to the US government, why do we need middlemen NGOs there who are not accountable to taxpaying voters?
Here is my archive on the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society.
Since Trump/Tillerson have not yet chosen anyone to rein-in the bureaucrats at the DOS, I’m starting to wonder if the contractors, like HIAS, are running the show there!

Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society: Tell Congress we need more $$$ for refugees

05/25/2017 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

As I said yesterday, although Trump’s proposed FY18 Budget contains (we are told) enough money for as many as 50,000 refugees for FY18, the refugee resettlement contractors are pushing Congress for more.
The President has the power to set the refugee admissions ceiling for the upcoming year (in “consultation” with Congress), and that is normally done in September.

But, it appears to me that the contractors think they have a chance to move the Republican Congress to appropriate enough money for 75,000 refugees in FY18 and by doing that essentially steal the power the President has under the Refugee Act of 1980 to set the ceiling for the upcoming year. (Always remember RINOs want cheap immigrant laborers for their business donors!)
Here is an alert I received yesterday. Of course their language is unnecessarily alarmist as we are no longer debating Trump’s original moratorium vs. some number of refugees, the debate is now simply over how many!

That second link directs readers to this page which begins (under this banner):

HIAS:

In the midst of the largest refugee crisis in recorded history, with over 65 million people displaced around the world, the U.S. government must do more—not less—to help refugees.

Please take a minute to urge your elected officials to fund a humanitarian response that demonstrates America’s global leadership and honors our values. We need to make sure Congress provides adequate funding for refugees and allows organizations like HIAS to continue the important work of helping refugees here and abroad.

Then HIAS supplies their supporters with a ready-made letter to Congress.
I cannot overemphasize the fact that the refugee contractors understand the appropriations process in Washington (their financial lives depend on it!), but that citizens concerned with the secret placement of third worlders in to your towns and cities don’t understand it. And, we definitely don’t have lobbyists (as HIAS does) in Washington to help get your message to your representatives.
As I have said repeatedly, the entire UN/US Refugee Admissions Program should be scrapped and if it is in our interest to take some refugees, a new law should be written. Sadly, after encouraging us with MORATORIUM language, there is no sign that the Trump team will lead any major reform. The battle is being framed simply around numbers (in a range of 50,000-75,000).