Tag: Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service

Lutherans may be operating centers for ‘unaccompanied minors’ in your state

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Just can’t get away from it.  The issue of  illegal alien teens (and to a lesser extent women and children) surging across our border is inescapable.  And, so you know that its not just the Catholics cashing in on the crisis, here is the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod with its action appeal for its master—Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Services!

We don’t know who the 45 partners are, but below are LIRS subcontractors.

Gotta keep up their real estate holdings! The Lutheran Center (LIRS headquarters) is a six-story structure constructed in 1999 on property owned by Baltimore’s historic Christ Lutheran Church. The building is located near Baltimore’s Inner Harbor in the historic Federal Hill neighborhood, a charming area rich with history and an eclectic array of eateries and shopping venues.

More than 45 Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service (LIRS) partners are providing care and services to help the influx of unaccompanied immigrant children crossing the southern U.S. border in response to what is being called a humanitarian crisis.

That support is being provided at the request of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of Refugee Resettlement — the government body with whom LIRS has worked as an “advocate and strong partner” for the past decade on behalf of the safety of unaccompanied immigrant children, said Kimberly Haynes, LIRS director of Children’s Services.

LIRS was asked “to expand and engage networks” to help meet the growing needs of thousands of children, including many fleeing “horrific” situations in Central America, Haynes said.

Before I give you their state affiliates, check out this post we wrote in May of last year about their finances.  (This was when LIRS was lobbying for S.744).

Have a look at a recent Form 990 for Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Services, page 9. They had income in that year of $31,653,748 and, of that, you, the taxpayers of America, gave them $30,376,568.  Their CEO* makes $204,186 in salary and benefits.  Where is the ACLU?  No separation of church and state here!   The church is the state!  Just wait until CAIR figures all this out and starts demanding the Muslim share of your tax dollars!

Looks like about 96% of their budget comes from you (the US taxpayer)!

They are probably jumping for joy this afternoon as the word spreads that Obama now wants $3.7 Billion for the “crisis,” a chunk of which will flow into LIRS coffers!  That earlier $2 billion looks like chicken scratch in comparison!

Here is a list of LIRS subcontractors.  If you have one in your town, you might call them and ask if they are bringing illegal alien “children” as an #ActOfLove to your community.  See our May 28th post about LIRS lobbying campaign for the alien minors.  They call it #ActOfLove (if you are on twitter join the fun there!).

Arizona
Lutheran Social Services of the Southwest, Phoenix and Tuscon

California
Interfaith Refugee and Immigration Service, Los Angeles

Colorado (New Mexico)
Lutheran Family Services Rocky Mountains, Denver

Florida
Lutheran Social Services of Northeast Florida, Jacksonville
Lutheran Services Florida, Miami, Orlando and Tampa

Georgia
Lutheran Services of Georgia, Atlanta

Illinois
RefugeeOne, Chicago

Maryland
Lutheran Social Services of the National Capital Area, Silver Spring

Massachusetts
Lutheran Social Services of New England, West Springfield and Worcester

Michigan
Lutheran Social Services of Michigan, Battle Creek, Grand Rapids and Southfield

Minnesota
Lutheran Social Service of Minnesota, Minneapolis and Pelican Rapids

Nebraska
Lutheran Family Services of Nebraska, Omaha

New Hampshire
Lutheran Social Services of New England, Concord

New York
Lutheran Social Services of New York, New York City
Mohawk Valley Resource Center for Refugees, Utica

North Dakota
Lutheran Social Services of North Dakota—Center for New Americans, Bismarck, Fargo and Grand Forks

Oregon
Lutheran Community Services Northwest, Portland

Pennsylvania
Lutheran Children and Family Services of Eastern Pennsylvania, Lancaster and Philadelphia

South Carolina
Lutheran Family Services in the Carolinas—Refugee Resettlement Program, Columbia

South Dakota
Lutheran Social Services of South Dakota, Huron and Sioux Falls

Texas
Refugee Services of Texas, Dallas, Fort Worth, Austin, Amarillo and Houston

Virginia
Lutheran Social Services of the National Capital Area, Falls Church

Washington
Lutheran Community Services Northwest, Seattle and Vancouver

Wisconsin
Lutheran Social Services of Wisconsin and Upper Michigan, Madison and Milwaukee

Wyoming
Lutheran Family Services Rocky Mountains, Casper

All of our previous posts on ‘unaccompanied minors’ are here.

Lansing, Michigan likely to get illegal alien kids, but it is all hush-hush

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

And, we are told that Lansing has been very “welcoming” to refugees in the past.

The Office of Refugee Resettlement continues its site shopping…..

The children are mostly teenaged boys. Photos: http://www.breitbart.com/Breitbart-Texas/2014/06/05/Leaked-Images-Reveal-Children-Warehoused-in-Crowded-US-Cells-Border-Patrol-Overwhelmed

Note it’s the Lutherans again here!  (Remember they are contracted by the feds to serve the kids!).

From City Pulse:

So long as they are not Mexican or Canadian, unaccompanied children who enter the U.S. illegally can be held in custody by the federal government for up to 72 hours. After that, they are transferred to the Office of Refugee Resettlement, where they are then placed in temporary shelters where they await foster care, a family member or a relative who can “claim” them or deportation.

Michigan houses two of the nation’s 22 shelter programs for unaccompanied refugee minors: Lutheran Social Services in Lansing and Bethany Christian Services in Grand Rapids. [Bethany is the agency that got lucky and had the convicted murderer as a client, here.—ed]

Bates said that because Michigan plays a large role in offering shelter programs, the influx of children at the nation’s southwest border will be felt here as well.

“A crisis like this strips resources from social services,” he said. How much Michigan will be affected, however, is unknown — officials have been guarded at best in discussing the matter.

The feds asked the Lutherans to not say a word to the media!

On Friday, Michigan United and Michigan Immigrant Right Center hosted an emergency conference call to coordinate an advocacy response about “the emerging issues for immigrant children,” but it was closed to the media.

Representatives from Lutheran Social Services of Michigan and Bethany Christian Services said they were unable to release data on unaccompanied minor children they house or comment on the Central American surge of children without authorization.

“The federal government has asked us to not talk about the increase in numbers or the humanitarian crisis at the border,” said Diane Baird, program manager of Lutheran Social Services.

“Historically, Lansing and the mid- Michigan area have been very welcoming,” she said.

See Lutherans lobbying for the “unaccompanied minors” here.

San Diego refugee, one of 50 sent to Washington to lobby for the Lutherans

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

We told you here last month that the Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service (LIRS) was organizing fifty refugees to go to Washington last week to lobby for more funds (more of your tax dollars) for themselves and their fellow resettlement contractors.***

Poor Sedrick Ntwali probably thinks his quest for your money will be money to help his fellow San Diego refugees, but instead any windfall will go first to the “unaccompanied minors” now called “refugees” and then to fat salaries and nice office digs for the contractors.  And, I sure hope LIRS paid for the trip out of privately raised dollars and not federal grants! (96% of LIRS budget comes from US taxpayers!).

Ntwali went to Washington and I bet you paid for his trip!

‘San Diego Refugee Lobbies Congress For More Resettlement Dollar’, from KPBS:

[Sedrick] Ntwali is in Washington, D.C. this week to ask members of Congress to boost funds for refugees. He’s one of 50 others selected for the trip by the Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service, a 75-year-old resettlement agency.

Those “unaccompanied kids” are getting all the new money!  (Although remember that LIRS is also contracted to take care of a bunch of the kids and is lobbying for more $$$ for that too!).

This year’s U.S. Office of Refugee Resettlement budget included an additional $530 million, increasing its budget to nearly $1.5 billion. But that went to help with a spike in the number of unaccompanied children crossing into the U.S. from Central America. There was little change in resources for the growing number of refugees coming from Burma, or Myanmar, and the recent influx of refugees from Iraq and Iran. Next fiscal year, Congress again is adding funds for child immigrants crossing the border.

Problems in San Diego for refugees, according to Ntwali:

He said there isn’t enough affordable housing and employment resources for refugees in San Diego.

[….]

There’s a lot of agencies here in City Heights that help refugees. But their support is not really enough to give to all refugees that are here. There are three big issues here in San Diego. First of all is housing. They are really having problems finding affordable housing. You’ll see a family of six or seven sleeping in a one- or two-bedroom. Secondly, opportunity; refugees do not have good job opportunities here. And the other issue is integration.  [Lots of problems with resettlement in San Diego, click here for more—ed].

Not enough housing, not enough jobs but no one ever says:  Let’s slow this program down, we can’t take care of all these people!

(Lots of problems with resettlement in San Diego, click here for more)

By the way, another $1 billion goes to the UN High Commissioner for Refugees every year (they pick our refugees!) and the US State Department budget must be approaching $2 billion by now for refugees.

Readers, if you are of the Lutheran faith and are sick of what is happening with your church being taken over by the Religious Left,  join the on-line discussion at LutherQuest.org and connect with your fellow Lutherans on this topic and others.

***The contractors:

 

Invasion on the border: “religious groups” telling them to come!

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

It occurred to me over the last couple of days that what we are seeing is the old “Sanctuary Movement” of the 1980’s on steroids.

Update:  See also the “Childrens Crusade” with Obama, Alinsky and the “healthiest looking refugees” here, thanks to Judy.

If you don’t remember it, look back at some of my posts on the topic (here is a pretty good summary with links from 2011).   In fact, the Sanctuary Movement was responsible for the birth of the now notorious CASA de Maryland in our home state.  (See one of many posts at Potomac Tea Party Report on the “religious LEFT” and CASA, here).

One of the few books written on the “Sanctuary Movement” is a must-read for anyone trying to understand the ‘Religious Left’ and its role with illegal migration. http://www.upress.umn.edu/book-division/books/god-and-caesar-at-the-rio-grande

In the early 1980s, churches (mostly Catholic Churches/Chicago Catholics, some protestant churches especially Presbyterians and Lutherans, and the Quakers) helped illegal Central Americans get through Mexico and then across a much better guarded border than we seem to have today.

The churches then hid the illegals and transported them to other church shelters across America, one of those was in Takoma Park, Maryland where CASA was born.  And, what a coincidence, Takoma Park is the home of the infamous Obama Labor Secretary Thomas Perez (Maryland! Watch out for Perez when Obama is no longer in office!).

Today, the flow is massive and doesn’t apparently involve dangerous night-time crossings of the border.  More importantly, today the ‘churches’ are out in the open and actually being paid by the federal government to take care of the kids (see the Office of Refugee Resettlement and its contractors, here).

But, are those churches (church contractors) actually involved in promoting and busing the illegal aliens through Mexico and to our border—-that is the $64,000 question!

Here is a news account at National Review  (Hat tip: Linda) primarily about the gang members (MS-13!) coming across now along with the “kids,”  The article contains a little nugget at the end that suggests the churches are once again involved.

Could the Catholic Church need new parishioners this badly?  Could they actually be hiring the buses and transporting the “children?”

Border Patrol officials struggling to keep up with the increasing number of minors illegally crossing the Mexican border are not turning away persons with known gang affiliations. Chris Cabrera, vice president of the National Border Patrol Council Local 3307 in the Rio Grande Valley, explained that a Border Patrol agent he represents helped reunite a teenage gang member with his family in the United States. Cabrera notes the young member of Mara Salvatrucha (MS-13), a transnational criminal gang, had no criminal record in the U.S., but asks, “If he’s a confirmed gang member in his own country, why are we letting him in here?”

The government is going to take care of us!

“I’ve heard people come in and say, ‘You’re going to let me go, just like you let my mother go, just like you let my sister go. You’re going to let me go as well, and the government’s going to take care of us,’” Cabrera says. “Until we start mandatory detentions, mandatory removals, I don’t think anything is going to change. As a matter of fact, I think it’s going to get worse.”

Radio and television commercial spots ran in Central America telling migrants to go to the US now (if anyone in America helped pay for this, they have committed treason!):

Cueto (Art Del Cueto, president of the National Border Patrol Council Local 2544 in Tucson) says when he asked a group of children about their motivation, they spoke of the “announcer on the radio” who encouraged them to head for the United States. Cueto says Central American radio, television, other media, and religious groups have all encouraged people to move north to the United States.

Did any of your tax dollars go into this campaign directly or indirectly through the federal ‘refugee’ contractors?

Here (below) for your review are the refugee contractors—the religious LEFT! (USCRI, ECDC and the IRC are secular contractors).

We know that the US Conference of Catholic Bishops and Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service are being paid to ‘service’ the “children.”  Are they involved in encouraging the mass migration of ‘unaccompanied alien minors’ as well?  

And, for any of you do-gooders concerned for real refugees, thank the contractors for helping label these illegal aliens, including the gang bangers, as “refugees.”

 

Christian Science Monitor: are illegal kids criminals or refugees?

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

They are most certainly not refugees! 

 

Refugees or criminals? http://www.breitbart.com/Breitbart-Texas/2014/06/05/Leaked-Images-Reveal-Children-Warehoused-in-Crowded-US-Cells-Border-Patrol-Overwhelmed

 

Ever since we started writing this blog in 2007, the open borders agitators (including the refugee contractors) and immigration lawyers have been attempting to expand the definition of “refugee” for the purpose of bringing in anyone in the world who is fleeing crime (or says they are fleeing crime).

Fleeing one’s home country because the country is overrun with gangs and drug dealers, and where the government there is unable to protect its citizens from crime generally, does not make one a “refugee.”   And think about it, wouldn’t that make half the world eligible for asylum in America?  Or, is that what Obama wants?

A refugee:

…. is a person who is outside their home country because they have suffered (or feared) persecution on account of race, religion, nationality, political opinion, or because they are a member of a persecuted ‘social group’ or because they are fleeing a war.

Either the “refugee” has been chosen by the UN and admitted to the US by the US State Department and flown here, or in the case of asylum seekers who got here on their own (crossed a border illegally or overstayed a visa), they must first be judged to be legitimately escaping persecution before they are declared a refugee.

The big push to find the kids lawyers is to attempt to prove that they are legitimate asylum seekers and for the US to ultimately grant them asylum which would make them refugees and thereby make them eligible for all of the taxpayer “services” available to any American citizen.  See our fact sheet!

An “economic migrant” is an alien who is seeking a better life—he or she wants a job or welfare.  They are also NOT refugees.

The recent “unaccompanied minor” border invaders may be “economic migrants,” but they definitely are illegal aliens and therefore criminals.

Here is Patrik Jonsson reporting at the Christian Science Monitor (hat tip: Joanne).

I’ve communicated with Jonsson.  He has exposed some secrecy in the “refugee” program before so I would urge him to help figure out who are the instigators of this invasion, it isn’t the kids (who are being used, in my opinion, by those who are attempting to bring on the revolution)!

Who are those shadowy players?  Or is it the White House itself?

The growing crush of vulnerable migrant children crossing the Rio Grande and entering the US through south Texas has put urgency to a vexing question for the US immigration system:

Are children fleeing Central American violence refugees who need asylum or illegal gold-diggers who need to go home?

The rush on the border has created what the White House and many others have called a humanitarian crisis. But it has also pushed Washington into finger-pointing mode, with politicians and commentators trying to pin down why children, often guided by “coyote” smugglers, are traveling hundreds of miles across Mexico into the US.

Read it all.

BTW, I heard a scary prediction yesterday—-that after the 2014 election, Obama plans to pardon all illegal aliens in the US.  Is that what the “kids” know?

With all of this horrific news about the invasion of America by mostly teenaged boys from Central America, I see a bright side!  

Those who have brought this nightmare (including the US Conference of Catholic Bishops and the Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Services***) to the front pages have succeeded in making the word “refugee” a very dirty word in homes across America after years and years of building up “refugees” as wonderful, deserving, industrious and grateful NEW AMERICANS.   Keep it up!

Come to think of it, maybe I shouldn’t be so quick to say they aren’t refugees!

See our complete archive on “unaccompanied minors” and the refugee contractors by clicking here.  Learn more about where your $2 billion for the kids will be going, here.

***Why do I keep naming those two refugee contractors (of the nine), because they are two that have had contracts from the ORR to care for the “kids.”   But, I expect all of the contractors to be scrambling for the $$$$$ and a piece of the action now that more of your tax dollars (billions in fact!) may soon be flowing their way.

As a matter of fact, the contractors all lobbied for the ‘gang of eight’s’ so-called “comprehensive immigration reform” bill because it contained provisions for them to gain more “clients” and more federal grant and contract money.  Since that hasn’t gone through, and likely won’t anytime soon, this windfall—to care for the kids—is the next best thing for them!