Neil Munro writing atBreitbartyesterday confirms what we know, the refugee industry does not want local citizens to have a say when their towns and cities are chosen by federal resettlement contractors and approved by the US State Department as new homes for impoverished third worlders.
Remember that when Obama left office in 2016 his State Department and the resettlement contractors (Volags) were busy identifying nearly 50 new sites in which to expand their efforts to change America by changing the people.
In fact they had produced a guide that could be used by local open borders activists (without public input) to identify and put in place the necessary amenities that could then be submitted in an application to the State Department for approval of the town or city.
If Biden/Harris are installed in the White House look for them to be dusting off a plan to secretively identify new sites.
Below is a bit of what Munro said yesterday, but please read the whole thing.
FromBreitbart (thanks to several readers who sent it my way):
Foreign Refugee Managers: Keep Americans in the Dark
Nearly all managers in taxpayer-funded, refugee-delivery organizations say the public should have no say about the delivery of unskilled refugees into Americans’ neighborhoods, job markets, and schools, says a survey by refugee groups.
The 61-page surveywas released December 8 by the Refugee Council USA [That is the lobbying arm for the refugee industry in Washington, DC–ed] and the Center for Migration Studies, as the refugee groups cheered Joe Biden for his campaign-trail promise to dramatically expand the flow of low-wage refugees into Americans’ workplaces.
The number Biden is promising is 125,000 in the first year. See my post yesterday.
Just 15 percent of managers in refugee agencies, and just 14 percent of refugee officials in state governments, said that “neighborhood associations” should be “given a voice in the Refugee Resettlement process,” according to a chart on page 27 of the survey.
Once warned, many neighborhood groups protest against the delivery of refugees by the groups, which are dubbed VOLAGs because the official government term is a “Voluntary Agency.”
Most VOLAG respondents also argued that the federal government should not give a voice to Americans’ local governments:
Fifty-eight percent of survey respondents believe that the federal government should consult with state and local officials about resettlement but should not be required to obtain their consent before refugees are resettled. Smaller percentages believed that state and local officials should neither be consulted nor required to consent (19 percent).
Bartlett is standing in front of a map of refugee resettlement sites across the country. It is a map you cannot find anymore. Likewise as we reported recently it is no longer possible to get real time refugee arrival numbers or to learn where they were dropped off upon arrival.
Former Director of refugee admissions at the State Department, Lawrence Bartlett, the author of the introductory letter (below) to the New Site Development Guide had been pushed aside in the early Trump years, but by 2018 he was backat Population, Refugees and Migration.
I assume he is still there, but even if he isn’t, you can be sure that his deep state pals are all in place and ready to push forward if Biden succeeds in stealing the Presidency.
So we soon could be back to where we were in 2016 BT (Before Trump), having to fight in our own communities through grassroots skirmishes against Washington and its fake non-profit resettlement contractors.
And don’t expect help from Congress where the Republican chickens who rule the roost are provided their chicken scratch by massive global corporations always on the hunt for cheap migrant labor.
Don’t think for a minute that you, citizens and taxpayers, are “stakeholders!” You do not have a say!
For new readers these are the nine fake non-profits that will be making the primary decisions about how your town or city will be changed. From page 6 of the New Site Guide:
It has been missing for awhile! What is up with that. I thought we were going to have more transparency for communities that are (or might become) refugee placement towns and cities. This is former State Department Director of the Office of Refugee Resettlement, Larry Bartlett, proudly standing in front of the site map that PREVIOUSLY was posted annually at Wrapsnet along with a directory list of sites.
This morning I saw this brief mention about Ann Arbor that had been fingered as a possible new resettlement site at the end of the Obama Administration when his State Department was planning as many as 40 new sites (older ones getting overloaded?). Michigan Live:
Samaritas, Michigan’s largest refugee resettlement agency, had planned to open an Ann Arbor office and that’s now on hold because there are not enough refugees coming to the area any more, according to John Yim, supervisor of new Americans in Michigan for Samaritas.
(For new readers Samaritas is the Lutheran resettlement agency. Why did they change their name? Who knows.)
You might want to visit this post in which I reported on the State Department’s “New Site Development Guide” published under Bartlett’s leadership.
The Ann Arbor mention reminded me to check Wrapsnet for the:
R&P AGENCY CONTACT LIST EXTERNAL DISTRIBUTION
The most recent map (like the one Bartlett is showing-off in the photo) is from FY16, but the full contact list is missing.
It hasn’t been available for awhile, so how is anyone supposed to know if their town or city has a refugee office? I suspect its absence is also hampering the refugee industry activists. Don’t we all have a right to know where refugees are being placed and which of the hundreds of subcontractors are still open for business?
The old list ishere at my blog.
We have been hearing that as many as 100 of the 350 or so offices are to be closed, and we would like to know which ones!
Where is the transparency?
Come on State Department, what are you hiding? There are really only two reasons for not making this information available: incompetence or they want to hide something.
This post might be going into the deep state weeds for many readers, but since beltway news hounds read RRW too, this is worth posting.
Larry Bartlett, prior to being assigned to the Freedom of Information Office at the State Department, was the main career guru (under the Asst. Sec. of State level) responsible for refugee admissions during the Obama years and, as we witnessed in his performance in Idaho, here, a few years back, is a true believer in the program.
At that event he was completely dismissive of local citizens’ concerns about their safety, about the cost of the program, and about the lack of transparency citizens’ see in the resettlement process. Bartlett proudly displaying map showing where he was sending refugees in the US
You can see my Lawrence Bartlett archive byclicking here. Complaining that the State Department under Trump is partisan, two Dems in Congress show their colors by campaigning to get Bartlett back to work advocating for more refugees within the deep state. Continue reading “Far Left Dems trying to rescue Larry Bartlett from purgatory at State Department”→
The State Department is notorious for either delaying answering ‘Freedom of Information Act’ requests, or never answering them at all.
In fact, although I used FOIA a number of years ago with another federal agency, I never bothered with it on the refugee issue knowing of the State Department’s horrible reputation for stonewalling the public. Sec. of State Tillerson orders FOIA backlog cleaned up! Transparency here we come! (I hope!) This storyat CNN from several days ago, got my attention because a former bigwig in the Bureau of Population Refugees and Migration was recently assigned to Tillerson’s admirable project of clearing the backlog of FOIA requests —-Laurence Bartlett (here). CNN says disgruntled State Dept. employees sent to the FOIA office are hiring lawyers because they feel such work is beneath them. (The article does not list Bartlett as one of those seeking a legal remedy to what is described as a demotion.)
Frankly, it makes enormous sense to me to place experienced people in that office because how would someone with no history with certain departments at the State Department know where to find the information requested. Here is CNN’s “exclusive” story from nearly a week ago:
Washington (CNN) A growing number of State Department employees are charging they are being put in career purgatory because of their previous work on policy priorities associated with President Barack Obama and in offices the Trump administration is interested in closing.
The situation has got so serious that several officials tell CNN they have retained attorneys after repeatedly trying unsuccessfully to raise concerns about being assigned to low-level jobs in Foggy Bottom such as answering Freedom of Information Act requests.
The issue has also come to the attention of senior Democrats on Capitol Hill.
Secretary of State Rex Tillerson has made clearing a backlog of FOIA requests a priority and reassigned staff to what State Department spokesperson Heather Nauert has called “an all-hands on deck” effort to clear the backlog. Significant progress has been made, and the number of outstanding requests — which stood at 22,000 in January 2017 — has been reduced to about 13,000, Tillerson said in November, adding that he hopes the backlog will be cleared by the end of 2018.
The backlog grew over the last several years in part due to numerous requests from journalists and conservative groups, including Judicial Watch and Citizens United, for records relating to Hillary Clinton’s emails. [LOL! Leave it to CNN to blame the backlog on rightwingers!—ed]
When Lawrence Bartlett was the lead panelist at a Heritage Foundation event last fall, along with other inside the beltway types, I knew Heritage had no clue about what was really happening with refugees in your towns and cities. https://refugeeresettlementwatch.org/2017/09/14/is-the-heritage-foundation-selling-you-out-on-unus-refugee-admissions-policy/
“Those helping with FOIA requests have a range of skills and backgrounds, from interns to deputy assistant secretaries,” Nauert told CNN. “The assignments are temporary — some staffing the office are simply between assignments as they determine their next step.”
But many of those assigned to the “FOIA Surge” effort resemble a band of misfit toys, including several ambassadors returning from overseas and senior career and civil service members who were detailed to other agencies. Others worked in offices created by Obama as policy priorities, which the Trump administration has announced it intends to close.
[….]
Nauert said that employees are being asked to serve in the FOIA office due to need, “without regard to politics.”
“There is a job that needs to be done,” Nauert said. “It may not be a glamorous job, but it’s an important one.”
Lawrence Bartlett, the head of refugee admissions in the State Department’s bureau of Population Refugees and Migration was recently benched and assigned as a “senior adviser” to the FOIA office. His case was first reported by Reuters.
The State Department said Bartlett’s assignment was temporary but has not said whether he would return to the post or whether someone would cover his position in his absence.
Several current and former officials fear the decision to reassign Bartlett, a leading advocate for refugees in the State Department, is part of the Trump administration’s wider effort to limit refugee resettlement in the US.
The federal refugee contractors, that altogether receive over a half a billion a year of your money to place refugees in your towns and cities, must be using reporters at Reuters to get their messages out to the public. I laughed when I saw that Reuters used a shot from when Bartlett headlined the Heritage Foundation ‘educational’ panel discussion on the US Refugee program last September. I had planned to do the same thing (use a shot from the panel discussion). When Heritage held this event, with inside the beltway types, I knew they had no clue about what was really happening with refugees in your towns and cities. https://refugeeresettlementwatch.org/2017/09/14/is-the-heritage-foundation-selling-you-out-on-unus-refugee-admissions-policy/
Here we have news that Lawrence Bartlett, some of you have seen his advocacy for more refugees (and antipathy to local citizens) first hand, has been sidelined at the US State Department. Later in the Reuters storyhe says, not so fast!
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A U.S. official who has been a defender of refugees has been sidelined within the State Department in what some advocates and former officials fear is part of the Trump administration’s goal of limiting refugee resettlement in the United States.
Lawrence Bartlett, head of refugee admissions at the State Department’s Population, Refugees and Migration bureau, is now on a temporary assignment at another office, a State Department spokeswoman said.
Bartlett’s future leadership of the refugee office has been in doubt for months. He is now a temporary senior adviser at the State Department office that handles requests for information under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA).
Sending a civil servant of his experience and rank to that office is unusual, according to current and former U.S. officials who spoke on condition of anonymity.
A current official described such a re-assignment as a form of internal exile like being sent “to Siberia.”
Really! Is that why the State Department has an abysmal record and reputation for not answering FOIA requests? Either they do nothing there or they work really hard to figure out what not to tell you. When they do tell you, it is YEARS later! Is that why it is like Siberia? Bartlett says he has “NOT been permanently reassigned.” The Reuters go-to gal for Hans? https://twitter.com/yjtorbati
Bartlett did not respond to a range of questions about his new role, but did say he has not been told the assignment is permanent.
“I can assure you that I have NOT been permanently reassigned from my position with the refugee program,” Bartlett wrote in an e-mail to Reuters.
Refugee advocates say Bartlett was a strong and effective advocate for the resettlement program inside the Trump administration.
I found this little nugget (below) interesting. Here we learn that the State Department Bureau of Population Refugees and Migration bureaucrats chit-chat via e-mail regularly with their contractors. Hey! what about us! We pay for all this, why can’t we see those e-mails. Gee maybe we could FOIA them!
Since approximately November, Bartlett has not been included on communications between the State Department and outside refugee agencies that he normally would have been, one person involved in refugee resettlement said.
Keep reading here. Reutersquotes Hans (again). So is Hans Van de Weerdthe conduit for getting anti-Trump messages out of the DOS and Homeland Security and to Reuters?
See my complete Lawrence Bartlett archivehere. Prior to being assigned to the FOIA office, Bartlett was in Puerto Rico for a month, here.
