Lutheran Social Service planning to seed 225 additional refugees into St. Cloud this year

10/12/2017 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

jodi harpstead — CEO Harpstead pulls down a salary and benefits package of over $300,000 annually to head the $91 million a year operation. Link to Form 990 below.

If they succeed they will be placing 27 more than they did in FY17 which ended on the 30th of September.

Checking Wrapsnet, here is a summary (below) of the refugees (mostly Muslims) who were placed by a subcontractor (Lutheran Social Service of Minnesota) of the Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service mothership located in Baltimore.

Refugees who went to St. Cloud in direct resettlement (there are no reliable numbers on secondary migrants) last year are below.

Secondary migrants are refugees placed elsewhere who migrate (legally!) on their own to another town or city.

Minnesota does have the highest number of secondary migrants in the country as we learned a few years ago when such information was published.

In FY17 St. Cloud received 198 of the 1,623 refugees resettled in the entire state.

Burma (4)

Ethiopia (19)

Iraq (9)

Somalia (166)

St. Cloud had the second highest Somali resettlement after Minneapolis (364).

Here (below) is the FY18 R & P Abstract for St. Cloud.

This is the document that should be made available to the public BEFORE it goes to Washington. These numbers are determined by Lutheran Social Service in Minnesota (Harpstead’s organization) with the help of “stakeholders.” Stakeholders should include your local elected officials!

(See my post on St. Cloud yesterday)

Normally this document is kept from the general public, but we were fortunate enough to obtain it. Knowledge is power and that is the primary reason there is so little transparency with refugee resettlement. The feds and the contractors don’t want citizens to have all the facts!

I maintain that if the program is a good one for the community, they should be able to sell it with all the facts on the table!

Below are screenshots of the pages. Serious students should go to this post where I explained some of the numbers, categories etc. But, I am far from an expert!

Documents like this (reporting the capacity of your town to ‘welcome’ refugees and from where) come in to Washington from hundreds of towns and cities and are put together to become the basis for the Presidential determination which we know is a maximum 45,000 refugees for FY18 (which is now underway as of Oct. 1).

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Again, knowledge is power!

I leave it to you, again with the help of this post to examine the plans that Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service in conjunction with the US State Department and the US Department of Health and Human Services have in the works for St. Cloud.

LOL! Do you see that line in the last chart about voluntary hours/miles? What that represents is the number of hours and the miles that volunteers put on their own vehicles converted to a cash value. The contractor uses that figure to show the federal government that they have put some skin in the game (it is supposed to be a public-private partnership after all). I wonder do volunteers know that they are worth money to the contractor?

Check out the actual cash from foundations/corporations in FY16 and the enormous jump estimated for FY18. Is that realistic? Can they just make up numbers?

Housing specialist? So the refugees get a housing specialist? Do just regular poor Americans get one from LSS of MN?

The most recent Form 990 for LSS of Minnesota is here (or see LSS financials page):

file:///C:/Users/Ann/AppData/Local/Temp/Lutheran%20Social%20Service%20of%20MN%20-%20Public%20Inspection%20Copy-1.pdf

Other contractors are operating in other cities in Minnesota. See here:

https://refugeeresettlementwatch.files.wordpress.com/2015/10/acb67-publicaffiliatedirectory1-6-17.pdf

What can you do?

Citizens in St. Cloud, see my complete archive on what I’ve reported about your city since 2008.

Concerned citizens elsewhere, go to the list of contractor/subcontractors I linked above. Call one near you and ask for the FY18 R & P Abstract (Reception and Placement Abstract). Ask your local elected officials—mayor and council—if any of them have ever seen the plans for their town/city?

Addendum! If you get a runaround complain to your elected officials in Washington—your member of Congress and US Senators. If they can’t (or won’t!) get it for you, then you have even more to complain about!

Refugee resettlement contractors get platform to complain at Christian Post, but….

10/01/2017 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Christian Post reporter Samuel Smith interviewed several leaders of fake charitable organizations to get their take on Trump’s refugee ceiling for the new fiscal year that begins today. It is the anticipated wailing and moaning about that mean Donald Trump—45,000 is not enough poor people to put on the taxpayers’ backs in one year.

However, lo and behold, two tiny mentions (you have to read carefully!) are made, that are rarely (never?) made by the likes of the New York Times and Washington Post.

One is that the federal contractors (the big nine)*** are paid out of the US Treasury to do their religious charity and that the numbers of refugees admitted have dipped as low as the 20,000s in the past. I’ll count this as a media breakthrough!

When the big media (including Fox News) investigates and reports on the multi-million dollar industry resettling refugees has become, then ten years of work will have been worth it!

See readily available financial data on how much of your money the nine contractors devour in a year, go here.

Christian Post:

Christian Aid Groups Say Trump Lowering Refugee Ceiling to 45,000 Is ‘Absurd’

Erol Kekic, executive director of the Church World Service Immigration and Refugee Program, one of nine organizations that receives funding from the State Department to resettle refugees in the U.S., said in a statement that the 45,000 limit is “absurdly low” ….

[….]

Bishop Michael Rinehart, chairman of the Board for Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service and head of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America’s Texas-Louisiana Gulf Coast Synod, said in a statement shared with CP that the cut to the U.S. refugee ceiling comes at a “a time when the world needs us desperately.”

bishop Reinhart

“[I]t seems we are shutting the door on the Statue of Liberty,” Rinehart said. “I pray that America does not lose its heart and soul.”

Rinehart should learn the facts about the statue, here.

Although they give them lots of column inches to complain, the CP is actually being honest here:

Even though 45,000 would be the lowest U.S. refugee ceiling in a fiscal year set by a president since 1980, there have been years since then when less than 45,000 refugees have been resettled into the U.S., especially in the aftermath of Sept. 11, 2001.

According to the Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit Center for Immigration Studies, a total of 28,286 refugees were resettled in 2002, and there were only 41,223 admissions in fiscal year 2006.

Read it all here.

*** Below are the nine contractors that monopolize all refugee resettlement in America (they have hundreds of subcontractors working for them). The ‘religious’ groups listed below are Leftist social justice, community organizing, activist organizations awash in taxpayer dollars!

Readers ask me all the time what they should do.

Here is an idea: Find out if your local church is affiliated with any of these nine quasi-government agencies and start speaking up in your local churches and synagogues, and if possible in your local newspapers. If you are Catholic, see this.

If we can’t get Washington to make any effort at reform, it is time to focus closer to home.

Refugee contractors brought refugee lobbyists to Washington (again) last week

06/26/2017 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

They do this every year. It is the sort of thing those of you concerned about an overload of refugees in your communities can’t really do, first and foremost because it is expensive to travel to Washington. And, our pro-reform side has no money!!!
I suspect your tax dollars helped pay for the lobbying organized each year through one of the nine major federal resettlement contractors—Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service (headquartered in a posh section of Baltimore).

LIRS Leadership Academy last week. That is LIRS CEO Lynda Hartke in the bluish jacket in the front row. Learn about their finances here (they are 95% funded with taxpayer dollars): https://refugeeresettlementwatch.org/2017/02/28/south-carolina-lutheran-agency-cutting-staff-will-bigwigs-in-baltimore-see-pay-cuts/

However, this story from the Huffington Post that focuses on visits to Texas’s two US Senators confirms what we have said and what you should do—keep up the political pressure on your Washington reps from back home! And, I mean, keep it up!
Huffington Post:

WASHINGTON ― On a hot D.C. summer day on Tuesday, seven refugees from Texas made their way to the office of their home state senator, Ted Cruz, to do what one does in the nation’s capital: lobby.

[….]

The former refugees had come to Washington for the Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service Leadership Academy, where they had spent the last few days training and strategizing on how to help new arrivals and convince politicians that it was right and humane to do the same. It was the fifth year of the program, with 48 former refugees from 17 states participating.

This year is different from the last four. Now they are operating in the age of Donald Trump, who wants to cut the number of refugees to be resettled in the U.S. and bar them from entry for at least four months. The Texas advocates are facing an anti-refugee wave at the state level that Trump tapped into nationally. Texas took in the second-highest number of refugees of any state in fiscal year 2016, but its Republican leadership has echoed the president’s approach, last year taking the extreme move of dropping out of the resettlement program, making it the largest state to do so. Gov. Greg Abbott has also tried to bar Syrian refugees from the state entirely. And while Republican officials in Texas can’t legally keep refugees out, they’ve done their best to say they are unwelcome.

Despite the open hostility that is exhibited by their state ― or perhaps because of it ― refugee advocates feel an intense urgency to change minds. That includes Cruz, who supported measures to bar certain groups of refugees and backed Trump’s travel ban, which is now blocked in the courts. The former refugees knew that having a positive reception from congressional staffers wouldn’t change much, if anything. But they felt that if they met the staff in person, they could work to maintain and grow relationships within the state. After visiting Cruz’s Washington office, Nsenga suggested that they reach out to Cruz’s offices in Texas as soon as possible to request meetings, since they take some time to schedule.

After visiting Cruz’s office they went on to meet Senator Cornyn’s staff and we learned a very important bit of information for Texas taxpayers concerned about the impact of refugee resettlement on the state:

This time they decided to also ask what they could do to win the senator over. They said the Cornyn staffer told them that his office gets a lot of calls expressing concerns about refugee resettlement and hardly any from people who support refugees. [Hint!—ed]

“She said, ‘You can help by educating fellow Texans about refugees,’” Emmanuel Sebagabo, a former refugee from the Democratic Republic of the Congo, said afterward.

It was a tangible bit of information that the former refugees felt could serve them well.

[….]

…. They [politicians] don’t base their policy positions on whether constituents set up apartments for people resettling in their states, and they haven’t been universally moved by protests against Trump’s executive orders. Politicians care about getting elected and reelected; they care about doing what their constituents call on them (literally and figuratively) to do.

It’s a basic principle of advocacy, but it can get lost when activists are focused on more immediate matters, like getting people resettled in a new country. Now up against Trump, Abbott, Cruz, Cornyn and other Republicans, the refugee advocates got a reminder that they can’t forget about the politics. They need to convince more fellow Texans that refugee resettlement is a good thing, but that requires combating messages from politicians who spread fear that refugees can be dangerous. They need to convince those who support refugees to not just offer places to stay, warm meals and social services. They need them to call politicians’ offices and show up at town halls.

Yup!
Continue reading here.
Thanks to HuffPo reporter Elise Foley for giving us those important reminders!
By the way, this article focused on Texas, but you can be sure they were visiting YOUR Senators and members of Congress too!
This article is posted in my relatively new category ‘What you can do’ here.

Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service "cautiously hopeful" refugee ceiling will return to 110,000

03/28/2017 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

I’m actually stunned that they think that the Trump Administration could be forced by a judge (or two judges) to shoot for a refugee “ceiling” number set by Obama for a year he would no longer be President.
For the zillionth time, even if Obama was still in the White House there is no legal requirement that the President reach the CEILING he set for admissions the previous fall.
As we showed you here—they never reach the ceiling!
Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service and World Relief mentioned in this story are federal refugee resettlement contractors paid through your tax dollars to place refugees in your towns and are most assuredly part of the ‘Religious Left’ I told you about earlier this morning.
Calling all Lutherans! You need to know what is being done in your name!***
Here is the story from Religion News Service:

CHICAGO (RNS) It was her desire to hear the stories of real people — “not just faceless refugees or immigrants” — that brought the Rev. Elizabeth A. Eaton to a refugee resettlement agency that provides a range of services to refugees in the Chicago area.

Presiding bishop of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America

“Especially now, when there’s this fear that’s been stirred up and anti-refugee sentiment, it’s really critical to say, ‘No, these people are our grandparents, our aunts and uncles,” said the presiding bishop of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, the nation’s largest Lutheran denomination.

Her visit last week (March 21) to RefugeeOne, a resettlement agency supported by Lutheran Immigrant and Refugee Service, comes at a time when the status of the U.S. refugee resettlement program is uncertain.

On March 15, a federal judge in Hawaii blocked an executive order by President Trump that would have more than halved the number of refugees accepted by the United States from the current ceiling of 110,000.

Now, Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service is “cautiously hopeful” resettlement will return to the numbers that had been planned for 2017, said Kay Bellor, vice president for programs.

***According to LIRS website these are the Lutheran groups affiliated and supportive of bringing refugees to the US:

Rooted in Lutherans’ faithful and caring response to the challenges facing uprooted peoples, Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service celebrates strong collaborative relationships with three national Lutheran church bodies. They are the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA), the Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod LC-MS, and the Latvian Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (LELCA).

Go here for our extensive reporting on LIRS, a preeminent member of the refugee industry.
Don’t miss this post—Will Lutheran bigwigs see pay cuts?
I am forever confident that one day, mainstream media will report on how much of your money these groups are gobbling to promote their progressive world view!

South Carolina Lutheran agency cutting staff; will bigwigs in Baltimore see pay cuts?

02/28/2017 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Ho hum! One more story about a federal resettlement subcontractor having to fire staff because this entire UN/US Refugee Admissions Program was so ill-conceived in the first place and because these supposed ‘religious’ charities became fat and happy on taxpayer dollars rather than raising private money for their “good works.”

lirs-building — 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. https://refugeeresettlementwatch.org/2014/07/08/lutherans-may-be-operating-centers-for-unaccompanied-minors-in-your-state/

Here is the news from Charleston, South Carolina’s Post and Courier.
BTW, did you see the news about a town hall somewhere being opened with prayer and the Libs in the audience started shouting: “separation of church and state!” Well, where are they with the resettlement contractors? Where is the ACLU and its lawsuits claiming there should be a separation of church and state?
I digress, here is the news from South Carolina:

Refugee resettlement agency Lutheran Services Carolinas expects to layoff and reassign staff in the wake of President Donald Trump’s controversial executive order dramatically reducing the number of refugees who can enter the United States.

Federal courts have halted Trump’s order suspending the U.S. refugee admissions program. But the courts did not touch a provision of the order that slashed the cap on refugees from 110,000 to 50,000 this fiscal year. As of January 31, just under 40,000 refugees have been admitted to the U.S., including 28 in Charleston. [For the umpteenth time, there was no slashing in half! That 110,000 (ceiling!) was Obama’s last wish, nothing more! Average has been around 65,000 since 9/11.—ed]

Agencies such as Lutheran Services Carolinas, which resettles refugees in Charleston, Columbia and Raleigh, rely on federal money tied to each refugee they help resettle.

Yes! As I have been saying, it’s a kind of ponzi scheme built on ever-increasing numbers of refugees (paying clients!) being admitted to the US.
Post and Courier continues…..

Lutheran Services Carolinas is an affiliate of Baltimore-based Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service, one of nine national organizations*** working on behalf of the federal government to help resettle refugees. Linda Hartke, president and CEO of Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service, estimates between 70 and 80 positions so far have been cut at partner agencies across the country.

“We and all of the resettlement networks are looking at reductions of staff,” Hartke said. “There’s not funding to pay for staff if refugees aren’t arriving. There’s some work that needs to be continued, but if the arrivals are dropping by more than 50 percent, it’s not good stewardship of resources to try to maintain staff infrastructure.”

***Update*** Hartke to receive Maryland business award, here.

Now, let’s have a little look at LIRS financial situation….

Why does no mainstream media ever bother doing this?
First, see one of their pages at USA Spending. From 2008-2016 they received $358,862,898 of your money from the US Treasury.

screenshot-374 — I’ve screenshot only 5 of 164 “transactions” here at USA Spending: https://www.usaspending.gov/Pages/AdvancedSearch.aspx?k=Lutheran%20Immigration%20and%20Refugee%20Service

This (below) is a page from the most recent Form 990 that I could find. Do you see that the federally-funded portion of their total revenue that year ($59,862,898) included $55,341,275 in federal grants and that loan servicing fee ($1,817,755) is likely the travel loan collection fee they receive from collecting money from refugees for their airfare (that was all your money too).
Thus 95% of their income comes from you—the American taxpayer!
Look at that paltry little bit of money they raised privately!

screenshot-376 — http://www.guidestar.org/FinDocuments/2014/132/574/2014-132574854-0bc6c937-9.pdf

Will any of the bigwigs in Baltimore see a pay cut or is Ms. Hartke preserving their resources at the top?
Is that good stewardship? I find it uncomfortable to report people’s salaries, and if this was a real non-profit group or a private business instead of a quasi-government agency, it would be none of our business what they pay their staff.
However, it isn’t a real non-profit group and since we pay the vast majority of their salaries, you should know what you pay them.
For comparison, go here to see what members of Congress make ($174,000 on average). Speaker of the House Paul Ryan makes less ($223,500) than Ms. Hartke! (You are paying for both of them!)

screenshot-375 — http://www.guidestar.org/FinDocuments/2014/132/574/2014-132574854-0bc6c937-9.pdf

So how many of you are crying for the contractors now?
For our complete archive on LIRS, click here.
***These are the nine federal refugee contractors: