Tag: Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service

Lutherans in MN say they are in compliance with all federal audits/requirements, but…

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

….they fail to mention that reports coming out of their primary contractor, Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service (in Baltimore) indicate that maybe there is a bit of a problem there with federal audits…..

I meant to get to this news yesterday in advance of the St. Cloud City Council meeting last night where the majority of the council voted down a resolution (vote was 6-1) by one councilman who is seeking a moratorium on resettlement there in order to assess the economic and social impact resettlement by the Lutherans is having on the community. (I didn’t get to it because I don’t know if it affected all of you, but in many places in the country internet services were down.)

I realized this morning after reading the news at the Star-Tribune that anything I said about the facts involving the Lutheran contractor and subcontractor changing St. Cloud wouldn’t matter one bit.  Here is the St. Cloud Times version of what happened last night (you can see the text of the resolution here and maybe use it as a model where you live!).

The St. Cloud Times, clearly biased against those who want more transparency with the resettlement plan for the city, posted this factually inaccurate opinion piece from Lutheran Social Service of MN the day before the vote.  No surprise that they were helping the Lutheran agency in its quest to forever change St. Cloud and supply local corporations with cheap labor.

Here is what Maureen Warren, a VEEP at LSS-MN told the citizens of St. Cloud:

Maureen-1_smC_HS
Maureen Warren, who btw makes over $200,000 a year in salary and related benefits, is doing well by doing good!  Has she taken any refugees to her home? http://www.lssmn.org/About-Us/Leadership/Maureen-Warren/

Lutheran Social Service of Minnesota commends the new resolution supporting a just and welcoming community that passed the St. Cloud City Council on Oct. 23.

We applaud the courage and hard work by members of the City Council and others who have shown leadership and commitment to creating a strong and welcoming community for everyone.

We want to take this opportunity to correct misinformation that has surfaced in recent City Council meetings and media reports about our compliance performance in LSS Refugee Services.

On Oct. 23, the St. Cloud Times reported on a different resolution presented by council member Jeff Johnson at the last council meeting that “calls for a city moratorium on the placement of additional refugees through primary resettlement until Lutheran Social Service of Minnesota — one of six nonprofit organizations that helps settle refugees in Minnesota — demonstrates it is in compliance with federal statutes.”

We want the community to know that the LSS refugee resettlement service is subject to regular financial and service audits by the U.S. State Department and Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service — and LSS is in full compliance with all federal laws and regulations.

But, how about the reports coming out of Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service that they may not be in full compliance with federal grant laws and regulations?

For new readers, LSS-MN does not get refugee cases or cash directly from the federal government, but the refugees are chosen by LIRS, sent to St. Cloud and LSS-MN gets its payment of federal money passed through LIRS. LIRS receives and doles out your money to it subcontractors.

A fish rots from the head down!

Screenshot (1023).png
LIRS fancy headquarters building in Baltimore’s Inner Harbor

Persistent reports coming out of LIRS indicate that the organization is in turmoil—that the Inspector General at the Department of Health and Human Services did audit LIRS and found irregularities in its financial reporting relating to salaries and possible misuse of grant dollars.

We received a copy of a June 30th letter to the Board of Directors at LIRS from the Inspector General at HHS instructing LIRS to make a “corrective action plan” to account for the budget irregularities.  Some of those irregularities involve ones relating to salaries of headquarters employees, sources in a position to know tell us.

Apparently that letter and subsequent internal turmoil sent the organization in to a tailspin, employees resigned, but others were given handsome severance packages in order to leave quietly, we hear.

In September the Board of Directors at LIRS announced its own investigation of the top management of the contractor that receives on average 96% of its funding from taxpayers!  Here is the text of one e-mail from Board chairman Rev. Michael Rinehart that we received. Clearly whatever is going on, it is very serious.  If federal grant mismanagement occurred, at minimum the organization must repay misappropriated dollars?

From: Michael Rinehart

Sent: Thursday, September 14, 2017

Update:

Executive Committee convened and agreed to an investigation.

I have spoken to Linda.

The investigation team has formed. They will meet next week in St. Louis.

I have the names of three law firms with whom to talk.

Things are moving fast.

Peace,
Mike
Michael Rinehart, Bishop
Texas-Louisiana Gulf Coast Synod
Evangelical Lutheran Church in America

We are offering an open invitation for a representative of LIRS in Baltimore (or the Board of Directors) to write a guest column for RRW to explain what exactly is going on if the reports I am receiving are in some way inaccurate!

Just a reminder that getting at the truth is our business because LIRS is almost completely funded from the US Treasury (and Congress is doing nothing to watch out for our money!).

Now to the other compliance audits that LSS-MN referenced in its St. Cloud Times piece—the State Department Service audits.

These are audits done on an irregular basis where someone shows up (usually announced!) from the US State Department to assess whether the local subcontractor (LSS-MN) is complying with its contract mostly regarding the care given to refugees.

The compliance reports that are written are kept secret from the public.

I have heard of them being obtained through FOIA requests that the State Department takes years to respond to.

From the recent St. Cloud R & P Abstract:

Screenshot (1059)

 

If LSS-MN is now in “full compliance” surely they wouldn’t object to releasing those compliance reports where they weren’t compliant and explain to the public what they have done to satisfy the federal requirements that they apparently were not following.

And, readers, isn’t it incredible how little scrutiny they get from Washington—monitoring visits FIVE years apart! And, the 2017 visit was from LIRS in Baltimore.  The US State Department hasn’t been there since 2012!

I’d like to know if there are even any penalties for not being in FULL compliance!

See my giant St. Cloud archive by clicking here.  Don’t miss two posts on LIRS signing contracts with global meatpackers JBS Swift here and Tyson Foods here. (See LSS-MN helped get this deal somehow).

Just think about it—greedy global corporations changing the demographic makeup of small heartland cities with third world-laborers, aided and abetted by the Lutherans!

 

Do Arkansas college students understand that refugees are there to supply Tyson Foods with cheap labor?

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Editor:  There was an announcement posted here for an Arkansas college event for Canopy NWA to promote refugee resettlement in the state. The original photo was lost when the speech police had RRW removed from WordPress this past summer. 

 

Canopy NWA is a relatively new subcontractor of Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service (LIRS), their ‘mothership’ headquartered in Baltimore, MD. We told you about Canopy here last October.

We told you here this October, on October 24th, that LIRS has signed a contract with JBS Swift the foreign-owned globalist meatpacking giant whose North American headquarters are in Greeley, CO to find, and help them retain, cheap and compliant refugee labor for its plants in four states.

But that isn’t the only arrangement that LIRS has made with globalist corporations—they have an agreement with Tyson Foods whose headquarters are in guess where? Arkansas! (Original home of Bill and Hill and cattle futures—remember that!)

We were able to obtain this confirmation, that yes, LIRS, has a deal with Tyson Foods for a $50,000 pilot project to teach “financial literacy” to refugees, whatever the heck that means!

See here:

From: Nina Zelic
Sent: Tuesday, September 26, 2017 8:03:02 PM
To: Linda Hartke
Subject: Tyson Foods–good news!

Dear Linda,
This evening we received some good news from Tyson Foods regarding our proposal for a pilot financial literacy project in northwest Arkansas/Missouri. Our proposal was accepted and we will be moving forward with Tyson. This is incredible news for LIRS because the clear goal of Tyson Foods is to provide financial literacy in all of their plants and to all of their team members (over 10,000) nationwide.

To quote Tyson:

“We are pleased to announce that your organization has been selected as our financial literacy award recipient. We want to formally congratulate your team on an exceptional proposal. In particular, we were impressed with the cultural and gender sensitivities it included, the overall structure of your pilot, and the local partnership networks you were able to identify. We were also encouraged to learn about your organizational experience working with one of our major competitors – JBS. We hope this will give LIRS insight into our specific industry and will help you maximize programmatic traction early on.”

Our proposal would not have been possible without Kirsten’s singular efforts, and finance’s inputs. Also, Canopy of NWA, LFS-RM, and LSS-MN played roles.

Thank you,
Nina
—
Nina Zelic
Director for Refugee Services | NZelic@lirs.org | 410-230-2765 |
Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service
700 Light Street, Baltimore, Maryland 21230 | www.lirs.org

Note that Canopy of NWA helped make this possible along with Lutheran Family Service-Rocky Mountains, and our old pals in Minnesota—-Lutheran Social Service-MN!

LOL! I can’t help but wonder if this isn’t a small price to pay for Tyson Foods to have an inside track with a resettlement contractor who might then alert them to fresh batches of refugees (aka laborers) entering the US.

By the way, I did try to reach Ms. Zelic by e-mail, but never got a response perhaps because we hear the Baltimore office is going through some tough times?

So, would someone please tell those well-intentioned students that they are shilling for the globalists—-BIG MEAT! (and BIG CHICKEN!).

Do none of the privileged students at the University of Arkansas have friends back home who would love to work in a meat plant for good wages—the kind of wages meatpackers did pay before they discovered immigrant labor?

NO Borders Left aimed at destroying ORR Director Scott Lloyd

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

It is over the issue of abortions for illegal alien teens in the care of the federal Office of Refugee Resettlement that Lloyd oversees.   Apparently Lloyd is not approving those abortions and the leftwingers want the young girls to have a Constitutional right to kill their babies here in America (they could go back to where they came from and kill their babies at home!).

Scott Lloyd at hearing
Deer in the headlights! ORR Director Lloyd at the House hearing. He should have been ready for the harangue from three Democrat women. 

I don’t know enough about Lloyd to get into this fight***, but I just want you to know what is going on.

Frankly, I don’t know how it came to be that the Office of Refugee Resettlement got so deeply involved with the care of tens of thousands of so-called ‘Unaccompanied Alien Children’ in the first place.  They are NOT refugees! They are here illegally!

It might be because at least two ‘religious’ refugee contractors working for ORR get paid to take care of some of the ‘children’ —-US Conference of Catholic Bishops and the Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service. Note the big jump in the latter’s federal funding—was it more contracts for the kids?

You can see what I said about Lloyd trying to defend himself here at the House hearing that was supposed to be on the refugee program, but turned into an attack on Lloyd (then they didn’t have to talk about the malfunctioning US Refugee Program!).

Here is Slate in a story entitled:

Scott Lloyd Must Be Stopped

You can read it yourself. Lloyd will have to be one tough hombre to take what the Left has aimed at him.

I’m guessing when it comes to anchor babies (as these teens’ children would be) versus abortion rights, the Left comes down on the side of the “right” to  kill the babies (with your money!).

***As Director of ORR, Lloyd would normally have the refugee contractors backing him, including the Catholic ones, but on this I don’t see where even the Bishops are going to help him. I could be wrong, but they will be more worried about angering their groupies on the Left and possibly jeopardizing their federal payola.  We will see.

And, if Trump wants to succeed, he needs to be putting some mean (and loyal to him) SOBs in these top jobs.  Nice guys finish last as the saying goes….

Foreign-owned Big Meat hires Lutherans to help them find and retain refugee labor

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

That is the crux of this story and not in my wildest dreams did I think that money was directly changing hands between the meat industry and a federal refugee contractor, in this case Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service headquartered in Baltimore, MD.

jbslogo-mob

I always assumed it was an informal relationship where the largely federally-funded ‘religious’ charity (LIRS is 96% funded by you and not via the collection plate) just happened to be bringing immigrant workers to small town America.

Now we learn that there is a formal (secret!), contractual arrangement planned for pilot projects in four states with JBS USA a Brazilian-owned company.  And, it makes me wonder if this isn’t new and whether similar arrangements are being made with others of the nine federal refugee contractors.***

For those of you in places like St. Cloud, MN frustrated that you can’t get local elected officials to listen to you, remember their seemingly illogical resistance to slowing the flow of refugees has nothing to do with humanitarianism and everything to do with changing America for the almighty dollar!

From Leo Hohmann at World Net Daily:

Global meatpacking giant goes all in for refugee labor

A Lutheran resettlement agency that places United Nations refugees into dozens of U.S. cities and towns is working with the world’s largest meatpacking conglomerate to train refugees for work in four American states while also softening up the local natives to be more “welcoming.”

LIRS logo

The secretive pilot program between Baltimore-based Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service and the U.S. subsidiary of JBS Swift aims to pump more refugees into Georgia, Texas, Iowa and Michigan to work in the company’s meat plants. If successful, the pilot program could be renewed for a second year and replicated at JBS meat plants across the U.S., WND has learned.

JBS Swift, the Brazilian-based global meat-processing giant, has agreed to pay Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Services, or LIRS, $155,000 to implement the pilot program over the next year in the four states, according to a draft of the partnership agreement obtained by WND from a person with inside knowledge of the deal.

“The shock here is to find out that a religious agency is being paid by a foreign global corporation to train refugees and ultimately transform the demographics of small towns in America’s heartland,” said Ann Corcoran, an expert on the international movement of refugees and the nine volunteer agencies that resettle them for the U.S.

The deal between the global meat producer JBS and the Lutheran agency has been dubbed “Rebuilding Dreams,” and is described in the draft document as a “grant and collaboration agreement” between JBS USA and LIRS in the four states.

“The primary goal of this agreement is to improve the capacity of JBS USA and local resettlement agencies to support and improve the hiring and retention of refugee employees at four pilot sites in Michigan, Texas, Iowa, and Georgia,” according to the document.

The following are the cities in those states where JBS has meatpacking plants:

Iowa – Council Bluffs, Marshalltown and Ottumwa, mostly pork production
Michigan – Plainwell, mostly beef
Georgia – Elberton, Douglas, Athens, Ellijay, Canton and Carrollton, mostly chicken
Texas – Waco, Lufkin, Nacogdoches, Pittsburg and Mount Pleasant, mostly chicken

“Rebuilding Dreams will achieve this goal by creating customized trainings and resources for key stakeholders, building stronger relationships through communications and technology platforms, enhancing the collection and evaluation of data, and improving the overall quality and culture of the workplace experience for refugee employees,” the agreement states.

The agreement also calls for improving the local “welcoming culture” in the cities where the refugees will be placed.

Part of United Nations agenda for sustainability

JBS is a transnational, global corporation that beats the United Nations “sustainability” drum on its website, and it also cashes in on the globalized “labor mobility” concept pushed by the U.N.’s 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.

Read more here. The story is a detailed must-read about how a global corporation and a supposedly religious charity are changing America by changing the people.

And as a side reading project, see this 2006 article from the Greeley Tribune involving Swift (JBS bought Swift) explaining how the meat industry went from being a desirable place for Americans to work to their model today that is increasingly reliant on the global movement of labor—-middle America be damned!

Don’t miss Bloomberg: Big Meat worried about Trump’s reduced refugee flow, here.

For Republicans it’s about money!

We know the Dems are pushing refugee resettlement in order to boost the number of Democrat voters, and if you are wondering why the Republicans aren’t doing enough to get the program controlled—look to the Chamber of Commerce and GLOBAL Corporations that have convinced the Republican leadership that the free flow of cheap and captive (uncomplaining) labor across borders is the future.

The jig is up!

Big Meat gets cheap labor, the Dems get voters, and you, the taxpayer, get to subsidize it all (including welfare for workers paid insufficient wages!). If you complain you are a hater, a racist and an Islamophobe!

lirs-building
LIRS  is headquartered here in Baltimore. This is their own description: 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. 

Making it clear! 

Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service is the lead federal contractor for the following list of subcontractors.

LIRS, in Baltimore, is not a separate group from the others on the list! LIRS is the lead contractor that deals directly with the US State Department and divvies up incoming refugees between the agencies below—LOL! it is the ‘mothership’ to the following:

Arkansas
Canopy of Northwest Arkansas, Fayetteville

Arizona
Refugee Focus, Phoenix, Tuscon

California
Interfaith Refugee and Immigration Service, Los Angeles

Colorado
Lutheran Family Services Rocky Mountains, Denver, Colorado Springs, Greeley

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

Georgia
Lutheran Services of Georgia, Atlanta, Savannah

Illinois
RefugeeOne, Chicago

Maryland
Lutheran Social Services of the National Capital Area, Hyattsville

Massachusetts
Ascentria Community Services, Westfield, Worcester

Michigan
Samaritas, Ann Arbor, Battle Creek, Grand Rapids, Troy

Minnesota
Lutheran Social Service of Minnesota, Minneapolis, St. Cloud

Nebraska
Lutheran Family Services of Nebraska, Omaha

New Hampshire
Ascentria Community Services, Concord

New Mexico
Lutheran Family Services Rocky Mountains, Albuquerque, Santa Fe

New York
Mohawk Valley Resource Center for Refugees, Utica

North Carolina
Lutheran Services Carolinas, Raleigh

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

Oregon
Lutheran Community Services Northwest, Portland

Pennsylvania
Bethany Christian Services, Allentown, Lancaster, Philadelphia

South Carolina
Lutheran Services Carolinas, Columbia, Charleston

South Dakota
Lutheran Social Services of South Dakota, Sioux Falls

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

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

Washington
Lutheran Community Services Northwest, Tacoma, Vancouver

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

So what do you do?  Go to this post I wrote earlier this month and get to work where you live!

*** For new readers, these are the nine major federal refugee contractors largely funded by you, the taxpayer, see here.  Refugee resettlement is not first and foremost about humanitarianism so don’t let them shut you up!

 

 

St. Cloud controversy over refugees draws CAIR’s attention; CAIR draws media attention

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

And, of course, as I look around this morning I see that CAIR’s arrival on the scene draws the national media!  A local Fox affiliate is reporting on the controversy surrounding one city councilman’s proposed moratorium on refugee resettlement and even the Washington Post is now reporting.   I expect to see the spinners and liars from the New York Times arriving soon!  LOL! the new ambulance chasing—CAIR chasing!

It looks like the showdown will be Monday, October 23rd when Councilman Jeff Johnson will propose that the mayor and council ask the federal government and its agent in Minnesota—Lutheran Social Services of MN—to give them a break until more is known about the economic impact of resettlement on the city and until there can be some assurances that the process going forward is transparent. Federal law does give a role to local governments to weigh in with their suggestions.

If this is the first time you are learning about the latest uprising in St. Cloud, see my posts here, here and here recently.

The moral of this story is if you can draw out CAIR (Council on American Islamic Relations) you can get some national attention for your efforts! 

As I said in my previous post, CAIR must fight to keep Muslim refugees coming in to the US in order to continue to build their political power base.  It is that simple!

Here is CAIR!

Screenshot (995)

 

How did St. Cloud get here?

Rather than go back over the resolution and what it could possibly do (or what might happen on Monday night at city hall), I think my best contribution to this story is to supply readers with background on how a small Minnesota city became ground zero for a battle, the results of which, will in fact help determine the future of literally every town and city in America in the decades ahead.

It’s the Lutherans in the case of St. Cloud.

We know that Somali refugees have been placed in Minnesota by the US State Department since the late 1980’s.  By the early 1990’s the flood gates were opening as three major federal contractors: Catholic Charities, Lutheran Social Services of MN (whose ‘mothership’ is Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service where, by the way, rumor has it that some scandal is brewing), and World Relief saw Minnesota’s generous welfare as a real plus for the destitute Somalis. See my 2011 post here.

Not only was the generous welfare a draw, but big companies needed cheap labor (a window company in Owatona for example, or meat packing plants all over the state, including in St. Cloud!).

LSS as employment agency?

jodi harpstead
CEO Harpstead pulls down a salary and benefits package of over $300,000 annually to head the $91 million a year operation

Initially there was no direct resettlement of refugees in St. Cloud, that didn’t come until 2011. But, the so-called secondary migrants were moving to the city helped by an EMPLOYMENT OFFICE run by none other than Lutheran Social Services of MN.  WTH!

Why was a non-profit ‘religious’ charity running an employment office to benefit large corporations?  Was someone paying them to find refugee laborers for St. Cloud area businesses?  Who? Taxpayers?

Here is an August 2010 story from Minnesota Public Radio announcing that in the coming year LSS of MN would be bringing 300 refugees directly to St. Cloud over the next 3 years.

But, we learn that since 2002 (right after 9/11), LSS was running an “employment office” there:

Kim Dettmer, Director of Refugee Services at Lutheran Social Services, said no one has an exact figure for the total number of refugees living in the St. Cloud area. Many community and nonprofit leaders estimate that the African population in St. Cloud is between 8,000 and 10,000–this figure includes people who came to the United States as refugees and who have since become naturalized citizen and no longer have refugee status. Lutheran Social Services learned that St. Cloud had a large and growing Somali population, so it opened an employment office in St. Cloud in 2002 to provide extra support.

Continue reading here.

One of those companies looking for cheap (Lutheran-supplied) labor was apparently Gold n’ Plump a St. Cloud-based chicken processing plant which found out that maybe cheap Somali Muslim labor isn’t cheap after all.  It had to pay out an undisclosed cash settlement to Somali workers in a legal dispute discussed here in the Star Tribune.

In a landmark settlement that could change the way Muslims are treated in the workplace, St. Cloud-based Gold’n Plump Inc. has agreed to allow Somali workers short prayer breaks and the right to refuse handling pork at its poultry processing facilities.

The federally mediated agreement is among the first in the nation that requires employers to accommodate the Islamic prayer schedule and the belief, held by many strict Muslims, that the Qur’an prohibits the touching and eating of pork products.

Community organizers form Red-Green axis:

One of those involved in the settlement was community activist Mahmoud Mohamed. I told you about him and his ‘ethnic community based organization’ here in early 2010 and here again in December of that year where he claims to be part of the “we” who brought the first refugees directly from camps to St. Cloud.  I don’t know if he is still active, or if SASSO is still calling shots in St. Cloud.  And I don’t know if Mohamed is still working with the hard Left community organizer Luke Tripp. Someone needs to do a little research.

The controversy surrounding the resolution vote on Monday (and hopefully there will be a vote so that citizens there can see exactly how each council person votes) did not happen in a vacuum or come out of the blue.  In addition to those events I just mentioned, a lot has gone down in St. Cloud over the years, including but not limited to:

A controversy about Somalis harassing an assistance dog, here. (my first introduction to St. Cloud)

Controversies in the high school, one of many posts here.

A huge zoning battle over the construction of a mosque in the middle of a neighborhood, here.

The knife attack by a Somali at the local mall, here.

Somali teen murders African American, here.

Muslim arrested for mosque vandalism blamed on citizens (Islamophobes!) originally, here.

Local paper did not like me visiting St. Cloud, here.

Go here for many more stories in my archive about St. Cloud.

Update! How could I forget this! MN Governor Dayton said in St. Cloud 2015: anyone who doesn’t like immigrants can get out of Minnesota, here.

Bottomline, Lutheran Social Services of MN is responsible for the exploding Somali population in St. Cloud and the chaos and controversy that has followed.

Not in my name!

What you can do: If you are of the Lutheran denomination, you need to let your ministers know exactly how you feel about changing America by changing the people in the name of your faith group (and for Caesar’s money)!