In a sketchy scheme, six non-governmental organizations have been assigned the task of sorting through the tens of thousands of asylum seekers that President Trump successfully kept in Mexico (so they wouldn’t bring the Chinese Virus into the US as they waited for their asylum claims to be processed) to determine which ones get to enter the US now.
But, critics, like a top ACLU attorney says:
“The government cannot farm out the asylum system.”
Biden administration taps humanitarian groups to pick asylum-seekers to allow into country
SAN DIEGO — The Biden administration has quietly tasked six humanitarian groups with recommending which migrants should be allowed to stay in the U.S. instead of being rapidly expelled from the country under federal pandemic-related powers that block people from seeking asylum.
The groups will determine who is most vulnerable in Mexico, and their criteria has not been made public. It comes as large numbers of people are crossing the southern border and as the government faces intensifying pressure to lift the public health powers instituted by former President Donald Trump and kept in place by President Joe Biden during the coronavirus pandemic.
Several members of the consortium spoke to The Associated Press about the criteria and provided details of the system that have not been previously reported. The government is aiming to admit to the country up to 250 asylum-seekers a day who are referred by the groups and is agreeing to that system only until July 31. By then, the consortium hopes the Biden administration will have lifted the public health rules, though the government has not committed to that.
So far, a total of nearly 800 asylum-seekers have been let in since May 3, and members of the consortium say there is already more demand than they can meet.
Think about this, three of the organizations are not even US-based organizations!
So we have foreign non-profit groups deciding who can enter the US?
The groups have not been publicly identified except for the International Rescue Committee, a global relief organization. The others are London-based Save the Children; two U.S.-based organizations, HIAS and Kids in Need of Defense; and two Mexico-based organizations, Asylum Access and the Institute for Women in Migration, according to two people with direct knowledge who spoke on condition of anonymity because the information was not intended for public release.
How did the Harris/Biden gang decide who would play God? It is a secret!
Critics of the new selection processes say too much power is vested in a small number of organizations and that the effort is shrouded in secrecy without a clear explanation of how the groups were chosen. Critics also say there are no assurances that the most vulnerable or deserving migrants will be chosen to seek asylum.
Some consortium members are concerned that going public may cause their offices in Mexico to be mobbed by asylum-seekers, overwhelming their tiny staffs and exposing them to potential threats and physical attacks from extortionists and other criminals.
[….]
Lee Gelernt
ACLU attorney Lee Gelernt said advocacy groups are in “a very difficult position because they need to essentially rank the desperation” of people, but he insisted it was temporary. The government, he said, “cannot farm out the asylum system.”
Migration experts not involved in the process have questioned how the groups determine who is eligible.
“It has been murky,” said Jessica Bolter, an analyst at the nonpartisan Migration Policy Institute who believes the administration is trying to quietly be humane without encouraging more people to come, a balancing act she doubts will succeed.
Update April 18th: Biden himself commits to increasing the numberof refugees to be admitted; references the border saying we couldn’t do two things at once, but now we can (oh really! so what changed?).
“This is a breathtaking betrayal of the plan to ‘build back better.’”
(Matthew Soerens World Relief, a refugee contractor)
Don’t get me wrong. I am just fine with it. In fact, I find it hilarious.
However, Biden/Harris have now so screwed-up the US Refugee Admissions Program (which I know a little about) with their ham-handed incompetence that it makes me ask how badly are they screwing-up elsewhere—-like handling the pandemic or dealing with Russia and China?
We know they are creating a catastrophe and angering most Americanswith their policy, or lack of a policy, at the southern border!
And, that is not so funny.
Now, by not going forward with his promise to reset the annual refugee cap to 62,500 for what remains of the 2021 fiscal year, RRW readers know that Biden has been pissing-off his friends in the NO Borders community.
Leading the pack of the pissed-off are the refugee contractors*** whose business it is to place third world clients in your towns and cities while being paid by you, the taxpayer, to do it.
And, see here that the final straw for those who helped Biden steal the White Housewas when a contractor, the International Rescue Committee, published a report saying Biden was ‘welcoming’ fewer refugees than President Trump.
If that wasn’t bad enough, yesterday all hell broke loose when the White House announced it would leave TRUMP’S CAP of 15,000 (or fewer) refugees to be admitted by September 30th in place.
The “faith groups” (aka contractors) were “outraged.”
Nothing Trump did should ever be left in place!
A few hours later Biden/Harris backtracked and said they would set a new higher cap/ceiling in mid-May.
Keep in mind that while running for the presidency Biden promised his 80 million (ha! ha!) voters that he would admit 125,000 annually.
There is a lot of coverage of the “betrayal.” Here is one account at Religion News Service:
Biden reverses course on refugee cap after faith groups express outrage
WASHINGTON (RNS) — President Joe Biden’s administration has reversed a decision to keep in place a historically low cap on refugee admissions left by Donald Trump, saying it will raise the ceiling next month after faith-based groups initially decried the move as an “abandonment of our ideals.”
Matthew Soerens of World Relief
Biden signed a memorandum Friday (April 16) aimed at speeding up refugee admissions this year — but that memorandum does not increase the so-called refugee ceiling, something the president has pledged to do when speaking to religious audiences.
Although the memorandum leaves open the possibility of raising that number should the United States resettle the maximum 15,000 refugees this year, news that the ceiling will at least temporarily remain at that historic low was met with disappointment by many religious communities, including the faith-based groups that partner with the federal government to resettle refugees.
By Friday afternoon, TheAssociated Press and CNN reported the Biden administration has reversed course, announcing plans to lift the Trump-era refugee cap next month in the wake of widespread pushback from allies.
The White House confirmed to Religion News Service on Friday that officials intend to revisit the refugee ceiling sometime in the coming days, saying in a statement, “We expect the President to set a final, increased refugee cap for the remainder of this fiscal year by May 15.”
Keep reading hereto see what the other Christian contractors, in addition to Soerens, had to say about their man Joe yesterday.
In a more tempered response, see what the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society is saying about the flip-flopping from the White House.
‘Relieved but disappointed’: How America’s Jewish refugee aid agency is doing 3 months under Biden
“We’re relieved but disappointed,” said HIAS CEO Mark Hetfield following Friday’s initial announcement that the cap, also known as the refugee ceiling, would not be raised.
Following the second statement, Hetfield added, “There’s no reason to delay raising the refugee ceiling. It’s just a ceiling, it’s not a floor. They should be focused on what’s the goal and how are you going to reach it?”
It is all Trump’s fault!
The fight over the refugee cap encapsulates a dilemma confronting HIAS as the agency moves from Trump to Biden. On one hand, HIAS leaders are glad that the United States no longer has a president who opposes refugees, separates families at the border and fires up his base with anti-immigrant rhetoric.
On the other hand, they say that Trump did so much harm, and made immigration so heated an issue, that it will be a challenge just to bring the immigration and refugee systems back to where they were before Trump.
Returning to a point in which the U.S. allows hundreds of thousands of refugees a year, and passing immigration reform through Congress, these leaders say, feels even more daunting. [HIAS was heavily involved in lobbying for failed Comprehensive Immigration Reform some years ago.–ed]
“It’s just a relief to have that administration in the rearview mirror,” said Melanie Nezer, vice president for public affairs at HIAS. She dubbed the Trump era “the fire swamp.”
But Nezer is cognizant as well of “the sheer amount of time, effort and creativity it’s going to take for the new administration and those of us who work on these issues to unravel and fix it.”
“The prior administration really decimated our infrastructure, our systems, our staffing,” she said. “It’s stunning to think about the damage that was done.”
[….]
Trump’s actions on immigration, beginning with the travel ban, spurred a flood of donations to HIAS.Since Trump’s term, the agency more than doubled its annual budget to $90 million. But resettling refugees — how the organization had once spent the majority of donations — became unprecedentedly controversial and difficult.
With its windfall, HIAS sued the Trump administration over its travel ban, increased its advocacy work and shifted its weight outside the U.S.
For refugee resettlement nerds there is a lot of useful information in this article, sokeep reading.
Here is the data from the State Department showing the paltry number of refugees admitted in the first half of the fiscal year.
This is what has the contractors hopping mad.
Notice (sorry the screenshot isn’t clear, but take it from me) that although we are admitting hundreds of thousands of illegal border jumpers from Central America, more are being admitted as refugees through this legal avenue.
2050 total for six months. They will have a hard time getting to even 15,000 at this rate.
***In case you are new to RRW, here are all of the unhappy contractors.
They worked to ‘elect’ Biden/Harris and lobby for open borders. As taxpayers you pay them millions annually to change America by changing the people.
That is, if he and Kamala make it to the White House.
They campaigned on reversing all of what they claim were draconian policies by the Trump White House to slow the flow across our southern border and to halt the influx of impoverished, possibly sick, low skilled workers, eg. refugees to America.
Will Biden be called a racist if he leaves many of Trump’s immigration policies in place? Not a chance!
Since the Chinese virus reared its ugly head in the spring, much of the Trump team’s actions were to slow the arrival of the COVID-19 virus potentially arriving with the migrants.
As a result Trump was called a racist and a white nationalist by the Biden-supporting media.
Now I am seeing one story after another about how the Harris/Biden administration might have to go very slowly to unravel Trump’s efforts to keep America safe and Americans working.
LOL! I will be looking for the Leftist media to label Biden an evil racist when he will almost certainly not be able to fling open America’s gates for months or even years!
It wasn’t long after Election Steal Day in the weeks following November 3rd, that the stories began popping up about a new surge on the border.
U.S. agents apprehend 1,000 migrant children in 6 days as crossings along Mexican border rise
By the way, unaccompanied alien children are the responsibility of the US Office of Refugee Resettlement at the Department of Health and Human Services.
Many paragraphs into the story we learn that oopsy(!), maybe Joe and Kamala cannot immediately reverse Trump’s immigration control strategies, especially as Americans will be furious if it is done while the virus rages on.
Mr. Biden’s team has also pledged to review the expulsions policy to ensure border-crossers “have the ability to submit their asylum claims.”
Andrew Selee, president of the non-partisan Migration Policy Institute, said ending the “Remain in Mexico” program and the expulsions too quickly could lead to a surge in border crossings.
He suggested the incoming Biden administration could end Remain-in-Mexico but temporarily retain the expulsion policy, a scenario that could be complicated by legal challenges and reporting that shows public health officials were pressured by the White House to authorize the expulsions.
Selee said an influx in border arrests could hurt chances of a divided Congress passing immigration legislation, including one that provides a pathway to U.S. citizenship for Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) beneficiaries. Republicans lawmakers blamed the DACA program for a surge in border apprehensions of Central American children in 2014, even though the policy, established in 2012, did not benefit new arrivals.
Before completely ending Mr. Trump’s policies, Selee said the incoming Biden administration should deploy more asylum officers, surge resources to the border and expand case management programs that allow migrants to complete their U.S. immigration proceedings outside of detention centers. Otherwise, he added, a sharp increase in unauthorized migration could leave the U.S. government unprepared, worsen conditions in temporary migrant holding facilities and lead to more draconian enforcement policies.
“You’re stuck between a rock and a hard place: Either you start releasing people in the general population or you hold them in the middle of a pandemic,” Selee said.
“If you try to be the anti-Trump on day one, you will end up acting like Trump in the end,” he added. “If you try and throw out everything Trump has done on day one, without having an alternative in place, you’ll end up doing the same things Trump did.”
And, here (read it yourself) is a more recent warning about the ‘kids’ rushing the border. From USA Today:
Thousands of unaccompanied minors arrive at US-Mexico border as Border Patrol grapples with COVID-19 deaths
Lowering expectations?
And, a little nugget in this news from the Pittsburgh Post Gazetteindicates that the Refugee Resettlement Industry has begun to tamp down expectations for a huge jump in new refugees being flown into your towns and cities anytime soon.
Biden campaigned on restoring the flow of refugees into the country from Trump’s less than 20,000 annual refugee admissions to a whopping 125,000 in year one he said!
Pittsburgh 2017 anti-Trump rally. Will they protest if Biden doesn’t move fast enough to reverse Trump’s policies? Not a chance.
Pittsburgh-area agencies await word on Biden’s refugee plan
Deep into this story we have this news that the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Societyis telling its satellite offices that the flood isn’t coming right away.
While the Biden team hasn’t detailed its plans, Ms. Aizenman has heard speculation from her agency’s national affiliate that there might be some increases later in 2021, with a higher ceiling in 2022.
But wait! That is not what we heard BEFORE November 3rd.
(Ms. Aizenman is the director of refugee and immigrant services at Jewish Family and Community Services which is a subcontractor of HIAS (Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society)).
We had a hint that increases in refugee numbers might not be cominghere the other day.
If Biden and Harris (or Harris and someone else!) are installed in the White House, we will be watching! I know it is serious, but I anticipate being amused as they squirm to get out from between a rock and a hard place.
Clever America Firsters will have to figure out how to keep up the pressure on that rock.
In a sketchy scheme, six non-governmental organizations have been assigned the task of sorting through the tens of thousands of asylum seekers that President Trump successfully kept in Mexico (so they wouldn’t bring the Chinese Virus into the US as they waited for their asylum claims to be processed) to determine which ones get to enter the US now.
“We’re relieved but disappointed,” said HIAS CEO Mark Hetfield following Friday’s initial announcement that the cap, also known as the refugee ceiling, would not be raised.
Returning to a point in which the U.S. allows 
Here is the 
