Obama’s State Department had big plans for new resettlement sites

09/25/2017 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Throughout 2016 we reported on some of the proposed new “welcoming” communities that the Obama team was quietly targeting as new resettlement sites.

Screenshot (867) — When you look through the guide, you will see that many ‘stakeholders’ in your community were engaged in planning for refugees even while you, the taxpayer, was kept in the dark

One of those was Pittsfield, Mass (here and here).

Today we have news that since the number of paying clients (aka refugees) was declining under Trump, some of those sites are being cancelled. One is Pittsfield. See Feds drop plan for Pittsfield, here.

And, recently we reported that the new Episcopal church office in Charleston, WV was also cancelled.

But, I did see that, although the Rutland, Vermont pro-refugee-welcoming mayor lost his election bid, the arrogant contractor USCRI has applied for 100 Syrians and Iraqis again for FY18 (they likely won’t get them, but it makes for a media opportunity to bash Trump when they don’t).

For new readers, (assuming the DOS is keeping it up to date), go here to see the available resettlement sites. They can resettle within 100 miles of each location.

For all of you trying to stay on top of the issue—-which towns are targeted AND WHY!—here is the Dept. of State’s New Site Guide introduced by none-other than Laurence Bartlett.

Note that it is undated, but I believe it was prepared in anticipation of an expansion of the program toward the end of the Obama Administration (an expansion that obviously didn’t happen).

Screenshot (868) — Bartlett was the headliner at the recent Heritage Foundation event: https://refugeeresettlementwatch.org/2017/09/14/is-the-heritage-foundation-selling-you-out-on-unus-refugee-admissions-policy/

This post is filed in my ‘Where to find information’ category. I suggest you download the guide before it disappears.

One of the things in the document is the list of items that the local contracting agency must have available for its new clients—right down to the towels and kitchen utensils. So, if you get word that your local contractor isn’t meeting its contractual obligations, raise a red flag!

And, take note of the fact that in about 90 days the resettlement agency contractor is done with them, and they are in your town or city’s care.

For new readers, here are the nine major contractors which receive compensation on a per-head basis for each refugee they place in your town:

Syrians only trickling in, but Obama State Dept. says they will get to 10,000 this year

02/23/2016 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

We’ve been reporting, see here, that the US State Department is way behind in meeting Obama’s goal of admitting 10,000 Syrians to the US by the end of the fiscal year (September 30th).
However, here at The Nation, Lawrence Bartlett, Director of Refugee Admissions at the US State Department, says they expect to get them in here and located in 48 states (they would like to make it 49 with Montana) before that deadline:

Bartlett with map — Putting pins in the map? Bartlett, US State Dept. Refugee Admissions Director says they are aiming to get the 10,000 Syrians in here this year as Obama promised. Here he stands in front of the map showing 190 towns and cities where they could be located. Map: http://www.wrapsnet.org/Portals/1/Affiliate%20Directory%20Posting/PRM%20Affilaite%20Map%20with%20details1.13.15.pdf

It’s common for resettlement numbers to start low and increase by the end of the fiscal year. Still, the difficulty the administration will have in admitting a mere 10,000 Syrians in a single year underscores the deep political challenges facing the Obama administration in responding to the ongoing Syrian civil war. In the months since the announcement, high-profile terror attacks in Paris and San Bernardino have stoked anti-immigrant sentiment in the United States, and the already onerous refugee resettlement application process has become even more stringent for Syrians. Despite this, the State Department says it still plans to meet its goal.

“We remain steadfastly committed to the President’s plan to resettle at least 10,000 Syrian refugees in the United States in FY [fiscal year] 2016,” said Lawrence Bartlett, director of the State Department’s Office of Refugee Admissions, in a statement to The Nation. “We have met our admissions goals for each of the last three years, and we are on target to meet the goal of admitting 10,000 refugees from Syria and 85,000 refugees from all over the world, by the end of this fiscal year.” (The State Department didn’t set specific goals for Syrian refugees until this year, and only 1,682 were admitted in FY 2015.)

Has the so-called “interview surge” started?

Bartlett added that to meet the new goal, “from February through April, additional staff will be posted to Jordan, where they will conduct and support interviews of 10,000 UNHCR-referred refugee applicants,” referring to the UN’s refugee agency. In addition to the new efforts in Jordan, Barlett said the United States “will restart Department of Homeland Security refugee resettlement interviews in Beirut, Lebanon on February 18, 2016.” The vast majority of Syrian refugees are in the neighboring countries of Turkey, Jordan, and Lebanon.

Still, it’s unlikely that any of the refugees who begin the screening process this month would be able to travel to the United States by October, the end of the fiscal year.

Read the whole article. It sounds to me that (despite Obama’s pronouncements) we have many steadfast officials in our security apparatus that are taking the screening process very seriously.
See in red, one more reminder that the UN is picking our refugees!
For our many new readers: Just now as I retrieved the link for the resettlement office map I was reminded that we have a page for “Frequently Asked Questions” on the header above. Please visit it!
A list of all resettlement offices is here.

More news about Syrian Muslims headed to Kentucky

02/02/2015 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

While I slept, Pungentpeppers was busy reading the latest news…..

And, by the way, the last time we reported on Syrians headed to Kentucky, Nebraska and North Dakota it was our top post for three weeks running!

The US State Department’s man in charge of refugees coming to America, Laurence Bartlett: “The US will be a significant player” in the resettlement of Syrians and private resettlement agencies will determine where they go!

The State Department has been slow gearing up for the big Syrian push and in this article at The Courier-Journal they claim it’s due to the United Nations being slow to get them a list.

REMEMBER! it is the UN choosing who is coming to America.

They say we do intensive security screening, but logically that is impossible because who is going to supply records (what court records? what government documents?) when the whole region has been in turmoil for years.

Here is the latest from The Courier-Journal:

Twenty-one Syrian refugees will arrive in Louisville over the next two weeks, a figure expected to increase in Kentucky and beyond as the U.S. begins to take in an expanded number of refugees fleeing Syria’s bloody civil war.

The refugees, from four families who fled to Jordan and Egypt, are part of a larger U.S. resettlement effort expected to bring as many as 10,000 Syrians to cities throughout the nation over the next several years, according to the U.S. State Department.

[….]

The U.S. has accepted few Syrian refugees in recent years, sparking criticism that it was slow to respond. But Bartlett said the U.N. only recently has sought to resettle larger numbers. The State Department is now reviewing nearly 10,000 referrals from the office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. By contrast, just 323 Syrians were resettled in the U.S. in 2014.

The U.N. is asking an array of nations to take in 100,000 refugees through 2016, Bartlett said, and the U.S. will be a “significant player.”

Although private resettlement agencies will determine where they go, last year some arrived in California, Illinois and Texas. Bartlett predicted resettlements would reach 1,000 to 2,000 through this fiscal year and would grow more quickly in the subsequent 12 months. While no ceiling on Syrians has been set, the U.S. has a cap of 70,000 total global refugees a year.

[….]

Kentucky, home to two Louisville resettlement affiliates, has taken in 6,428 refugees since 2011, including 1,113 from Iraq, according to the State Department figures. That has left the area with resources and interpreters that could make it a landing spot for Syrians, Koehlinger said, though exact numbers are unknown.

“We’ll probably have a significant number here in Louisville” by summer, said Darko Mihaylovich, director of Louisville’s Catholic Charities Refugee and Migration Services.

The Iraqi terrorists in the next section did have a “record,” at least one of them had fingerprints on an IED that killed American National Guardsmen in Iraq and no one had ever put the prints together with the fraudulent refugee application to America.

Advocates said the refugees from Syria bring added security concerns, in part because of fears of Islamic extremism among Islamic State followers and others.

In 2013, two Iraqi refugees living in Bowling Green, Ky., were sentenced on terrorism charges. They were arrested in 2011 after helping a confidential government informant load cash and weapons that they thought were bound for al-Qaida in Iraq into a tractor-trailer.

Read on, the article is full of information including the fact that a local Islamic Center is getting geared up to welcome the new Muslims.

By the way, Kentucky is a Wilson-Fish state and as such the program is run by contractors and the federal government (UN!) with no Kentucky state government say-so!

Senator Mitch McConnell has obviously not protected Kentucky for all of his time in the Senate. Senator Rand Paul did speak up here in 2013 when he wanted to know why we needed to bring in all the Iraqis. You may not like Senator Paul, but he may be the only one in a position to put the breaks on the Syrian resettlement for Kentucky and for America (if he wanted to!).

The UN is gearing up and so is the State Department so that by the time a new President enters office in January 2017 there will be no hope of stopping this train.

About the photo: Do you see that map behind Bartlett? That is the map I referred to in my presentation in St. Louis this past weekend. You can find it online by clicking here. It depicts the 180 or so cities that have contractors working in them and that are being colonized. Any smaller town within a hundred miles is fair game.

New Somalis arrive in Minneapolis in droves after 2008 dip; end up in homeless shelters

11/02/2014 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

I didn’t mean to make this Somali Sunday but here are our two other posts just this morning (here and here) on the impact of Somalis arriving in extremely large numbers in the US right now as part of the Obama Administration’s increasing focus on Somali refugees (Syrian and Iraqi Muslims feature prominently too).

This is some really good reporting at the Minneapolis Star Tribune yesterday by reporter MILA KOUMPILOVA . Hat tip: ‘pungentpeppers’

As I began reading the news, I was expecting to see no information about why the Somali pipeline to America came to a grinding halt in 2008—the discovery that a large number (thousands) of Somalis had lied on their application to come to America to join family members who were found to be not related at all to the applicants.

I am happy to report it is all here.

US State Department: We want them to stay where we have allocated money through a contractor for them. They want to be with their own people in Minnesota. Nevertheless, we will keep bringing them in! Photo: http://www.c-span.org/video/?309771-1/terrorists-refugee-programs

The article also sheds light on how Somalis resettled in other cities are hightailing-it to Minneapolis to be with their own kind of people (something we would be vilified for should we admit we want to be with our own kind of people).

As they move too quickly to Minnesota they leave behind their financial support (welfare set-up) that comes through the original refugee resettlement contractor.

We won’t be able to highlight as much of this as we would like, because it is jam-packed with information, but here are a few nuggets that interested me. Be sure to read the whole article yourself!

Star Tribune (emphasis mine) setting the stage:

A week after the United States government resettled them in Connecticut this summer, Nur Ali and his wife, Mahado Mohamed, had decided: They were moving to Minnesota. [Lucky Connecticut!—ed]

Tales of the state’s large Somali community had intrigued them back in the Kenyan refugee camp where they had married and had five children. Now, a Somali man they met in Hartford told them all recent arrivals head to Minnesota, home of “Little Mogadishu.”

After a major dip in 2008, the yearly numbers of new Somali refugees in Minnesota have rebounded steadily. The number of Somalis resettled in the state has more than tripled in four years. As resettlements nationally have picked up, more Somalis are also arriving here after brief stints in other states — often trading early support from resettlement agencies for the company of more fellow Somalis.

“You tend to go somewhere you can connect,” said Mohamud Noor, the head of the Confederation of Somali Community in Minnesota. “Before people even arrive from Africa, they know they are coming to Minnesota.”

But without the Twin Cities family ties of earlier arrivals, these newcomers often can’t lean as heavily on longer-term Somali residents. Mary’s Place, a Minneapolis homeless shelter, has become ground zero for families like Ali and Mohamed’s. Somali participation in the state’s public food assistance program doubled in the past five years. Meanwhile, the Minneapolis School District, its Somali student enrollment up 70 percent since 2011, launched eight classrooms with instruction in both English and Somali to help newcomers catch up. [So who pays for all this?—you do!—ed]

State Department discovers massive fraud in family reunification program for Somalis!

Ali and Mohamed are part of a new wave of Somali refugees. Until 2008, the state resettled only refugees reuniting with family here.

But that year, DNA tests showed only about 20 percent of applicants in a refugee family reunification program, most of them from Africa, were actually related to their stateside sponsors. The program was suspended, even as Somalis argued a broader definition of family was as much a factor as fraud. The number of new Somali arrivals plummeted, from a high of more than 3,200 in 2006 to 180 in 2009.

Meanwhile, more stringent background checks for refugees in 2010 snarled the application process. Larry Bartlett, the U.S. Refugee Admissions program director, says the streamlining of security checks since and the resumption of the family reunification program in 2012 led to the recent increase in Somali arrivals — a trend he expects to continue in the next few years.

Somalis move even though their benefits don’t follow!

When these refugees move too soon after arriving in a different state, they get cut off from resettlement agencies there responsible for finding homes and jobs for them. Noor, whose group tries to assist newcomers with navigating the transition, says the federal government needs to do more to discourage this early migration. At the U.S. State Department, Bartlett says staff members strive to honor refugees’ host city preference. Some refugees even sign a document affirming they are going to the city where they want to stay.

“The problem with moving quickly is that the benefits don’t always follow you,” Bartlett said. “We really try to impress that upon them.” [So, does the contractor still get its cut of each refugee’s allocation?—ed]

Read it all!

Who is responsible for the Somali mess in Minnesota besides the aforementioned US State Department? Lutheran Social Services, Catholic Charities, and World Relief Minnesota. See one of our top posts (from 2011) of all time here.

Minnesota readers should be sure to save this important and informative story.

Federal officials visit refugee-overloaded Lewiston, ME: we feel your pain, but isn’t much we can do

07/02/2013 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

This is a bit of old news from January that I just came across today. I hadn’t seen it, so I figured you might not have either.

Laurence Bartlett (DOS) and Eskinder Negash (ORR) listen to complaints in Lewiston, ME. Photo: Scott Taylor Sun Journal

Seems that head honchos from the US State Department and the Office of Refugee Resettlement traveled to Maine (and elsewhere) to calm the locals.

But, how many times have we been told that everything is copacetic in Somali-overloaded Lewiston? If everything was just peachy these two wouldn’t have bothered to go there in the first place.

From the Lewiston Sun Journal:

LEWISTON — Federal immigration and refugee resettlement policies will continue to be felt by local communities, federal officials told a roomful of city and social agency representatives Wednesday.

Eskinder Negash, director of the federal Office of Refugee Resettlement, and Larry Bartlett, director of the Office of Refugee Admissions, discussed immigration policies at Lewiston City Hall.

It was part of a two-day trip through Maine, one of many similar meetings held around the country* throughout the year. A similar meeting was held Tuesday in Portland.

Desired by whom?

Immigration policy is shaped by two factors: a desire to help less fortunate people and fiscal realities at home.

The humanitarian industrial complex wants more refugees, but it’s up to local folks to pay for it and tolerate the cultural upheaval! That is not exactly the words used, but that is what they are saying! To me, the “humanitarians” are like little children who want more stuff regardless if Mommy and Daddy have the money to pay for it.

When the “humanitarians” say jump, the feds ask, “how high?”

“There is no greater responsibility than that (which) we get from community leaders to make sure refugees get the support they deserve,” Bartlett said. “But there are many pressures from the humanitarian side of our country to grow this program.”

Too bad that some cities “find themselves” in a tough place! We are willing to listen but that’s about all we can do!

Cities such as Lewiston find themselves in a tough place with little federal support when refugees begin calling it home.

“In some ways, we have a challenging program and you feel the effects on a community level, and we have to thank you for that,” Bartlett said. “We don’t have all the answers and that’s why we have these discussions to hear what the problems are.”

For local officials, the biggest problem is a lack of federal aid for education, English language and other resettlement programs.

Heck, the State Department doesn’t have money to give to communities (only to our contractors!), and it’s up to the state to decide how much money to send to struggling overloaded towns. Sun Journal story continued:

Bartlett said his office, part of the State Department, has no programs designed to help at the local level. Negash, whose office is part of the federal Health and Human Services agency, said there is federal help, but it’s limited.

“The money goes to the state,” Negash said. “The money always goes to the state, and the state has all the discretion it needs to use the money.”

Bartlett: We just carry out the will of Congress. We feel your pain, but not much we can do about it. Criticize us, but ain’t nothing gonna change!

Those funding and policy priorities are decided by Congress, the officials said.

“This is the way this country has designed this program to work,” Bartlett said. “We know it works, but it’s not perfect and we accept criticism willingly.”

Readers, if you live in overloaded refugee resettlement hotspots, you must complain to your Member of Congress and US Senators. And, don’t be afraid of someone calling you a racist! This is one more of a long list of state’s rights issues abused by Washington.

* By the way, not long ago we reported on the ‘we-feel-your-pain roadshow’ to Ft. Wayne, Indiana.

For new readers, click here for our extensive archive on Lewiston, ME. Be sure to see this post on Maine as a welfare magnet and the role of Catholic Charities in bringing Somalis to Maine in the first place.

For our Maine readers, your Senators Angus King and Susan Collins want MORE refugees and immigrants. They both voted for S.744, the amnesty bill.