US refugee resettlement contractors surviving for now on “leftover” federal dollars

We reported recently that the nine federally-funded non-profit groups that have monopolized all resettlement in the US for the last decade (some of them for three decades) will see their numbers diminished as the President continues reducing refugee resettlement.

By becoming almost completely dependent on federal dollars, they built a house of cards.

Miliband in Manhattan
Love it when I see stories about the IRC crying over its loss of federal boodle. I can tell readers again that its CEO, British national David Miliband, pulls in a cool nearly $700,000 annual salary.  Here in Manhattan where they are headquartered. Is this socialist sharing his good fortune with employees who are let go?

In this post two days ago we reported that two so-called VOLAGS would likely not receive contracts.  I expect the reporter got it wrong when he suggested as many as seven could be booted off the federal gravy train.

Another story designed to tug on your heartstrings, this time from San Diego, wasn’t really worth posting except for a few paragraphs deep within the story.

From The San Diego Union-Tribune:

With fewer refugees coming, resettlement agencies may be forced to close

 

The International Rescue Committee was able to reunite at least one person — a Rohingya refugee fleeing Myanmar — with family here, according to Duvin [Donna Duvin, executive director of the International Rescue Committee in San Diego.—ed]

The agency also began receiving refugees being held by Australia on Nauru Island. [This was a bit of useful news. We wondered where they might be going—ed]

The process, based on an agreement the U.S. made with Australia before Trump took office, has been slow, Duvin said, but she was happy that some were making it through.

Resettlement agencies like Jewish Family Service and International Rescue Committee have had to restructure their programs because of the lower numbers of arrivals. When staff positions fell vacant, they often went unfilled. Those who remained shifted to providing longer-term services to refugees who had already arrived, and agencies became increasingly reliant on private donations to fund their work.  [Well, it is about time.  It was supposed to be a 50/50 partnership but as you see below here*** it has become a program almost exclusively funded by US taxpayers!—ed]

Waiting for the ax to fall!

While resettlement agencies prepare for the possibility of even fewer arrivals in fiscal 2019, they still don’t know how much money they will receive to do their work or whether they will be allowed to stay open. Since the Trump administration is still working out details about the 2019 resettlement efforts, it has not yet released its budget for the program for this year.

Money machine

Leftover money! Leftover money! Your leftover money! 

Local resettlement agencies are operating through December with leftover money from the fiscal 2018 budget because the number of resettled refugees didn’t reach the 45,000 cap. They have been told that some of the nine agencies nationwide may be asked to close their doors once the 2019 budget is finalized.

A State Department official confirmed that the administration is expecting to fund a smaller number of resettlement agencies.

More here.

 

***Below are the nine federal refugee resettlement contractors.

The present US Refugee Admissions Program will never be reformed if the system of paying the contractors by the head stays in place and the contractors are permitted to act as Leftwing political agitation groups, community organizers and lobbyists paid on our dime!  

And, to add insult to injury they pretend it is all about ‘humanitarianism.’

The number in parenthesis is the percentage of their income paid by you (the taxpayer) to place the refugees into your towns and cities and get them signed up for their services (aka welfare)!  And, get them registered to vote eventually!

From my most recent accounting, here.  However, please see that Nayla Rush at the Center for Immigration Studies has done an update of their income, as has James Simpson at the Capital Research Center!

Monday a big day for refugee contractors, expect more stories like these….

What is Monday?  It is the beginning of the federal fiscal year. It is the first day of FY19. It is the day when the writing will be on the wall for many refugee resettlement offices around the country.

Screenshot (1457)
Dumb way to run an organization! Did no one in the refugee industry ever question a business model where some non-profits are 97% and up federally funded?

Why? Because in 1980 Jimmy Carter signed the Refugee Act of 1980 in to law and set up a house of cards that needs to fall now. Originally (supposedly!) designed as a public-private partnership, the federal government and ‘humanitarian’ non-profit groups were to share equally in the costs of admitting tens of thousands of refugees to the US each year.

But, over the years, because Congress has been so remiss in overseeing the program (the Rs want cheap labor!), those non-profit groups (aka federal contractors) have gotten fat and confident (like Aesop’s grasshopper) on ever larger amounts of federal funding and too lazy to raise sufficient amounts of private money to see them through if for any reason the number of paying clients/refugees declined.

(An aside: The inability to raise enough private money is also indicative of the fact that there isn’t enough interest by average Americans in financially supporting the program in the first place.)

So here we are with one story after another about what Monday will bring to dozens of resettlement contractors around the country.

From Austin, Texas we learn that a Catholic contractor—Caritas—is closing its refugee program.

The Statesman:

EXCLUSIVE: As refugees dwindle, Caritas will end resettlement program

Since 1974, the organization has helped thousands of people fleeing war or persecution find a new life in Austin. But after 44 years, Caritas is ending its refugee resettlement program and as of Monday, it will no longer serve new refugees.

“It’s really a tragedy that this program has to go away,” said Jo Kathryn Quinn, executive director for Caritas.

Screenshot (1459)

[….]

For the past two years, Caritas has seen a sharp decline in the number of refugees arriving in Austin, and the development has made the program “financially unsustainable,” Quinn said. Between 2010 and 2016, Caritas resettled an average of 576 refugees each year. Since last October, Caritas has resettled 151 refugees, but the nonprofit has not received any new refugees since April.

“Having zero refugees arrive in two months was unheard of for us,” Quinn said. “It was the final alarm bell that told us that we couldn’t continue this way.”

[….]

In June, Caritas’ board of directors voted to close the program at the end of the fiscal year at the recommendation of the nonprofit’s executive leadership.

When fewer refugees arrive, less federal money comes in to support them as well. Refugees receive a one-time amount of $1,125 from federal funds for resettlement needs, including housing and food, said Adelita Winchester, Caritas’ director of integrated services. Caritas would supplement federal funds with about $1 million annually in philanthropic donations,Winchester said.  [The reporter has missed an important piece of information. The refugee gets $1,125 and Caritas gets another $1,125 for themselves per refugee.—ed]

“We didn’t have any excess philanthropic dollars to shift to aid this program,” Quinn said.

More here.

Now to California…..

From KPBS San Diego:

Budget Cuts, Layoffs And Closures Hit Refugee-Serving Organizations

Donna Duvin is executive director at the San Diego office of the national nonprofit International Rescue Committee, or IRC, one of nine federally funded resettlement agencies in the U.S. Duvin said the local office’s VESL funding dropped by 34 percent this year forcing the agency to replace some paid instructors with volunteers and interns.

miliband-in-manhattan
Red meat for readers! I love running this photo of the IRC’s David Miliband outside their Manhattan office. He is the Brit who is compensated at nearly $700,000 annually as he calls the shots about who will be placed in your towns.

“As the numbers began to fall, the support that we had from the county that passed through dollars from the federal government, those declined as well,” Duvin said.

Duvin said in past years more than three-fourths of the agency’s budget relied on government dollars, causing a loss of millions as the office’s arrivals dipped by 85.5 percent since 2016. She said the budget changes during that time forced the agency to eliminate 15 positions.

Apparently the IRC is trying to raise private money to keep some functions going.  LOL! Maybe CEO David Miliband could give up some of his nearly $700,000 in annual salary to keep some low-level staffers in a job!

The IRC is not alone.

A representative for the national resettlement agency Church World Service estimated it lost possibly hundreds of staffers when it closed 10 offices after it was forced to merge operations with other organizations in some U.S. cities. And a spokesman for World Relief said it laid off 140 employees after shutting down five offices across the U.S.

More here.

Expect more stories over the coming days.

What you can do….

If you are looking for something to do, go to this list from last year of the resettlement agencies working in your towns and cities and call them.  See if they are still in operation, or plan to close soon.

Reminder!

The 1980 structure of the US Refugee Admissions Program is still in place and the Trump Administration must push now for a complete reform of the program or in 2021 or 2025, it will be full steam ahead for these contractors.  They will quickly staff-up and a new President could say—We must make up for the lost Trump years and quadruple the numbers of refugees coming in.

Refugee contractor, IRC, teams with TripAdvisor to give refugees tourist opportunities for free

I guess this is going to be International Rescue Committee day at RRW (see previous post about filthy rich IRC closing an office in Kansas).

My first thought when I saw this story was that refugee resettlement sure is an industry!  And, my second thought was….

…There must be a lot of low income Americans and military vets who would like free boat tours of the Statue of Liberty and so forth.

The rich IRC gets richer and TripAdvisor gets brownie points (they think!) for their good deeds ‘Welcome Home’ (???) campaign!

From the New York Times:

From TripAdvisor, a Program to Help Refugees Get to Know the U.S.

In partnership with the International Rescue Committee, the Welcome Home initiative will offer tours and activities in New York City and Northern California for recently resettled refugees.

 

Trip Adviser
Interesting isn’t it: Trip Advisor has 3.61 million followers on Twitter, but could only generate 9 retweets in 17 hours for this tweet about their great refugee PR campaign.  Hmmm! Makes me realize I’m not doing so badly on Twitter after all.

TripAdvisor wants refugees to the United States to explore and get to know their new homeland, and the hospitality company’s yearlong Welcome Home campaign aims to do just that: launched last week, Welcome Home gives recently resettled refugees in New York City and parts of Northern California the opportunity to book a tour or activity of their choice through TripAdvisor Experiences, a category that offers travelers things to do in around 1,900 destinations globally.

The International Rescue Committee, a nongovernmental organization that provides services to displaced people globally, is TripAdvisor’s partner in Welcome Home and is responsible for reaching out to newly resettled refugees to tell them about the initiative.

Continue reading “Refugee contractor, IRC, teams with TripAdvisor to give refugees tourist opportunities for free”

Refugee resettlement contractor, IRC, closed its office in Garden City, KS yesterday

I’ll be reporting the news below, but I first want to make my key points up front so that you don’t fall for the pity-party news story.

david-miliband-manahattan
“Some call it charity!”  Here is a charitable idea, some of those bringing in fat pay checks, like IRC CEO David Miliband, could send some of their boodle to staff in Kansas!

~The International Rescue Committee is ostensibly a private non-profit group and therefore the US State Department can’t dictate that it must close offices (supposedly they will be closing 3 of 28).

They might not be getting new refugees at the office in GC that was set up only 4 years ago at the heyday of Obama’s presidency, but they surely could pay for some staff and a small office to help those they already dropped off in the town whose major employer is Tyson Foods!

~The IRC is a financial giant as non-profits go.  From its 2016 Form 990 we know they had revenue that year of $736 million and that $494 million was provided to them by you—-the US taxpayers!

~Some of their top expenses were salaries ($244 million), grants and other assistance to foreign organizations, foreign governments, and foreign individuals ($296 million) and office expenses ($20 million).

Their headquarters are in Manhattan, New York (not Manhattan, KS). I mention this because I wonder: how much could a small office to aid struggling refugees cost in Garden City, KS? (You will see that the GC Telegram story is all about how refugees will be left in the lurch.)

 

~Salaries of top staff we have reported previously are here:

IRC fat cat salaries

 

The point I am making is that the IRC could very well have kept its Garden City office open even if new refugees (new paying clients) were not being sent there by the State Department. They could have continued to help the refugees they brought in during the first 4 years with other money from their ginormous pot of money.

But, instead, this news will be used as one more bit of media fodder to blast President Donald Trump.

Continue reading “Refugee resettlement contractor, IRC, closed its office in Garden City, KS yesterday”

Breitbart roundup: Refugee contractors whine as revenue plummets

Michael Leahy at Breitbart has pulled together in one article a litany of complaints from representatives of the refugee industry.
The newest data that came in here on the first of March will surely set off a new wave of temper tantrums aimed at Trump. But, I will remind readers that the contractors who must now fire low level workers in the industry and close small offices, have brought this on themselves by their nearly complete dependence on the US Treasury and their laziness about raising private money.
Why bother with chump change when the taxpayer spigot is wide open? See my post here.

David Miliband the king
Not crying for you! International Rescue Committee CEO David (Moneybags) Miliband pulls down an annual salary approaching $700,000.  Think how many refugees and low level staff could be sustained on that!

Even if the refugee numbers being admitted are low, there are still plenty of refugee lost souls they brought in last year or the year before who could use their help (if they had private money! Private ‘religious’ charity!).
(It isn’t really about humanitarianism, these are organizations working to change America by changing the people.)
Here is how Leahy begins his roundup of complaints:

The federally funded non-profits known as voluntary agencies (VOLAGs), who collectively have received more than $1 billion annually to resettle refugees, are whining now that refugee admissions, and their own associated revenues, are down dramatically during the first five months of FY 2018 under the Trump administration.

Despite a slight uptick in refugee admissions in February to 1,927, the total number of refugee admissions during the first five months of FY 2018, which began on October 1, is only 8,635, according to the State Department’s interactive website – the lowest number of refugee admissions for the first five months of a fiscal year in more than 15 years.

If the average monthly arrival rate of 1,727 during the first five months of FY 2018 continues at the same pace for the final seven months of the fiscal year, total refugee admissions for the 12 months of the full fiscal year will be under 21,000, less than half the ceiling number of 45,000 President Trump announced in September.

The nine VOLAGs (Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service, U.S. Committee for Refugees and Immigrants, the International Rescue Committee, HIAS, Church World Service, Episcopal Migration Ministries, Ethiopian Community Development Council, U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (Catholic Charities), and World Relief),*** all of whom are almost entirely dependent on federal funding tied to the number of new refugee arrivals they resettle around the country through local affiliated agencies, are now in the midst of a cash crunch unheard of in the agency.

Consequently, they and their political allies are complaining loudly and often about both Trump’s lowered refugee ceiling admission number and the increase in the time and length of the Department of Homeland Security’s security vetting of potential refugees.

One of those complaining is Bob Carey:

Bob Carey, a prominent critic of the recent reduction in refugee admissions by the federal government, is a prime example of the cozy revolving door the Trump administration has disrupted.

Carey spent most of his career as an executive with the International Rescue Committee, one of the nine VOLAGs supported almost exclusively by government funding. While there, he served as chair of Refugee Council USA. [And headed the federal Office of Refugee Resettlement in Obama’s second term.—ed]

Much more here.
Photo: Just so you know I’m not making it up!  Have a look at this recent (2015) Form 990 salary page for the International Rescue Committee.
Doing well by doing good!
 
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Think about this: the IRC is a federally funded non-profit. A Member of Congress/Senator makes $174,000 a year! A Supreme Court Justice $213,000!
Where is Congress? The refugee slowdown has demonstrated that the Refugee Act of 1980 set up an insanely flawed system that must be dumped now!
***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.
If you are wondering, I post this list every chance I get because we have new readers daily and because I want all of you to know that for reform to be possible these nine fake non-profits have to go.