Tag: HIAS

US Refugee program is a kind of Ponzi-scheme that is failing

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

They want to blame it all of course on Donald Trump (and Stephen Miller!), but the refugee slowdown has exposed the weakness of a scheme set up in 1979-1980 by then Senator Ted Kennedy (with Joe Biden) and Jimmy Carter.

NA/KENNEDY
The architects….

The whole program was sold as a public-private partnership implying that there would be an equal sharing of finances and responsibility, but over the years the public share (your tax ‘contributions’) has grown while the private share has withered.
So that now, with the per refugee head payment dropping as fewer refugee are admitted, the program is being exposed for what it has become….
It is a monopolistic conglomeration of supposed ‘religious’ and ‘humanitarian’ charities living almost exclusively on the federal dole. Their budgets are fully dependent on the next shipment of paying clients (aka refugees).
 

Come on Congress!  It is time to dump it or fix it.

I notice that with all the talk about reforming LEGAL immigration there is no talk of reforming the obviously seriously flawed USRAP!

The program is “under siege” say the refugee agencies and their media lackeys!

Rarely do I post twice on one story, but I told you about this one yesterday (here) and it is full of revealing information.  I see it is a ‘Religion News Service’ story that appears here in the National Catholic Reporter showcasing (again) that anti-Trump rally last month at the White House.
Do they really think the average American taxpayer will be moved by a photo of Muslims praying against the President as a publicity stunt?
 

Muslims praying at WH
The big banner on the right is the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society protest march banner.   https://refugeeresettlementwatch.org/2018/01/28/church-world-service-and-hias-join-cair-to-protest-at-white-house/

Boo hoo! We Catholics are running out of your money!

National Catholic Reporter:

USCCB [US Conference of Catholic Bishops—ed] officials said they are still deciding how to move forward but already expect to close about 15 sites this year, shifting from 75 to as few as 60. Catholic Charities, the primary affiliate for the USCCB’s on-the-ground resettlement work, said that of the 700 full-time employees across its network who work on refugee resettlement, more than 300 are estimated to see a temporary layoff, permanent layoff or possible reassignment due to the refugee ban.

An April 2017 report from the Episcopal News Service said the Episcopal Church would cut its 31-member affiliate network by six in 2018.

Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service said it had not closed any sites, though before she resigned earlier this week as its president and CEO, Linda Hartke confirmed the agency has made staff reductions at its headquarters. [This is especially funny because we know that many staff at headquarters quit due to Hartke’s poor management!—Now it is all Donald’s fault!—How convenient!—ed]

Maybe if the top dogs took pay cuts, and raised PRIVATE money, the lower level staff could be retained? 

Local organizations appear to bear the brunt of the cuts. [Sure they do, no one really expects the CEO’s to take pay cuts.—ed] Paula Torisk, deputy director of refugee resettlement for Catholic Charities San Antonio, which works with the USCCB’s program, said her office has laid off at least 23 people because of the various bans — around 30 percent to 35 percent of her staff.

unemployed
Lower level staff are unemployed because the whole refugee program is built (wrongly) as a Ponzi scheme.  https://refugeeresettlementwatch.org/2018/02/16/trump-administration-wrongly-blamed-for-closure-of-refugee-offices/

She said many of those who lost their jobs are, like Giri [refugee star of the story—ed], themselves refugees or former refugees who have since become U.S. citizens. Her office previously relied on their cultural knowledge and language skills but has been forced to hire translators in their absence.

“You’ve got staff taking on cases where they don’t speak the language,” said Torisk, who has worked with refugees since 1996. “I’ve heard other resettlement programs say, ‘How can we pay for [interpreters] if our funding is cut?’”

She also said that due to uncertainty surrounding the program, funding for the longer-term refugee assistance — such as providing English classes — is now doled out on a quarterly basis instead of annually throughout Texas.

There is much more, but you get my drift.
The whole 1980 system is based on an ever-expanding refugee flow to America and over the ensuing decades the contractors (below) got fat and lazy because federal money flowed like a river to them and they built fiefdoms with it!

I repeat: Where is Congress?

The nine refugee contractors “fighting for their survival”….
The number in parenthesis is the percentage of their income paid by you (the taxpayer) to place the refugees and get them signed up for their services (aka welfare)!  From most recent accounting, here.

Church World Service and HIAS join CAIR to protest at White House

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

We told you here that three US federal (taxpayer funded!) resettlement contractors were helping to organize a protest against the President’s so-called Muslim ban yesterday.

Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service activists were likely lurking, but Church World Service and the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society (HIAS) were front and center of the small gathering.

Breitbart’s Penny Starr reported the news.  Here is an enhanced screenshot photo from that report.

Muslims (men) pray outside the White House surrounded by large numbers of Church World Service female activists. The big banner on the right is the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society protest-march prop that they bring out for these events.

Here is what Starr reported:

Protesters gathered at Lafayette Park outside the White House on Saturday to slam President Donald Trump on the one-year anniversary of an executive order he issued to protect Americans from immigrants and refugees coming from terror-ridden countries with little or no vetting.

CAIR spokesman calls Trump Admin. white supremacists as all the white folk gathered around.

Robert McCaw 2
McCaw works it all in (including support for Black Lives Matter)!

“We strongly condemn, like you, the racist and white supremacist beliefs reflected in President Trump’s remarks, actions and programs by this Muslim ban, the cancelling of DACA, the labeling of Black Lives Matter as identity extremists — a false designation,” Robert McCaw, director of Government Affairs Department of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), said at the protest.

“We will fight the white supremacy of this administration,” McCaw said.

Church World Service is 71% federally funded (by my most recent accounting, here). Its CEO makes a quarter of a million annually.


What an insult that we fund them millions of our dollars every year for decades!

If you belong to any of these churches (below) know that Church World Service was representing you outside the White House yesterday.

They also hold the annual “Crop Walk,” so if you disagree with their political tactics you need to start speaking up!

Member Communions

    African Methodist Episcopal Church

US taxpayer-funded resettlement agency has it nose (again) in Israel's business

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Many American Jewish groups are angry with the Israeli government because it is now taking steps to remove tens of thousands of economic migrants who entered Israel from Africa before it had built its great border wall.
If US private activist groups want to pressure Israel that is their business, however, when one of those groups is paid millions annually from the US Treasury it becomes our business what they do.  Of course it is the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society (HIAS) I’m talking about. 
Why are we paying them a dime to take care of the refugees they resettle in the US while they muck around in world affairs?
Where is Congress? Cut them off!
And, let me be clear at the outset (before I get broad brush anti-Jewish comments). HIAS is first and foremost driven by its Leftwing view of the world (a borderless world). Just as there are Catholics (Lutherans, Evangelicals etc) on the political Left and on the political Right, so too are there Jews on both ends of the political spectrum.
HIAS is NOT working here on behalf of Israel! (I hear all the time from readers who say that HIAS is working for Israel!)
Israel is in the same situation the US is in with thousands upon thousands of mostly economic migrants (not refugees) who got in to the country illegally and if permitted to stay would drastically change the country, for the worse. Anyone in their right mind knows that borders cannot be completely erased if a country wants to survive.
The difference is that since Israel is smaller it will die faster than we will if they do nothing about people like these:
 

Jewish protesters
Protesters in front of the Knesset. So what do you think? Do you believe these people who got in to Israel illegally are going to be beneficial for the country going forward?   http://www.jpost.com/Israel-News/Activists-ask-Israeli-pilots-to-refuse-to-fly-refugees-to-their-deaths-533552

 
Israel is said to be planning to begin deportations in the spring and the International Left (including HIAS) is haranguing the Netanyahu government in hopes of stopping it.
Here is The Jerusalem Post to explain what they are doing.

They want Israeli pilots to not fly the deportation planes!

(That is one of the mean tactics the mean Leftwing learned from Saul Alinsky to go after those who will hurt first—some poor pilot just doing his job.) 

Amid growing reports that the government is planning to deport tens of thousands of migrants from Sudan and Eritrea to Rwanda in March, an online campaign has been launched to beseech Israeli pilots not to fly asylum-seekers to what many activists deem a death sentence.

The campaign, initiated this week by the NGO Zizim Community Action, calls on the public to send letters to the Israel Aviation Association and the Israel Pilots Association, which includes all the pilots in the country, to refuse to fly migrants to any dangerous African country.

According to the NGO’s CEO, Raluca Gena, the online campaign is the first step toward a series of activities against what they, and many other human rights organizations and Jewish communities around the world, are calling an immoral deportation.

[….]

Presently, approximately 35,000 Eritrean and Sudanese asylum-seekers live in Israel. Among their 13,764 asylum applications submitted since 2013, only 11 have been approved by the Interior Ministry as of July 2017 – 10 Eritreans and one Sudanese.

hetfield-at-ny-anti-trump-rally1
HIAS CEO Mark Hetfield speaking at anti-Trump rally that HIAS organized in New York last February.  Rep. Keith Ellison was a keynote speaker.  More than half of HIAS’s budget is funded (involuntarily) by you from the US Treasury.   https://refugeeresettlementwatch.org/2017/07/11/updating-financial-data-on-refugee-contractors-big-bucks-for-humanitarian-work/

Outside of Israel, prominent leaders of the North American Jewish community sent a public letter to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday urging Israel not to imprison or deport tens of thousands of Sudanese and Eritrean asylum-seekers.

Rather, the leaders – who sent an initial letter regarding the controversial issue to Netanyahu in November – urged him to allow North American Jews to help resolve the matter.***

Signatories include Mark Hetfield, president and CEO of the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society (HIAS), the global Jewish nonprofit that protects refugees; Rabbi Jill Jacobs, executive director of T’ruah: The Rabbinic Call for Human Rights; Rabbi Jonah Dov Pesner, director of the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism; Jeremy Ben-Ami, president of J Street; and Nancy Kaufman, CEO of the National Council of Jewish Women.  [This is a who’s who of  American Leftwing Jewish groups.—ed]

“The government of Israel recently announced its plans to imprison or potentially deport tens of thousands of Sudanese and Eritrean asylum-seekers unless they leave voluntarily before April,” the letter states.

“The ultimatum follows a mounting campaign of escalation on the part of the Israeli government to pressure the roughly 38,000 African asylum-seekers remaining in Israel to self-deport. While Israeli authorities contend that the population in question – most of whom entered Israel between 2007 and 2012 – are economic migrants, HIAS and other rights groups argue that they are asylum-seekers and refugees deserving of protection.”

Israel does (or did) have a program where economic migrants who self-deported received a financial payments, but I don’t know if it is still in use.
More here.
***You should know that HIAS has been working with the US State Department to bring some of those so-called ‘refugees’ to the US directly from Israel.  The numbers are small so far (9 this fiscal year), but if you think this story isn’t about you, it is!
They aren’t planning to bring more of them to the US and other western countries, are they?
See my complete HIAS archive by clicking here. And for more on Israel and refugees, I have a whole category on the topic here with 164 previous posts.

HIAS out of the closet says Daniel Greenfield, Sarsour support confirms

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Thanks to several readers who sent it, here is yet another reason for the US government to cut off funding for refugee resettlement groups who have become out-of-the-closet political agitation groups. 

mark-hetfield
Hetfield

Longtime readers know that HIAS receives millions of taxpayer dollars to place refugees in unsuspecting towns and cities and they have led the charge in the courts against Donald Trump’s efforts to keep us safe by limiting certain migrants entry in to the US.

HIAS also recently helped organize an anti-Trump rally along with CAIR in Washington, DC, here.

And, they invited Rep. Keith Ellison to speak at an anti-Trump rally here.

(Sure hope HIAS is keeping its pots of federal and private money separate! Is there a funding firewall at HIAS?)

 

Here is Greenfield on Mark Hetfield’s latest:

Is this the moment when Mark Hetfield and HIAS officially joined the anti-Israel lobby?

hias (with gun)

Mark Hetfield had already hijacked HIAS and transformed it from a Jewish organization to a radical left-wing group concerned entirely with Muslim migration.

Hetfield’s HIAS had already attacked Israel and collaborated with the anti-Israel group, J Street.

But signing a statement in support of Linda Sarsour, an Islamic anti-Semitic activist who celebrated throwing stones at Jews, is Mark Hetfield’s official coming out party.

The immediate trigger for this was having Sarsour head a New School panel accusing Jews of exploiting anti-Semitism. That’s quite a show for a woman who is quite comfortable with Louie Farrakhan and the Nation of Islam.

[….]

Previously, Mark Hetfield had avoided getting his hands dirty. Now he no longer seems to care.

Continue here for more and to follow links.

Go here to see my ever-expanding file on HIAS (aka Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society) one of the US State Department’s nine federal resettlement contractors.

Here are the nine (LOL! I haven’t named them often enough lately). I sure hope all of them have built firewalls between their federal funding and the money they use for political activities.

Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society sues Trump Administration again

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

They apparently want to make it clear to the Muslim world that they are the good people.

 

HIAS we support Muslim neighbors
From The Jewish News of Northern California https://www.jweekly.com/2017/11/13/jewish-family-services-silicon-valley-files-suit-halt-refugee-ban/

 

Here is what Mark Hetfield CEO of the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society (aka HIAS) said in an e-mail yesterday. (Emphasis is mine)

The Trump Administration shows no signs of backing off their policies against refugees, so we’re taking the Administration to court. Again.

Hetfield_Mark_lg
HIAS could lose more than half of its funding if the US Refugee program was dismantled. See below. Don’t miss Hetfield’s salary! Doing well by doing good!

From the moment the first executive order banning refugees and travelers from Muslim countries was issued on January 27th, HIAS and our partners in the American Jewish community have opposed every attempt by President Trump to close America’s doors to those in need of protection.

Our outrage has only grown stronger with every new executive order that prevents thousands of refugees from finding safety in the U.S.

Enough is enough. Together with our longstanding local resettlement partners Jewish Family Service of Seattle and Jewish Family Services of Silicon Valley, HIAS yesterday filed a suit to again challenge restrictive policies that seek to prevent vulnerable refugees from finding freedom and safety. As we have for the last 136 years, we will continue to work tirelessly to ensure that America remains a country that welcomes refugees instead of turning them away.

Then here is the news from Seattle:

Lawsuit: ‘It’s the dismantling of the U.S. refugee program’

rabbi berkowitz
Rabbi Berkovitz says Trump is dismantling the whole refugee program which would mean HIAS will lose millions of taxpayer dollars for its advocacy work. (LOL! he didn’t say the last part!)

“People are dying who were given permission to come into this country. It’s tragic,” said Rabbi Will Berkovitz, CEO of Jewish Family Service of Seattle, one of the refugee agencies that’s filed the lawsuit.

“The agenda that’s really thinly veiled here is the dismantlement of the refugee resettlement program as a whole,” Berkovitz said. “Not for now, but forever.”

The lawsuit claims the order is unconstitutional, discriminates against Muslims and gives preference to Christian refugees. [The US might actually give preference to Christians, what is the world coming to!—ed]

You have to give them credit for chutzpah!

HIAS has been a long-time supporter of the Lautenberg Amendment which gave preference for resettlement to Soviet Jews among others, see here.

So are they now saying that the Lautenberg Amendment must go?  Look for HIAS to reverse itself and ask Congress to abolish Lautenberg (Ha! Ha!).

Here is what we learned from the Jewish agency in California:

Plaintiffs are being represented by the International Refugee Assistance Project at the Urban Justice Center; the National Immigration Law Center; attorneys Lauren Aguiar, Mollie M. Kornreich and Abigail Sheehan Davis; Perkins Coie; and HIAS.

Learn more about the director of the National Immigration Law Center when she was bragging and disparaging then candidate Donald Trump by clicking here. Jim Simpson and I attended the spectacle.

This is a screenshot from a recent financial accounting post on the nine federal refugee contractors:

Screenshot (1077)_LI
Since all of the refugee contractors receive funding by the head for the refugees they place in your towns, and if the Trump Administration continues to lower the incoming numbers it blows a hole (a crater!) in the budgets of the big nine. HIAS could lose about $23 million if the program was dismantled as they (supposedly) fear.