Tag: Lancaster

Holy cow! Is the Trump Administration extending this fiscal year to December 31 for refugee admissions?

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Update: CWS didn’t have to wait for long.  Secretary of State Pompeo has announced a ceiling of 30,000 refugees for FY19. But, will the administration be ready to welcome those ‘new Americans’ in two weeks from today?  See the news here.

 

In what I thought was going to be another ho-hum whinny story about Church World Service, a Lancaster, PA refugee agency director dropped this bomb:

lancaster-sheila
Sheila Mastropietro

Mastropietro [Sheila Mastropietro, director of the CWS Lancaster office] said the CWS national office is being kept in the dark.They just found out this week that the fiscal year will be extended to Dec. 31, delaying the decision of who will be funded and leaving CWS “on pins and needles for an additional three months,” she said.

If you have been a regular student of Refugee Resettlement Watch, you know that the fiscal year ends on September 30th, and for decades September is the month when we learn how many refugees will be admitted in the following year and from where they will come.

And, surely you haven’t missed my many posts on the PR campaign the federal contractors*** have been promoting as they demand that Trump admit 75,000 refugees beginning on October 1.

I can only guess that if true, that there will be no announcement this month, it means there is an internal battle of ginormous proportions going on, or it could be a complex funding issue involving the whole federal government.

The story, thanks to Joanne for sending it!, is at LancsterOnline:

With funding at risk, Church World Service ‘on pins and needles’ about future of refugee program

As President Donald Trump took office in January 2017, the 30th year of Church World Service resettling refugees in the county, Lancaster city was deemed “America’s refugee capital” by BBC News for resettling 20 times the number of refugees per capita than the country as a whole.

The distinction led to a visit from Nobel Peace Prize winner Malala Yousafzai, who went on to promote Lancaster’s efforts on a national stage.

Now, in the 20 months since Trump’s travel ban, Church World Service has resettled about half as many refugees here as it did in the previous 20 months, according to data provided by CWS.

Screenshot (1253)
Mastropietro says, if Trump cuts the refugee funding, they will continue their advocacy (like this?) with other private and PUBLIC money!

The reporter continues with many paragraphs featuring personal refugee stories and about what President Trump is doing to the refugee program.  Then this:

Church World Service, headquartered in Elkhart, Indiana, is one of nine national organizations funded by the Department of State for refugee resettlement. Each of them is a large operation with multiple local offices spread throughout the country.

Indiana?

Actually, CWS still has it original headquarters at the famous 475 Riverside Dr. building in New York City, home to dozens of hard Left ‘religious’ groups, like the National Council of Churches, and other similar socialist organizations.  I’m guessing the lower level staffers work in Indiana to keep costs down.

But with fewer refugees making it to America’s doorstep, the Department of State’s Bureau of Population, Refugees and Migration “expects to fund a smaller number of recipient agencies” in the next fiscal year, according to a notice provided by a State Department spokesperson.

How many fewer agencies — and what factors might lead to the decision — is unclear. Mastropietro said the CWS national office is being kept in the dark. They just found out this week that the fiscal year will be extended to Dec. 31, delaying the decision of who will be funded and leaving CWS “on pins and needles for an additional three months,” she said.

While stripping refugee resettlement funding may be a fatal blow for some of the nine agencies, Mastropietro said CWS in Lancaster will carry on even if resettlement — its largest program — goes away.

Carrying-on will be tough!

 

simpson table CWS
Church World Service is in column one at James Simpson’s incredible table of how many taxpayer dollars each resettlement contractor consumes. CWS is 71% government funded and received nearly a half a billion dollars since 2008 from taxpayers!    https://refugeeresettlementwatch.org/2018/09/16/capital-research-center-publishes-an-overview-of-the-us-refugee-admissions-program/

 

 Lancaster Online continues….

With other public [public of course means taxpayer dollars!–ed] and private funding avenues, CWS would continue operating programs such as legal immigration counseling, employment services and advocacy. And if it does lose the resettlement money, Mastropietro is convinced it will be a temporary, if difficult, setback.

And, she confirms what I have been saying!

“We’re just going to wait it out,” she said. “If anything happens, we’ll wait it out until the next president.”

More here.

Ambitious readers might like to learn more about refugees in Amish country.  See my complete archive on Lancaster by clicking here.

Do not become complacent!

If the Trump Administration only reduces numbers of refugees and funding for a few years nothing will change! 

A few of the smaller contractors may go belly-up, but it only will mean a greater monopoly for the surviving contractors like Church World Service.

Those contractors will be working to elect the next president, they will continue to lobby for more federal dollars and more refugees, and they will resume placing refugees quietly in to your unsuspecting towns and cities!

 

***Here below are the nine federal refugee resettlement contractors.

You might be sick of seeing this list almost every day, but a friend once told me that people need to see something seven times before it completely sinks in, so it seems to me that 70, or even 700 isn’t too much!

And, besides I have new readers every day.

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!

Lancaster, PA: Church World Service and new mayor want the city to continue as “refugee capital of the USA”

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

cws logoSo, federal refugee contractor Church World Service is beefing up its political activist activities with new hires and holding events like this one on Sunday in the heart of Amish country. (And they are not just protesting for more refugees, they want open borders for all!).

From Lancaster Online:

Lancaster advocates, leaders criticize immigration policies during ‘March for Humanity’

Decrying the strict immigration policies that have made the U.S. border harder to cross in both legal and illegal ways, Lancaster’s preeminent refugee resettlement organization led a call for action on Sunday.

“We have to stand up, be loud and lift our voices in solidarity with all of our neighbors regardless of where they’re from,” Stephanie Gromek, a spokeswoman for Lancaster’s Church World Service office, told a crowd of more than 100 in Penn Square.

CWS fuck
Marching for humanity?

In a “March for Humanity” event, CWS and civic leaders criticized several decisions by President Donald Trump’s administration — from reducing the number of allowed refugees to separating immigrant families at the border.

Trump capped refugee admissions last year at their lowest point since 1980.

The change led to CWS resettling 144 refugees in the last 10 months compared with 407 two years ago, director Sheila Mastropietro said. They’ve had to cut staff as a result and now have 23 full-time employees — three less than a year ago. [Three less, big deal!—-ed]

The group is now moving to bolster its advocacy role. With some new funds raised through the national organization, they’ll hire a new grassroots organizer to help refugees and immigrants become more active in the community — from volunteering to voting, Mastropietro said.

[….]

danene
Lancaster Mayor Danene Sorace was elected to office in November 2017

Matt Johnson, chief of staff to Lancaster Mayor Danene Sorace, said the city is trying to build on its reputation as the place where more refugees are resettled per capita than anywhere else in the country.

“We can and we must do more,” Johnson said. “Our reputation as the refugee capital of the United States needs to be backed by redoubled efforts and even more commitment to immigrants and refugees.”

That includes creating a “language access plan” that ensures everyone can communicate with the government and certifying Lancaster as an official “welcoming city,” Johnson said. It also includes reasserting that city police will not do the work of Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers, he said.

More here.

CWS can be Open Borders political agitators all they want—just not on our dime!

CWS is 74% funded (involuntarily!) by you!

See new accounting by Nayla Rush at the Center for Immigration Studies.  Over $68 million of your tax dollars went to them in 2016 alone!!!

Don’t miss my post about ten days ago: ‘Have you no shame John McCullough’ where I report on CWS’s CEO’s huge salary that you—taxpayers—largely fund!

Is your church affiliated with CWS? If so, I would be running for the door!

Also, remember that CWS holds the so-called ‘Crop Walks’ to raise even more money for their political activities.

Member Communions

Lancaster, PA where we are told that the Amish welcome one and all

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Update October 16th:  Today I used Lancaster as my example of what you should be doing as a first step locally if you are unhappy with the secrecy surrounding the refugee program where you live. Click here to see what you need to do!  Hold your mayor’s feet to the fire!

We are told that by the big German publication, Deutsche Welle which claims Lancaster is “dubbed America’s refugee capital.”

It is probably written to make Germans concerned about the migrant invasion of their homeland feel bad by encouraging them to think everything is sweetness and light in America (well, except for Trump!).

It is the same old story line….

Welcoming people

Welcoming mayor

Refugees supposedly contributing to economy

Kind-hearted ‘Christian’ resettlement agency

Worries that the flow is slowing

Evil Donald Trump

Yawn!

But, I am posting it as background for my next post (either later today or tomorrow).

Deutsche Welle:

As the US isolates itself under President Donald Trump, one rural town in Pennsylvania keeps rooting for refugees. The Amish and Mennonite communities of Lancaster County say “refugees welcome.”

[….]

Mayor Rick Gray
Mayor Gray has presided over the huge refugee build-up in Lancaster since 2006. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rick_Gray_(Pennsylvania_politician)

Lancaster Mayor Rick Gray explains that welcoming refugees by supporting religious freedom and tolerance “is in [Lancaster’s] genes.”

[….]

Stephanie Gromek, who works for Church World Service***, one of nine refugee resettlement agencies in the US, says that in the past year alone, the organization has resettled almost 700 refugees here. The Amish “worked so hard to keep their culture, and that’s what we hope for with our refugees,” she says. [Islamic ‘culture’ too?—-ed]

[….]

Gromek deals with cases from around the world in her work and says that in recent times there has been an influx of people from Syria, Somalia and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).

[….]

But changes in US policy doesn’t bode well for the countryside community. President Trump’s push to put limits on the number of refugees admitted into the US will likely leave its mark on Lancaster, says Jonathan Charles. [Charles is just some local guy they quoted. Bet you could find a local guy with the complete opposite view—ed]

Stephani Gromek
At least Gromek is being honest! No new refugees means no federal money for her non-profit ‘Christian charity.’

“This current president is not a person we are very fond of. We haven’t had any new arrivals since [Trump] became president. And it will take a few years to see how much it impacts us. But I’m sure that it will.”

Fewer than half as many refugee resettlements are expected this year as compared to last year, says Stephanie Gromek. Still, she remains optimistic: “If we don’t get any refugee arrivals, our organization doesn’t get funding. However, the reasons for what the administration is trying to do are not holding. There’s no weight, no justification for what Trump is trying to do.”

Mayor Gray, however, is worried there might be more at stake and is paying attention to what the migrant community has to say about the political developments in the US. “Some refugees I spoke to are now afraid of what’s going on a national level. They say they’ve seen this kind of thing happening before in their own countries.

“I really hope they’re wrong.”

More here.

See my archive on Lancaster.  There are a lot of posts there.  Don’t miss the one where I attended an Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) meeting in Lancaster a few years ago and first learned that the feds were referring to communities (where citizens were asking questions) as ‘Pockets of Resistance.’  They reported happily that Lancaster and PA generally had no such resisters.

*** Church World Service is the federal government contractor whose subcontractor, Virginia Council of Churches, sent the first refugees to the county where I live in Maryland beginning in about 2006. We were told we were getting spillover from Lancaster of Meskhetian Turks (Sunni Muslims) because there had been some problem in Lancaster. (We never learned what that was, but we heard that from our sheriff at the time.)

You can learn more about CWS’s finances here.

They are 71% funded by the US taxpayer.  So much for Christian charity!

 

Lancaster County, PA refugee economic study is misleading

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

If everything is so copacetic in Lancaster County, then why did it go 57% for Donald Trump?

This is what the Left is so good at—writing studies that are not completely accurate to paint a positive picture of the economic impact of refugees on a community and then use it as a news-hook.
But, in this case the study (the propaganda!) which concluded that immigrants/refugees economically benefit Lancaster County, PA was produced by the real driver of the Open Borders movement, not the Leftwing, do-gooder, ‘humanitarians,’ but business interests who want the ready supply of cheap labor—-the Chamber of Commerce and Bloomberg’s New American Economy cheered on by federal refugee contractor Church World Service which receives most of its funding from you, the taxpayer.  [For more on the New American Economy, go here.–ed]

NEW YORK, NY - DECEMBER 15: Former Mayor of New York City Michael Bloomberg speaks at a press conference announcing a new initiative between the Clinton Foundation, United Nations Foundation and Bloomberg Philanthropies, titled Data 2x on December 15, 2014 in New York City. Data 2x aims to use data-driven analysis to close gender gaps throughout the world. (Photo by Andrew Burton/Getty Images)
Do not trust any propaganda from leading Open Borders advocates like Bloomberg: “Former Mayor of New York City Michael Bloomberg speaks at a press conference announcing a new initiative between the Clinton Foundation, United Nations Foundation and Bloomberg Philanthropies…” http://www.huffingtonpost.com/michael-bloomberg/bloomberg-what-works-cities-data_b_7097304.html (Photo by Andrew Burton/Getty Images)

The article at Philly.com (fake news?) seems to be promoting refugee resettlement, but when you look closely, the educated and hardworking immigrants cited are mostly not refugees—they are Vietnamese (we only take a handful of refugees from Vietnam now), Mexicans, Germans!, Dominicans, and a smaller number of Cubans which we do take as refugees, but shouldn’t be!
But, the most important and misleading aspect of the story is that there is no information in the study about what the refugees/immigrants cost Lancaster County and the federal taxpayer for welfare, subsidized housing, food stamps, medicare, the criminal justice system and a biggie—education for the kids.
The low wages Tyson Foods and other big global corporations pay their labor is supplemented by you, so of course the business community loves this model!
Philly.com:

Lancaster County is Donald Trump land. The president-elect won 57 percent of the 240,000 votes cast there, compared with Hillary Clinton’s 38 percent.

The county of about a half-million people also is home to fast-growing numbers of immigrants and refugees – 23,094 as of last count – whose rate of growth from 2009 to 2014 was nearly double the rate for the county as a whole. Nationwide, immigrants and refugees were among groups often lambasted by candidate Trump.

irwin-bass1
VP Lancaster Chamber of Commerce, Cheryl Irwin-Bass. http://www.lancasterchamber.com/article.aspx?page=executive-biographies&parent=media-center#.WDmpW1ygY2w

But in Lancaster County, according to a study released Tuesday, foreign-born residents have had “an outsize” positive impact on the local economy, and in 2014 contributed $62.8 million to Social Security, $16.4 million to Medicare, $52.5 million in state and local taxes, and $103.3 million in federal taxes. Their spending power was estimated at $440.5 million.

The study was a joint project of the Lancaster County Chamber of Commerce and Industry and the Lancaster County Refugee Coalition. It was conducted and underwritten by the bipartisan New American Economy, a Washington nonprofit whose cochairs include former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg and former Philadelphia Mayor Michael A. Nutter.

[….]

“With the very serious workforce challenges the business community faces, the findings in this report will help us to more fully leverage every person in this county,” Cheryl Irwin-Bass, vice president of the chamber, said when she presented the study at her group’s annual State of the County event.

[….]

The study cites manufacturing and health care as industries in which immigrants have played important roles. Some refugees have obtained jobs at Tyson Foods. [I wonder if refugees who sign up abroad to come here are forewarned about the meatpacking jobs they are expected to fill—ed]

[….]

Church World Service has an office in Lancaster City, and the refugees she helps include Syrians who have had to flee their war-ravaged homeland. The top five immigrant groups are from Vietnam, Dominican Republic, Mexico, Germany, and Cuba. [Mostly NOT refugees—ed]

Philly.com continues here.

lancaster-rally
Rally earlier this year against more refugees for Lancaster. Trump voters! https://refugeeresettlementwatch.org/2016/01/03/pennsylvania-patriots-rally-against-more-muslim-refugees-for-lancaster/

Forget humanitarianism, it is all about money!

If I have done nothing else with this post and years of work on the subject of Refugee Resettlement I hope I have gotten one important message through to you dear reader—-Refugee Resettlement in America is NOT first and foremost about humanitarianism, it is about big business and cheap labor!
I’ve written a lot about Lancaster (Amish country) over the years. My interest began in 2007 when it was Lancaster’s spillover (there was some problem with crime there we were told by our police chief) that came to my county in western Maryland.
Go here for my archive on Lancaster. See especially posts where some very unhappy citizens protested against more refugee resettlement and where the school system endured a very expensive lawsuit filed by lawyers for refugees (I bet Bloomberg didn’t include that cost in his study!).

Lancaster, PA 'welcomes' 500 refugees a year as more family members arrive

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Lancaster Co CoalitionThis is a news story from over a week ago that I’ve been meaning to post because it makes one important point among many points about when a town has become a preferred resettlement site.

The point I want to highlight is that, once a “seed” community is established the resettlement contractors, in this case Church World Service and Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service, will be busy bringing in the family members of the first group and ethnic enclaves will be established!

That is why as I intimated in my previous post that it is very important to learn if your town is being targeted in advance  because once your city or town is an established site it is virtually impossible to stop the growth or even control it.
Here is the gushing news account about Lancaster at Pennlive which early in the story tells us this:

Jessica Knapp
Jessica Knapp, colonizing Lancaster as director of the Lutheran Refugee Services program there. https://www.linkedin.com/pub/jessica-knapp/5b/607/963

Refugee resettlement in Pennsylvania is among the most robust in the nation with Lancaster second to only Philadelphia in resettlement numbers, said Jessica Knapp, interim coalition facilitator at the Lancaster County Refugee Coalition. More than 500 refugees resettle in Lancaster annually, she said.

Then this is what I want you to focus on (wherever you live):

Lancaster is appealing as a resettlement area for its low cost of living, employment possibilities and the city’s walkability, she added. Over time, as refugees sponsor family members over and the population grows, others may also be drawn to the area for its sizable community.

This is why we now have Minneapolis, MN and Columbus, OH as Somali enclaves, or likewise Ft. Wayne, IN for Burmese and so on. This is what the refugee industry calls ‘secondary migration.’
By the way, it was in Lancaster, PA where I first heard about ‘Pockets of Resistance’ and the Office of Refugee Resettlement hiring “Welcoming America” to head off more.
Here we have many other posts on Lancaster.