Senate Appropriations Committee votes to give HHS $2 billion for the illegal alien kids

Ahhhhh!  It is insane!

I’m ashamed to say that Maryland Senator Barbara Mikulski, as chairwoman of the Senate Appropriations Committee, is the leader of this latest travesty. http://www.appropriations.senate.gov/news/chairwoman-mikulski-prepared-remarks-fy15-lhhs-subcommittee-markup

When Robin sent me this story yesterday, my first thought was that the $2 billion would be spread around the various agencies including FEMA, Homeland Security and possibly the Defense Department (now housing some of the “refugee” kids), but this $2 billion is destined for the Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) in the Dept. of Health and Human Services, the agency legally responsible for unaccompanied alien minors!

From ORR, millions could be doled out to the refugee contractors including the US Conference of Catholic Bishops and Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service (ActOfLove, what a joke!).

And, those contractors are busy lobbying for more money, more refugees, and more immigrant “clients” generally (they lobbied for the Senate “comprehensive immigration reform” bill as well).  Are they using your money for lobbying?

Here is the story according to Reuters:

A Senate appropriations panel voted Tuesday to give the Obama administration $2 billion it requested to handle the dramatic increase in child immigrants caught trying to illegally cross the Mexican border without their parents, Reuters reported.

The money is more than $1.1 billion more than President Barack Obama initially asked for in his budget proposal for the Health and Human Services division that cares for and houses immigrant children caught alone at the border, according to Reuters. It would effectively come from yet unspecified changes in mandatory programs.

The number of children found trying to cross the Mexican border without parents has skyrocketed in recent years, Reuters reported. Between 2008 and 2011, the number of children landing in the custody of HHS’s Refugee Resettlement fluctuated between 6,000 and 7,500 per year.

In 2012 border agents apprehended 13,625 unaccompanied children and that number surged even more, to over 24,000 last year with the total is expected to be as high as 90,000 this year, according to Reuters.

[….]

The HHS budget approved by the committee would also allow the government to move money from other areas if the flow of child immigrants grows beyond the latest estimate of up to 90,000, according to Reuters.

[….]

The full Senate will have the final say on its version of the HHS budget, and the House has not yet acted on the issue, Reuters reported.

[….]

Under federal law, the children are supposed to be turned over to HHS within 72 hours, Reuters reported. Most are then reunited with parents or other relatives already living in the United States.

And then this line really ticks me off (as if the above isn’t bad enough)!

Most children caught crossing the border alone are from Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala and cannot be quickly repatriated, according to Reuters.

If anyone in leadership had any guts they would propose what I put forward, here, yesterday.  Airlift the mostly teenaged boys back to their respective state capitals and turn them over to their own governments and threaten to cut off all aid to the country if they ever return to the US.

For background, see our complete archive on ‘unaccompanied minors’ by clicking here.

The invasion on our Southern border by child “refugees” helped defeat Eric Cantor

Update June 12th:  Why were pro-amnesty rioters at Cantor headquarters on Tuesday night?  Here!

They have overplayed their hand this time.  Their strategy has back-fired.

Cantor offer to Obama: We can do something for the kids.

Who is they?  Obama, Cecilia Munoz, some in the Republican Party (Bush, Cantor, US Chamber of Commerce) and the open borders lobby including the US Conference of Catholic Bishops and the Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service*** which you know were helping spread the word throughout Mexico and Central America that the illegal alien “kids” were welcome to invade America.

And, they have squandered decades of the warm and fuzzy feelings that naive do-gooders have built up around the word “refugee.”   Earlier yesterday, as House Majority Leader Eric Cantor’s political death sentence was being meted out, I was struck by this article published at Human Events (hat tip Paul) on Sunday—-Cloward-Piven at the border‘ by John Hayward.

If you have never heard of the Cloward-Piven strategy read one of our posts on the topic from 2009 for some background.

It is not the connection to C-P that interested me so much as it was Hayward’s use of the word “refugee” linked to something that is so obviously disgusting to the average American—invaders expecting hand outs.

These teenage migrants from mostly Central America are not refugees and by pushing that mantra Obama and others have succeeded, better than critics of the program could ever do, in sullying the word that as I said has had an aura of pure goodness about it ever since the Refugee Act of 1980 (Kennedy/Carter) was signed into law.

As various political action and education groups have built up over the years working to slow immigration into America, those groups and their leaders have stayed away from criticism of “refugees” because apparently they viewed them as untouchable and above criticism in the public mind.

I wonder will all of that change now that these illegal alien invaders are being openly called “refugees?”

Back to Cantor and what his defeat could mean…..

Read that Human Events piece in which Hayward quotes Cantor:

“I have told the president, there are some things we can work on together,” he said in the WTVR interview.

“We can work on the border security bill together, we can work on something like the kids,” he said referring to his proposal to offer some undetermined variety of amnesty to the children and youths of millions of parents who entered the country illegally.

There couldn’t have been worse timing for Cantor—as thousands of “kids” showed up on the border obviously lured by Washington establishment talk of something for the kids.

And, here is a good comment to Erick Erickson’s analysis of the Cantor defeat (the Brat victory!).  Erickson doesn’t believe it was all about immigration, but some of his readers beg to differ.  And here is one of them:

‘The Rebel’ (emphasis is mine):

Cantor supported legislation known as the KIDS Act, which would give citizenship to children brought to the country illegally. Given the flood of illegal children on our southern borders over the past two weeks, I would say that was the deciding factor.

The biggest loser tonight after Cantor has to be Jeb Bush. They were tied at the hip on amnesty and common core. It wouldn’t surprise me if he didn’t win a single primary other than FL. Let’s see if he backtracks on his messaging now.

The other loser is Obama. If he thinks he can just ramrod immigration and amnesty through on executive orders, let him try. Not only would those endangered Senate Dems be finished, but other Senate Dems within reach by Republicans could also be in trouble. This earthquake will fire up the Republican base for November.

The refugee contractor lobbyists who stood to gain millions of new “clients” will be big losers too if the Senate’s so-called comprehensive immigration reform doesn’t become law!  (By the way, as the mainstream media beats this issue, very few will understand the connection between the contractors, who will be paid to service the immigrants/refugees, amnesty, and the invasion of unaccompanied minors, but longtime readers of RRW will.)

Here is my solution to the “humanitarian crisis” (Obama’s characterization) on the border.  Load up the planes with unaccompanied teens (83% are above the age of 14, 77% are males), fly them to their respective capitals in Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras, turn them over to their governments to find their families, and threaten the withdrawal of all US aid if any of them set foot in America again.   A few flights like that and the rush will end, and it will save us one hell of a lot of money besides (Obama wants over a $billion to take care of the “kids.”).

Endnote: We asked on Monday: Where is America’s sense of self preservation?  Looks like it’s in Virginia’s 7th District (for starters!).

***Be sure to see the Lutheran’s #ActOfLove campaign (for the kids) just launched two weeks ago.

 

Travel loans for refugees and the audacity of those money-grubbing Lutherans

I don’t know whether to roll on the floor laughing my head off or scream when I see brazen fundraising appeals like this one from Linda Hartke (who makes over $200,000 a year as CEO of Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service).

Linda Hartke, LIRS CEO, already collecting over $1.5 million a year from refugee travel loans, now wants followers to pony-up with more cashola!

Here is what she said in a recent appeal to followers about travel loans:

Today, refugees from Syria, Burma, the Congo, and other conflict-ridden countries are looking to you … will you please provide welcome and support for people in desperate need with your gift today?

All refugees pay their own travel fees to come to the US. If they are unable to pay, they are extended an interest-free loan and brought to the US on the condition that they agree to repay every dollar spent on their transport.   [So you are probably thinking, great! they repay their taxpayer-funded travel loans—ed]

Fortunately, refugees are not alone — not even in this!

Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service compassionately manages the loan repayment of the travel expenses for every refugee we help resettle, so they can thrive. [I am speechless, who the h*** wrote this sentence? Compassionate? Manage the loan?—ed]

As Raghu [the poster child for this fundraising appeal—ed] and his family worked to establish themselves in their new community, they also relied on your support to help them manage the repayment of their travel loans.

So what is my problem, you ask?

The majority of refugees arriving in the US receive a TAXPAYER-FUNDED travel loan—none of them have the thousands and thousands needed for airfare if they are truly impoverished “refugees.”

The contractors, including Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service, act as the collection agencies to attempt to wring the cash out of newly arrived refugees and then THEY POCKET 25% OF WHAT THEY COLLECT   (Judy says that using caps means someone is shouting—I am, and in red type too!).   That 25% does not return to the US Treasury! 

So Linda Hartke is trying to raise even more money from supporters claiming they need it to “manage” the loans!  Don’t get me wrong, I am all for private people paying for this, but the over $1.5 million they get of your taxpayer dollars a year is not enough to “manage the loans?”

Don’t believe me, go to this audited financial statement (p.12) for LIRS for 2012 and 2013 and check this out!

LIRS earned $1.7 million in 2013 and $1.6 million in 2012 as “service fees” for collecting those travel loans of your money!  I bet this little “service fee” deal they have with the State Department isn’t even legal!

Page 12 (emphasis is mine):

LIRS acts as an agent for the collection of transportation loans for refugee resettlement through the International Organization for Migration (“IOM”). Collections are remitted to IOM net of servicing fees earned which are 25% of loan collections. Included in servicing fees, LIRS earned fees of $1,763,296 and $1,630,183 as of December 31, 2013 and 2012, respectively.

IOM is another federal contractor!

And, by the way, the figures I have been using for LIRS income need to be updated—they have risen significantly according to this same financial audit.

Are you sitting down?

I gave you figures for their finances in 2011, here, and reported that they received $30 million from US and state taxpayers.  Now get this.  This audited financial report tells us the following information for years 2012 and 2013:  In 2012 they got $40.4 million from government grants and in 2013 it jumped to $46.4 million!

Page 6 (be sure to check out the less than $1 million they received from parishes).

2012 income from government: $40,417,752  and total income was $41,757,818 making it 97% that you supplied them via your tax dollars.

2013 income from government: $46,414,735 and total income was $48,393,131 making it 96% from you!

Endnote:  I am not saying that all Lutherans are money-grubbers but these ones sure are!  And, on the travel loans they are not alone.  I haven’t the time to check the numbers, but last I looked the US Conference of Catholic Bishops was raking in over $3 million in this same travel loan kickback scheme.