Tag: International Rescue Committee

Starbucks making good on promise: Will interview refugees in California for jobs as baristas

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

They say they ultimately want to hire 10,000 refugees because no American young people need jobs! (No they didn’t say that, but they must be thinking it!).

From ABC News in El Cajon (hat tip: Joanne):

EL CAJON, Calif. (KGTV)–Store managers from throughout San Diego will gather tomorrow at a Starbucks hiring event for refugees who want to train to be baristas.

Nah, I don’t think so…

The U.S. company announced in January it would hire 10,000 refugees over the next five years. The announcement by CEO Howard Schultz came two days after President Donald Trump issued his first executive order putting a four-month hold on allowing refugees into the U.S.

The world’s largest coffee chain said it would focus initial efforts on markets where refugee need is greatest and there’s a store base to meet the need.

According to state and federal data, San Diego fits the bill.

No other California county has received more refugees during the past decade than San Diego county.

In 2016, San Diego settled 3,100 refugees, along with 520 military interpreters on special immigrant visas.

About 30 Starbucks managers will conduct on-the-spot interviews at the International Rescue Committee***‘s office located at 131 E. Main Street in El Cajon from 11 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. on Tuesday, Aug. 8. Applicants are encouraged to visit Starbucks online career center prior to the event and bring resumes along with them.

Sheesh, the plot thickens…

At Forbes yesterday (Starbuck’s bad dream).  The story is about a bogus ad campaign (kinda funny, but fake).  But, I learned this:

Say what you will about Howard Schultz, and there’s plenty to say. Mr. Schultz, who served as Starbucks CEO until earlier this year, ran the company like a kid in a candy store, opening all the jars and boxes to taste the goodies inside before moving on. He bought a chain of tea shops, Teavana, then shut them down. He bought a chain of bakeries, La Boulange, then shut them down. He weathered the scorn of critics who called the coffee over-roasted and who derided his plan to hire refugees overseas. [San Diego is not overseas!—ed]

Starbucks CEO Schultz, right, gives the key to the joint to new CEO Kevin Johnson. https://news.starbucks.com/news/7-things-to-know-about-starbucks

It doesn’t hurt to remember that Mr. Schultz is often mentioned as a contender for the democratic presidential nomination in 2020, so there’s a possibility that the latest news is part of an early whisper-campaign to tarnish his image.

Today’s news doesn’t actually involve Mr. Schultz by name but by his commitment to hire 100,000 new employees over the next decade. In the United States, they would be veterans and members of traditionally disadvantaged communities. At the stores outside the US (and Starbucks does business in 27 countries) Starbucks announced that many of the new hires would be refugees.

[Really! Then why are they hiring refugees in California? What about Big Meat and Big Chicken? Won’t Starbucks be competing with them in Cali?—ed]

Go here to see the fake news advertisement (so I won’t get blamed for spreading it).

*** For new readers, the International Rescue Committee is one of the Federal contractors/middlemen/employment agencies/propagandists/lobbyists/community organizers? paid by you to place refugees in your towns and cities listed below.  Under the nine major contractors are hundreds of subcontractors.

The contractors income is largely dependent on taxpayer dollars based on the number of refugees admitted to the US, but they also receive myriad grants to service their “New Americans.”

If you are a good-hearted soul and think refugee resettlement is all about humanitarianism, think again! Big businesses/global corporations like Starbucks depend on the free flow of cheap (some call it slave) labor.

The only way for real reform of how the US admits refugees is to remove these contractors/Leftwing activists/big business head hunters from the process.

IRC sucks down over $115 MILLION tax dollars since Trump arrives in Washington

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Don’t miss the expose’ from Charles Johnson at GotNews from last week on one of the nine fake non-profit groups*** responsible for placing refugees in your cities and towns.
As I said in my previous post, the first and foremost requirement for any reform of the UN/US Refugee Admissions Program is to bar these supposedly ‘charitable’ groups from receiving tax dollars which they can then use to work against us and this White House.

LOL! That is IRC CEO Miliband with “propaganda puppet” Elmo! And you pay Miliband’s salary of over a half a million bucks a year! Daily Mail mocks! http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4649082/CNN-mocked-featuring-Elmo-panel-travel-ban.html

We have extensive archives on the International Rescue Committee and its present leader David Miliband.
Don’t miss my January post—Trump could save millions by cutting off the IRC!
From GotNews (hat tip Richard at Blue Ridge Forum @highblueridge):

Deep state agents within the Department of Health and Human Services, the State Department and the U.S. Agency for International Development have paid over $115 million to the International Rescue Committee (IRC) nonprofit that is fighting President Donald J. Trump’s America-first ban on immigration from countries with huge populations seeking to do citizens harm.

The International Rescue Committee led by former U.K. Labour politician David Miliband has come under fire since the organization’s Tuesday release on World Refugee Day of an anti-sovereignty self-promotional video calling for greater Muslim immigration to Western countries.

Go here to see the video and the proof about how much of your money they are sucking down.
About the photo:  On the left is CNN’s Clarissa Ward.  She has been hosting the early a.m. show with Chris Cuomo this week.  Watch sometime and see if you agree with me that Ward looks like she is constantly sucking on a lemon!
*** These are the fake non-profits largely funded by US taxpayers to place refugees in cities and towns (and which use their financial power to propagandize against the Trump White House)!

IRC gives up plans for new resettlement site in Asheville, NC; write to Congress!

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

This story is from about ten days ago (just getting around to posting it).  What it says to me is that the resettlement contractors are a) pretty worried that the Trump Administration will come in low when it sends its FY18 ‘determination’ to the Hill in September, and b) they aren’t going to push an office where the Congressman for the area is totally opposed to it.
On that last point, I am going to continue to hammer every day that you must hound your member of Congress on the refugee program.
In my opinion, the only way to bring about reform is for the Trump Administration to send a determination for ZERO refugees for FY18 and demand Congress get to work reforming the monstrosity. As it stands now the Republican leadership wants more cheap refugee labor available for big business and the Dems want reliable Democrat voters.  Taxpayers foot the bill!
Here is the news from Asheville (from the Citizen-Times).  And, btw, since 9/11 North Carolina is #13 on the list of states ‘welcoming’ refugees. It received 30,827 refugees in that time (overall, the US admitted 917,639 since FY2002).

ASHEVILLE – A global aid and humanitarian organization announced Thursday it was cancelling plans to make Asheville a resettlement site for 150 refugees.

The move comes six months after the inauguration of Republican President Donald Trump and one year since staff with the International Rescue Committee conducted an exploratory visit in Asheville.

Sean Piazza at linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/seanpiazza

During meetings with stakeholders last June, the IRC received “overwhelming” support to move forward, said Sean Piazza, a spokesman for the large nonprofit.  [LOL! even the reporter here knows this is a large nonprofit!—ed]

But, executive orders issued by the new administration place in question admission of refugees to the United States in 2017 and beyond, he said.

“Unfortunately, in light of these current policies, IRC is not in a position to continue opening an office in Asheville,” Piazza said.

[….]

The IRC is in conversation with the Trump administration to ensure the United State’s commitment to offering a safe haven for the world’s most vulnerable citizens, Piazza said.

“We ask supportive communities to convey this same message to your members of Congress,” said Piazza.

“We appreciate the warm reception and support we received in Asheville.”

Rep. Mark Meadows strong opposition likely played a role in the IRC’s abandonment of the Asheville site.

The IRC helped resettle nearly 10,000 refugees in 2015 including people from Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria.

Even before Trump’s orders, the expansion of refugee services into Western North Carolina was challenged some of the region’s more conservative residents.

U.S. Rep. Mark Meadows, R-Buncombe, opposed the IRC’s plan in August.

More here at the Citizen-Times.

Meanwhile in Montana another IRC office is limping along

The International Rescue Committee is responsible for opening Montana to refugees (there was a small resettlement program there years ago), but against strong opposition, they convinced the US State Department in 2016 to let them open a new site in Missoula.  At present, Montana is #47 on the list of states ‘welcoming’ refugees (only Hawaii, Mississippi and Wyoming received less).
Here is recent news on that program.  See my Montana archive by clicking here.

So where else is the large, very rich and powerful IRC working?

Here is a list of the cities where the International Rescue Committee is planting third-world poverty (their effort to get a foothold in NC has failed for now):

 
And, since I hadn’t checked the IRC’s finances lately, I figured it was a good time to check a recent Form 990. (BTW, this is the first time I am using this ProPublica website. Try it out!) The IRC is about 67% funded by taxpayers (yesterday we learned that EMM is 99.5% funded by you, the American taxpayer!)
In addition to the income in my screenshot (below), they have another $1,451,183 listed as IOM Loan Collection Fee.  This is your money too. The contractors are the collection agencies for the loan given to refugees for their airfare to your town and as the collection agency they get a cut of what they collect from the financially struggling refugees. (LOL! this is justified as teaching refugees how to handle their money and their debt!).
 

 

Doing well by doing good!

Miliband center with George Soros and Soros Jr.

Editor: Let me be clear! If this was a private organization raising private funds, I wouldn’t care what kind of salaries they pay, but since approximately 67% of their annual income comes from taxpayers, this becomes our business!
The most fun part of reporting on the refugee contractors*** finances is always the salaries page of the Form 990.  Here is the page from the same Form 990 I got the income from above.
David Miliband, the CEO of the IRC, is a British national who was the former Labor Foreign Secretary.  He was feted when he arrived in New York City to take the reins of the IRC by the likes of Bill Clinton, George Soros and Samantha Power, here.
See my David Miliband archive here.  He was the first to call for Obama to bring in 65,000 Syrians in one year!
Drum roll please! Here are the top salaries at the IRC (most are higher than most members of Congress/Senators, here).
Look at it this way, you are paying 67% of these peoples’ salaries as they make decisions affecting your neighborhood!
 

 
I know this is getting long, but the more I think about it, if what you have read concerns you, you should consider writing a real letter (not a call or e-mail) to your member of Congress and US Senators and demand that the US Refugee Admissions program be defunded until an effort is made to reform it.
Because of the huge amounts of money sent from the US Treasury to these supposed non-profits for their ‘charitable’ work, there is never any incentive to slow the flow for any reason.  The Refugee Act of 1980 has set up a permanent class of activist lobbying groups who will naturally scream bloody murder if the flow is slowed because it is attached to their budgetary bottom lines.
And, if you do write a real letter, tell your representatives that you expect a letter in response.  Please feel free to take anything from these pages!
*** For new readers, these are the nine federal refugee contractors that monopolize the admissions program (and lobby Congress for more and more refugees!).

Airbnb partners with refugee contracting agency to put-up refugees worldwide

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Volunteers must open their minds along with their rooms…

(Airbnb)

The International Rescue Committee, one of nine federal resettlement contractors***, is always working the angles with David Miliband (former British Foreign Secretary) as it CEO.  LOL! But watch out! the British national, making decisions about who is resettled in places like Montana, might soon jump ship—could there be some upward mobility for him back in the UK now that the government there is turning far Left?

IRC CEO David Miliband (left) giving the IRC’s Freedom Award to George Soros in 2013.  https://refugeeresettlementwatch.org/2017/01/28/suggestion-for-president-trump-save-millions-by-cutting-funding-for-the-international-rescue-committee/

Here is the news about the “deal” where the IRC will get a million bucks a year from Airbnb for the next 4 years and the users of the service are expected to offer up 100,000 rooms for refugees in the coming year.
From Non-Profit Quarterly:

Can a disruptive for-profit company make a difference in the international refugee crisis? Airbnb and eight nonprofit partners are investing in the idea via a new technology platform that connects rooms and refugees.

Airbnb emerged as a progressive influencer following the November election at a time when corporations had been taking stands on controversial issues with both altruistic and capitalistic intentions.

Earlier this year, President Donald Trump issued an executive order temporarily blocking travel from seven (later changed to six) majority-Muslim countries, which has repeatedly been blocked by various courts as discriminatory and is now headed to the U.S. Supreme Court.

The order and four-month hiatus on accepting new refugees devastated the network of refugee resettlement agencies, where hundreds of jobs have been cut since the President’s executive order. They had expected to receive 110,000 refugees this year from war-torn countries like Syria and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

The rich get richer.  The IRC budget must be north of $700,000,000 million!  (It was $688,000,000 in 2015, here. 66% of it comes from taxpayer dollars!)

While it’s laudable that the company is also giving what nonprofits really need—cash—in addition to time and talent, its goal is incredibly ambitious. Airbnb has pledged $1 million annually to the International Rescue Committee over the next four years.

[….]

Indeed, the need is great, with more than 40 million internally displaced persons around the world, including 20 million who qualify as refugees under the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees mandate. But, Airbnb will have a lot of marketing to do, with only 6,000 of their 3.5 million users signed up to provide temporary shelter. Further, significant backlash to resettlement programs around the world means demand is outpacing supply for visas, let alone homes. And, thorny issues could arise for a company that has faced discrimination suits.

So, as Airbnb has made clear on Open Homes, volunteers must open their minds along with their rooms.

Frankly, I’ve always thought this was the dumbest and most dangerous thing naive people can do—put up complete strangers in their spare bedrooms (for a few bucks)!
See my ‘David Miliband’ archive by clicking here.  Hillary loves him!  Since he makes about $600,000  a year running the IRC, you might say that the Airbnb contribution will cover that with a bit left over for the refugees.
***The nine contracting agencies that monopolize the UN/US Refugee Admissions Program are these:

One report: Trump Dept. of State to cut funding to UN by 50%

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

That is the news from The Hill two days ago!
Finally an elusive number I’ve wondered about for years is mentioned here:

The US pays $1.5 billion of the $4 billion annual budget of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees.

UN High Commissioner for Refugees glass-fronted building in Geneva. Imagine what this costs to staff and run in Switzerland! American taxpayers pay 37% of it! ($1.5 billion of an annual $4 billion budget).

That is the agency of the UN choosing our refugees for your towns and cities!
The Hill:

President Trump’s administration has told the State Department to cut more than 50 percent of U.S. funding to United Nations programs, Foreign Policy reported.

The push for the drastic reductions comes as the White House is scheduled to release its 2018 topline budget proposal Thursday, which is expected to include a 37 percent cut to the State Department and U.S. Agency for International Development budgets.***

It’s not clear if Trump’s budget plan, from the Office of Management and Budget, would reflect the full extent of Trump’s proposed cuts to the U.N.

[….]

The U.S. spends roughly $10 billion annually on the U.N., and the cuts could have the greatest impact on peacekeeping, the U.N. development program and UNICEF, which are funded by State’s Bureau of International Organization Affairs.

The fate of other popular [?—ed] programs, like the World Food Programme and U.N. refugee operations, are less clear. The World Food Programme’s funding comes from the Department of Agriculture.

Let the wailing begin….

Richard Gowan, a U.N. expert at the European Council on Foreign Relations, said the alterations would spark “chaos” if true.

Richard Gowan, European Council on Foreign Relations, said cuts would bring “chaos.” Photo: http://www.ecfr.eu/experts

“[It would] leave a gaping hole that other big donors would struggle to fill,” he told FP, pointing to how the U.S. provided $1.5 billion of the U.N. refugee agency’s $4 billion budget last year.

“Multiply that across other humanitarian agencies like the World Food Programme and you are basically talking about the breakdown of the international humanitarian system as we know it.”

More here, and then yesterday The Washington Post reported the news as well, but does not mention the UNHCR.
The Post quotes Trump’s UN ambassdor Nikki Haley as saying the following in her confirmation hearing in January. (Just a reminder dear readers that Haley works for Trump, so let’s hope she is now on the same page as the President!)

  “I do not think we need to pull money from the U.N. We don’t believe in slash-and-burn.”

***Let’s talk about USAID for a minute!

We haven’t written much over the years about the Agency for  International Development which also gives gobs and gobs of (your) money to some federal refugee contractors.
I knew the International Rescue Committee couldn’t be pulling in millions from solely seeding refugees in places like Missoula, Montana, so I checked USA Spending just now to see what they were getting from USAID. Yikes!  Here is a screen shot of one tiny portion of one page. (These are grants from 2008 to 2016).

The IRC received nearly $1 billion from US taxpayers during the Obama years!

No wonder they have money to community-organize against citizens in small city America!
 

Six transactions of 971!

 
For our complete archive on the IRC, click here.

Cut Donald, cut!