Press Release: International Rescue Committee (again) on low Trump refugee admission numbers

04/12/2018 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

In a press release dated yesterday, the Manhattan-based International Rescue Committee (IRC) asks its followers to contact members of Congress and Senators to pressure the Prez to fulfill the 45,000 refugee CEILING set by Trump last fall.

brexit-news-tony-blair-1072435 — From his perch in Manhattan, Miliband pulls down a nearly $700,000 annual salary (doing well by doing good!) while he dabbles in UK politics, specifically the Brexit controversy. https://www.express.co.uk/news/politics/856974/Brexit-news-Tony-Blair-EU-latest-news-Concordia-summit-David-Miliband

At the present rate the Trump State Department will admit about half that number and the resettlement contractors*** are shaking in their boots.
Each refugee admitted represents money, your money, to their budgets and reports are that at least one of the nine that have monopolized all resettlement to the US for a decade might not survive.
That is not true for the IRC, it is rolling in money….
Which reminds me (as I read this press release)—where is “moneybags” Miliband? Why is he not quoted? Too busy mucking around back home in the UK?
This press release wouldn’t be worth mentioning except for one nugget I found interesting (and for the fact that I love writing about this super rich Manhattan-based taxpayer-funded organization making decisions for small city/town America.).
Here is some of it:

New York, NY, April 11, 2018 — Midway through the 2018 fiscal year, which ends September 30, just 10,584 refugees have been resettled to the United States. By contrast, 39,098 refugees were welcomed to the U.S. in the first half of the 2017 fiscal year—even with the slowdown on admissions due to the Trump Administration’s refugee bans. This decline in refugee admissions represents a stark 73 percent year-over-year drop. The International Rescue Committee (IRC) projects that a series of excessive red-tape vetting and processing changes will result in no more than 23,000 refugees being resettled in FY18, barely achieving 50 percent of the ceiling.

[They are so deceptive, the reason the number is so high, 39,098, for the first half of FY17 is because Obama presided over October, November, December and most of January and his outgoing State Department was pouring them in as fast as they could before Trump was inaugurated.—ed]

Now this next bit is rich!
Here we have Hans (most likely still a Dutch national) who works for a British national (David Miliband) lecturing us about “core American values.”

Said Hans Van de Weerd, Vice President, US Programs, International Rescue Committee:

“Halfway through FY18, the U.S. is establishing a record on resettlement that runs counter to core American values of freedom and welcome and strategic interests abroad.

I can’t believe that they think they can still sell this silly notion, that somehow by curtailing immigration to the US from Muslim countries, we make Islamic terrorists angry (angrier?) with us.

Hans bald — Hans Van de Weerd lectures us on “core American values!”

“Drastically diminished refugee arrivals have detrimental consequences for U.S. national security and foreign policy interests, including fueling the anti-American narratives of the very terrorist organizations we aim to defeat. The Trump Administration must change course in the second half of FY18 and meet its commitment to admit 45,000 refugees.” [For the umpteenth time, the 45,000 is a CEILING, a cap, NOT a target!—ed]

Now, here comes the part that interested me most.

We know that the contractors have been dependent on the large number of SIVs entering the US (Iraqi and Afghans who supposedly gave us support at some point) to help feed their budgets (see my recent post here). However, apparently even those numbers are dropping (eeeek!).

Shocking drop in March in admissions of those who assisted U.S. missions

Without explanation, only 510 Iraqi and Afghan Special Immigrant Visa (SIV) recipients arrived during the month of March, a more than 68 percent drop compared to average monthly arrivals in FY17.

Total SIV arrivals overall in the first half of FY18 have declined by 28 percent compared to the same time period in FY17.

I wonder (if there is a slowdown), if it is because they are running out of places to put them. Supposedly most go to San Diego or Northern Virginia where there is an overload of SIVs and as we reported here, they aren’t finding work.

U.S.-affiliated Iraqis (P-2s) left behind

These are supposed ‘beneficiaries’ and their family members. They always say they are translators, but they could have been taking out the garbage. See here.

U.S.-affiliated Iraqis are individuals who provided critical services, like translation, to U.S. missions abroad and now face persecution as a result.

Conservative estimates suggest that there are approximately 50,000 Iraqis with close affiliations with the U.S. government waiting for interviews to have their cases for resettlement processed.

Yet, only 36 U.S.-affiliated Iraqis have arrived in FY18.

Then here is Hans’ wrap-up:

It’s time to pressure the Administration to pick up the pace on refugee resettlement. Take action now.

Click here to see what they want their groupies to tell Congress.
You should tell your member of Congress and US Senators what you think too, but honestly I have little hope they will get off their duffs and do anything, so right now, it is best to Contact the White House and tell the Prez to hang tough!
And, for fun, ask him why we pay David Miliband over a half a million a year so he can do his anti-Brexit political agitation work in his home country.
See my David Miliband archive here. Waaahhh! What will I do when he finally goes home!

*** I post the contractor list almost every day because I want new readers to know exactly who is responsible for driving the US Refugee Admissions Program (in addition to the UN!).
The number in parenthesis is the percentage of the nine VOLAGs’ income paid by you (the taxpayer) to place the refugees, line them up with (low paying) jobs in food production and cleaning hotel rooms, and get them signed up for their services! From most recent accounting, here.

Refugee contractor Miliband needs to decide….

04/09/2018 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Is David Miliband going back to the UK, or is he staying in Manhattan to collect an exorbitant salary to manage the largest (financially) refugee resettlement agency in the US? When I see news like this, I wonder.
***Update*** See this amusing bit at the Daily Mail calling Miliband the “king over the water…”

Miliband and Obama 2 — Miliband applying the “double-hander” on you know who!

Maybe what he is really doing is waiting to jump back across the pond when something has been firmed-up there for him.
After all, the US resettlement program is experiencing tough times with fewer refugees, staff layoffs, head honchos bailing out, and even the possibility that the gang of nine will lose one whole agency this year.
(See Lutheran CEO—gone, and USCRI CEO—gone. )
And, there appears to be no hope for return of the good-old-days on the horizon based on what we are hearing out of the Trump Administration.
Here is the Financial Times on Miliband:

Labour fury and derision at prospect of new centrist party

David Miliband, the former Labour foreign secretary who some centrists see as a potential leader, dipped a toe back into domestic politics last week when he called for a second Brexit referendum. “The threats to peace around the world are more acute than ever,” Mr Miliband wrote in the New Statesman.

As a pal of Soros, the Clintons, Samantha Power and Obama, I don’t know how anyone would call Miliband a centrist!
And, since we pay him nearly $700,000 a year to run the International Rescue Committee, doesn’t he have enough to do without dipping toes in UK politics?
See my archive on ‘Moneybags’ Miliband here.
In some ways I’ll be sad to see him go because he is fun to write about. Just 5 days ago I told you he was trash-talking Europe and saying countries there need to take more refugees.

US refugee contractor Miliband says EU countries must step up and take more refugees

04/04/2018 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Before I tell you about ‘Moneybags’ Miliband’s proposal for his home country, the UK, and for the whole of Europe, this article gives me an opportunity to clarify something the No Borders gang doesn’t want you to understand.
If you are saying Europe is already taking in hundreds of thousands of “refugees,” how can they take more? Know that the over a million migrants, which have descended on Europe in recent years, are not “refugees” until they have had their asylum claims adjudicated and have been determined to be truly persecuted people in need of refugee protection. The vast majority are illegal aliens/economic migrants!
The next time someone on the Left (or a politician) says we must do our share because Turkey, Jordan, and Lebanon are doing so much more, remember this: the migrants in those countries are temporary. They will not become voting citizens as our admitted refugees will be!

miliband and soros 2 (2) close — David Miliband and George Soros

The people Miliband is talking about are “refugees” mostly identified and registered with the United Nations and who will become permanent residents when they are admitted. Many live in UN camps in the Middle East, Asia and Africa. It is (mostly) from that pool that the US has taken its 10,000+ over the last 6 months (see yesterday’s post).
For decades, without a doubt the US has taken the lion’s share of the refugees the UN has identified and wants to distribute to the West.

Doing well by doing good!

David Miliband heads the financially largest of the nine US resettlement contractors*** the International Rescue Committee. He is a former UK Labor Party Foreign Minister and a pal of—-drum roll—-George Soros. I call him “Moneybags” because he pulls down an annual salary of $671,749 (largely funded by US taxpayer dollars). See post on the IRC’s Form 990, here.
Here is The Guardian story with this headline:

David Miliband calls for leadership on refugee resettlement in the EU

It could be sub-titled: Miliband takes a whack at Trump!

David Miliband has called on the European Union to bring half a million refugees to Europe over the next five years, which would mean providing homes for almost 10% of the world’s most vulnerable refugees each year.

Under the targets proposed by the International Rescue Committee (IRC), of which Miliband is chairman, the EU would commit to increasing targets of European resettlement schemes to take in 108,000 refugees every year for five years from refugee camps and communities in countries such as Jordan, Turkey and Lebanon.

[….]

In 2017, 65,000 refugees were resettled worldwide, a third of the number resettled the previous year (189,300). The EU provided resettlement places for 23,000 refugees – or 1.9% of those eligible for resettlement. Under the target being called for by the IRC, the EU would resettle 9% of eligible refugees.

Let’s stop for a minute and look at the numbers. I used the calendar year data at Wrapsnet and see that in 2017, the US resettled just over half (51%) of the refugees resettled by the whole Western world—33,368 (of the 65,000). Pew Research tells us that in 2016 the US share was also 51%, but get this….from Pew:

In 2016, for example, out of approximately 1 million eligible refugees identified by UNHCR, an estimated 189,000 were resettled worldwide, with more than half (51%) of these ending up in the United States. Between 1982 and 2016, the U.S. admitted more than two-thirds (69%) of the world’s resettled refugees, followed by Canada (14%) and Australia (11%).

So for nearly a quarter of a century the US was, by far, the most ‘welcoming’ country in the world! Yeh! Miliband is right—other countries need to pick up the slack now. Time for the US to take a breather!
The Guardian continues….

Miliband said Europe had been “playing catch up” with the refugee crisis as it dealt with large numbers of people [illegal aliens!—ed] arriving and claiming asylum over the past few years, but now had an opportunity to “become a proactive player” on this issue.

“Europe needs to recognise that this refugee crisis around the world is not going away and Europe needs to have a proactive policy which includes the option of refugee resettlement for a portion of the most vulnerable who are identified as qualifying for refugee resettlement,” he said.

Miliband: Europe must lead because Trump isn’t!

Miliband said the need for Europe to provide world leadership had increased after the Trump administration announced last year it would slash the US resettlement target from 110,000 places in 2017 to a maximum of 45,000 places in 2018. The US has traditionally taken the most refugees through resettlement programmes of any country.

Calling Hungarian PM Victor Orban! Pay attention to Soros and Miliband!

However, the calls are likely to face opposition from some member states, which have refused to share the responsibility of refugee hosting across the EU. Last year, the European commission began a legal case against the Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland for refusing to participate in a programme that relocated refugees that had arrived in Greece and Italy.

Under the IRC’s proposal, all EU member states would be required to set a target for refugee resettlement, proportionate to GDP and population. Most countries would have to dramatically expand their resettlement programmes to meet this target.

More here.
Do you live in Connecticut?

Miliband in Manhattan — British national and one-worlder, IRC CEO David Miliband, pulls down an annual salary package of $671,749 (doing well by doing good!). Humanitarian work pays well, if you can get it!

If so, you can catch “Moneybags” live at the Greenwich Library later this month:

Talk on refugee crisis

David Miliband, president and CEO of the International Rescue Committee, will be interviewed by Lori Esposito Murray from the Council on Foreign Relations in a talk titled “Refugees and the Political Crisis of Our Time.” This conversation will take place in the Greenwich Library Cole Auditorium at 7 p.m. April 19. Miliband was a member of the British Parliament before taking charge of the IRC, which conducts humanitarian relief operations in more than 40 war-affected countries and refugee resettlement and assistance programs in 28 U.S. cities. Murray is an adjunct senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, an adjunct professor at the University of Connecticut, and president emeritus of the World Affairs Councils of America. Space is limited. Register at www.greenwichlibrary.org.

Learn more about David Miliband, here.

Contact the President by clicking here. Ask him why are we paying refugee contractors to do political agitation worldwide that includes criticism of your administration’s policies. Forget Amazon, investigate the refugee contractors!

***These are the nine federal resettlement contractors which are hired by the federal government to take care of refugees resettled in the US, but spend much of their time doing community organizing and No Borders political agitation work against the sitting President of the US.
The number in parenthesis is the percentage of the nine VOLAGs’ income paid by you (the taxpayer) to place the refugees, line them up with (low paying) jobs in food production and cleaning hotel rooms, and get them signed up for their services! From most recent accounting, here.

Get those federal "monitoring reports" for your community (if you can!)

02/24/2018 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

I’m reminded by this report on the San Diego refugee housing scandal at Inewsource.org.
The US State Department on some sporadic basis sends monitors out to refugee resettlement offices around the country to see if your local resettlement agency is compliant with guidelines for the care of refugees they have placed.
Years ago I spoke with Chris Coen who had a blog called ‘Friends of Refugees’ and he regularly submitted Freedom of Information Act requests to the State Department for those monitoring reports, then patiently waited YEARS to get responses. Lacking patience, I never sought them (little did I imagine that nearly 11 years later, I am still doing this!).

IRC’s representative in San Diego: Mireille Cronin Mather

Now that we know that the Tillerson State Department is trying to clear its FOIA backlog, maybe some of you should try again to get the reports for contractors operating in your towns.
Clearly the reporters at Inewsource.org were able to obtain one for the International Rescue Committee in San Diego.
Here is the title and first paragraph of their latest report. The contractors are extremely vulnerable on the issue of how they care for refugees they are paid to care for (I’ve been hearing it for years), and it goes to the heart of the question about whether this is really a ‘humanitarian’ program or simply driven by money.

Federal monitors warned San Diego refugee nonprofit of problems with resettlement practices

Federal monitors raised concerns about a local refugee resettlement agency’s housing placement practices months before the organization’s employees committed additional violations, which KPBS uncovered and detailed in a series of reports last year.

Continue here.
Now see what a Monitoring report looks like. 2016 report for IRC in San Diego:

Screenshot (217)

Here is the State Department’s FOIA guideline site.
If you need to know which resettlement agencies are working near you, go here for a directory. Pick offices that are within a hundred miles of your home.
This post is filed in my ‘What you can do’ category, see here.

US State Department not yet concerned about sexual harassment allegations involving refugee agency it funds

02/20/2018 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

That is what Breitbart’s Michael Patrick Leahy is reporting about his efforts to get an answer from the major funding source for the nine federal contractors*** hired by State for the US Refugee Admissions Program. Leahy’s story is entitled:

U.S. Government Continues to Fund Refugee Resettlement NGO Whose Funding Has Been Frozen by the U.K.

(We reported on the mess the International Refugee Committee is in with its British funding, here.)

Here is some of what Leahy is reporting after attempting to get something definitive from the State Department:

The government of the United Kingdom has frozen all payments to the International Rescue Committee (IRC), one of the largest non-profit refugee resettlement agencies in the world, pending the outcome of an investigation into allegations of “sexual harassment and fraud” in the organization.

As one of the nine voluntary agencies (VOLAGs) that have for decades received about $1 billion annually from the U.S. federal government, the IRC is also heavily funded by American taxpayers.

The IRC is the third VOLAG in the last six months to come under scrutiny for questions surrounding its leadership and management.

[….]

The management and leadership of former U.K. Foreign Secretary David Miliband, who has served as CEO of the IRC since 2013 and receives an annual salary of $671,000, is now under serious question, and his ability to maintain his current job is uncertain.

The State Department offered no indication that it intends to stop funding the IRC, despite the actions of the U.K government when asked specifically by Breitbart News if the U.S. government currently has plans to immediately stop making payments to the IRC to conduct refugee resettlement operations in the United States.

“The Department of State takes very seriously the prevention and response of all accusations of sexual exploitation and abuse,” a State Department spokesperson told Breitbart News when asked if the U.S. government intends to follow the lead of the U.K. government in suspending payments to the IRC pending the results of an investigation.

[….]

The State Department has not responded to this follow up question from Breitbart News: Now that the allegations of abuse against the IRC have been brought to the State Department’s attention, what specifically is the State Department doing to ensure the IRC is taking the necessary steps to address the issue appropriately?

Continue reading here.
Quick, someone tell the IRC’s new partner—Sesame Street!
See my David Miliband archive by clicking here.
If the IRC does have any government funds frozen, even temporarily, it will be a blow to their subcontractors (working in cities below) that are wholly dependent on the IRC mothership in Manhattan. (IRC website):

IRC offices

*** These are the nine federally funded refugee agencies operating in the US.
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.