Tag: Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Services

Lutherans lobby in Washington for amnesty; limited detention of illegal aliens

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

And, to top it off—you, the US taxpayer, most likely footed a large portion of the bill!

Take a minute and go to a post we wrote last spring (Don’t break our rice bowls! see their lavish Baltimore office building) about the Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Services (one of the nine major federal refugee contractors***) which was the ring leader of the event in Washington last week.  Out of approximately $31.5 million in annual income, $30 million is from government grants and contracts, in other words, from you.  Their CEO (photo below) makes over $200,000 in salary and benefits.

Linda Hartke, LIRS CEO: ‘We honor the gifts new Americans bring to the country.’ (and we get paid by US taxpayers to push that line!) http://blog.lirs.org/linda-harke-bio/

I have it from a good source that the average Lutheran in America has no clue about what their leaders are doing.

Here is the story from Religion News Service:

WASHINGTON, DC April. 4, 2014 – 42 Lutheran leaders visited lawmakers Wednesday on Capitol Hill and at the White House, calling for virtuous and compassionate immigration reform. From the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod, Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, Latvian Evangelical Lutheran Church in America and Lutheran ministry organizations, they emphasized that as people of faith, they are called to welcome the sojourner and walk alongside migrants and refugees as they rebuild their lives in the United States.

The leaders had face-to-face conversations with more than 20 members of Congress, including House and Senate leadership and members of Congress who are themselves Lutheran. They also met with staff at nearly 70 congressional offices, sharing stories of how our nation’s broken immigration system affects their congregations and communities by creating a culture of fear and leaving children without parents. The meetings were part of the annual Lutheran Immigration Leadership Summit, hosted by Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service (LIRS).

The US has an “unjust immigration system,” they told the White House:

A group of ten leaders also met with the President’s Domestic Policy Council and the Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships at the White House. A letter was delivered to President Obama after the meeting, signed by 37 of the leaders. The letter thanked President Obama for his leadership on immigration reform and for reviewing immigration enforcement. However, it also called on President Obama to “ease the pain caused by unnecessarily high rates of detention and deportation.” They wrote: “we urge you to alleviate the hardships and separation experienced by families caught up in our unjust immigration system.”

Here (and below) is the text of the letter they delivered to the White House.  If you are a Lutheran who disagrees with your church leadership for pushing amnesty and advocating for no detention for most illegal migrants, click here to see which leaders of your church signed the letter.

April 2, 2014

President Barack Obama
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Ave NW
Washington, DC 20500

Dear President Obama:

As people of faith, we pray and call for immigration policies that keep families together, protect individuals forced from their homelands or fleeing persecution, and value the great gift immigrants are to our churches, communities and nation.

On behalf of Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service (LIRS) and the undersigned leaders from the Lutheran Immigration Leadership Summit and the communities we represent, thank you for today’s meeting with staff from your Domestic Policy Council and the Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships and for your willingness to hear our concerns.

We join the cry of the prophet Amos: “…let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.”

We lift our voices in speaking to members of the House and Senate, and to your Administration. Compassionate immigration reform must become the law of the land. Every day without action does harm to families, to communities, and to our nation.

We were encouraged by your announcement that you will review immigration enforcement practices. We believe that such a review is long overdue. While we await legislative action on just, compassionate and comprehensive immigration reform, we are counting on your Administration to exercise its authority to bring about an end to the excessive detention and deportation of immigrants by providing for:

*Broader and increased use of prosecutorial discretion at all points of law enforcement decision-making to reduce harmful enforcement practices and family separation.

*An end to the arbitrary use of detention and to the detention of vulnerable migrants such as asylum seekers and survivors of torture, and true access to justice.

*Increased availability of community-based alternatives to detention that do not unnecessarily deprive individuals of their freedom and for migrants who are neither a danger to the community nor a flight risk.

Today, we and fellow Lutheran leaders are meeting with Congressional leaders to call for swift immigration reform that reflects our American values and the calling of our faith to love and serve our neighbors. We yearn for a nation that honors the contributions that new and aspiring Americans make to our society and economy, and we long for immigration policies that strengthen families within our borders.

You, as President, can ease the pain caused by unnecessarily high rates of detention and deportation. While we appreciate your leadership on comprehensive immigration reform, we urge you to alleviate the hardships and separation experienced by families caught up in our unjust immigration system. We pray that you follow this way of justice, and by doing so, show the positive impact that stabilizing migrant communities can have of all of us.

Yours in faith,

Here is an article about one of the Lutheran leaders excellent adventure in Washington.

*** The federal gravy train steams on!   If the Senate version of Comprehensive Immigration Reform should become law, the contractors, including LIRS, will be in line for MORE federal grants to provide “services” to the millions of newly amnestied.  They will be contracted to get the “new Americans” set up on welfare, help them find jobs, get them micro-loans to start businesses, teach them English etc.  There are even federal grants to teach the immigrants how to have healthy marriages!

Wyoming op-ed: Time for the refugee program to come out of the shadows!

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

As regular readers know, the Republican governor of Wyoming, Matt Mead, last year wrote to the federal government to begin exploring the possibility of setting up a refugee resettlement program in the only state in the nation wise enough to stay out of it completely for over 30 years.

A political firestorm is underway in the state now over whether or not the state should proceed with the US State Department, the US Department of Health and Human Services (Office of Refugee Resettlement), and a Lutheran contractor to begin bringing refugees to Gillette and/or Casper, Wyoming.   See all of our previous posts on the controversy by clicking here.

The feds and the contractors need Wyoming because they are reaching a saturation point in many locations around the country.  “Pockets of resistance” have developed.

Don Barnett

One of the leading critics of the program, Don Barnett, has penned this piece published in the Casper Star Tribune yesterday so Wyomingites have more facts before they leap into a contract with the federal government and a federal contractor (emphasis is mine):

Refugee resettlement was once the calling of true sacrificial charity and the work of private sponsors who invested their own resources. Today, it is the work of federal contractors who have no responsibility a mere 3-4 months after the refugee has arrived.

Traditional sponsor duties have been replaced by access to all forms of welfare upon arrival for refugees and an opaque stream of grant money from seemingly every government agency except NASA.

In recent years up to 95 percent of the refugees coming to the U.S. were referred by the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees or were the relatives of U.N.-picked refugees. Until the late 1990s, the U.S. picked the large majority of refugees for resettlement in the U.S.

Considering that the refugee influx causes increases in all legal and illegal immigration as family and social networks are established in the U.S., the U.N. is effectively dictating much of U.S. immigration policy.

A network of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) working with the U.S. State Department “selects communities where refugees will live” according to a 2012 GAO report, “Refugee Resettlement — Greater Consultation With Community Stakeholders Could Strengthen Program.”

They don’t place refugees in D.C. where the NGOs have offices which lobby for more refugees and money. They don’t place refugees in Delaware, home of Joe Biden, co-sponsor of the 1980 Refugee Act which defines the program we have today.

The GAO report is critical of refugee contractors and how they place refugees in local communities across the U.S., noting of the resettlement contractors “few agencies we visited consulted relevant local stakeholders, which posed challenges for service providers.” The report found that “… most public entities such as public schools and health departments generally said that agencies notified them of the number of refugees expected to arrive in the coming year, but did not consult them regarding the number of refugees they could serve…”

Lutheran Family Services Rocky Mountains, the affiliate proposed for Wyoming for Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service (LIRS) the fourth largest refugee contractor in the nation, takes this penchant for operating in secret to the max. According to notes from a February 2014 board of directors meeting the process of selecting resettlement sites in Wyoming has been “complicated by both the state and a private citizen advocate providing media availability to a local paper. Media coverage at this stage is potentially damaging to the success of the overall process…”

There is a reason for the secrecy.

The program places significant unfunded costs on state and local taxpayers in the form of social services which must be provided.

According to the latest data available, a federal study of refugees who have been in the country 5 years or less, the unemployment rate for refugees was 21 percent compared with 9 percent for the U.S. population in 2010. Twenty-six percent were dependent on cash assistance, 63 percent were in the food stamp program and 48 percent were in Medicaid or short-term federal Refugee Medical Assistance. The federal welfare program SSI is a good indicator of long-term welfare dependency rates. It is generally a lifetime entitlement and usually includes Medicaid and other social services. The federal study of arrivals over the previous five years found an 11.6 percent rate of usage – about 2.5 times the national average.

Most of this cost is borne by the federal taxpayer, but programs such as Medicaid have state cost components as well.

There is even secrecy in the meaning of official language used in the program. For instance, it will be claimed – and the media will report – that refugees are “self-sufficient” in some amazingly short period of time. But as officially defined, refugees are considered “self-sufficient” even if they are living in public housing, receiving Medicaid and Food Stamps. They can receive cash assistance from local, state and federal sources, such as SSI. Only TANF disqualifies one from being “self-sufficient.”

Then there is the money racket. As a state refugee coordinator notes in the 2012 GAO report, “local affiliate funding is based on the number of refugees they serve, so affiliates have an incentive to maintain or increase the number of refugees they resettle each year rather than allowing the number to decrease.”

Refugee resettlement is very profitable for the non-profits.

At the point of his recent retirement the CEO of Lutheran Social Service of Minnesota, another resettlement affiliate of LIRS, was making $441,767 a year in salary and benefits – almost all taxpayer-supplied.

It is time to bring this program out of the shadows.

Don Barnett is a fellow at the Center for Immigration Studies in Washington, D.C.

Editors note:  If you’ve had experience with the refugee program where you live, please take a few minutes and comment to Mr. Barnett’s opinion piece so that the citizens of Wyoming have all of the facts before they get into something they will never be able to get out of!

South Dakota: Iraqi refugee gets life in prison for sex trafficking

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment
US Attorney Brendan Johnson made the announcement Monday. http://ktwb.com/news/articles/2014/mar/17/alaboudi-sentenced-today-for-sex-trafficking/

Horrible story!

Gee, wonder what these refugee criminals cost the local court system in Sioux Falls, SD?

And, who is resettling refugees in South Dakota?  Oh, it’s the Lutherans again!

But, but, but, didn’t Wyoming’s governor just say yesterday that refugees are screened before getting here?  Tell that to the woman in Colorado, or how about the people of Kentucky.

From the Argus Leader (hat tip:  ‘pungentpeppers’).   No shyness here at the Argus Leader about labeling them refugees!

***Update*** To have a look at this “monster” go to a news clip sent to us later in the day by ‘pungentpeppers.’

An Iraqi refugee who sold several women and girls for sex at his Sioux Falls apartment will spend the rest of his life in prison after U.S. District Court Judge Karen Schreier agreed with victims who called him a “monster.”

A jury convicted Mohammed Alaboudi in December on four counts of sex trafficking. His lawyer asked for the same 30-year sentence given last April to a co-conspirator, Emannuel Nyoun. But the judge noted that Nyoun had victimized just one young woman, while Alaboudi had hurt many, many more.

House of horrors!

Four victims, identified only by their initials, recounted during Monday’s hearing the physical and sexual abuse against them at the hands of the 45-year-old Alaboudi. Earlier at trial, many of them had testified how he had given them drugs and shelter to lure them into dependency and prostitution, using his one-bedroom apartment in central Sioux Falls as headquarters for what U.S. Attorney Brendan Johnson has called “a house of horrors.”  [How much do you want to bet his apartment was subsidized by the taxpayers!—ed]

[….]

The defendant, who purposely drugged the girls and raped them repeatedly, then allowed his cohorts to come in” and do the exact same thing, Koliner said.

One of the victims who testified Monday, a young woman named S.J., said Alaboudi would call them “worthless.” She said she was “used as a toy over and over.”  [Worthless because they were infidels to him?—ed]

“I couldn’t clean myself enough; it didn’t work,” she said. “Me, at age 14, was locked in a room with a man I had never met before, and I was forced to have sex with him.”

As I have said before, if the US State Department had to pay for expensive criminal trials and incarceration of refugees they agree to resettle, it might make them and Congress take notice!

Wyoming: Governor Mead wants a “plan” for refugees

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment
Governor Matt Mead invited the federal government in to help Wyoming “plan” for refugees. Makes me wonder if he is pals with open borders Republican Grover Norquist.

Update March 19:  Wyoming had 5 refugees in FY2012, so someone is selling the Governor a bill of goods!  Not exactly a flood moving to the state!

He says they are already coming, so they need a plan or another government program.  Mead:

With or without a program, the issue is real -– this is already evident in some of our Wyoming communities as refugees find their way to our state.

Let me say at the outset that I don’t fault the governor for not understanding how refugee resettlement works, heck it has taken me and other critics years to understand even a small portion of it because of the profound secrecy with which the federal government agencies (US State Department and US Dept. of Health and Human Services) with their quasi-government contractors operate, and because of the complexity of the program itself.

The governor in his op-ed published in the Star Tribune yesterday said they need a plan for Wyoming because the refugees are already coming.

What the governor doesn’t get is that if they are coming already they are secondary migrants NOT newly resettled refugees.   They are just like anyone else who might move to Wyoming because this is America and they can.  Wyoming doesn’t need a federal contractor for immigrant in-migration anymore than they would for an American moving over from Colorado.  Their poster boy, Bertine Bahige, is a secondary migrant.

Secondary migrants are not under the care of a resettlement contractor like the secretive Lutheran Family Services Rocky Mountains that would like to be the federal contractor bringing NEW refugees to Wyoming via the US State Department.  The “refugee,” now a secondary migrant, has already gotten his introduction (his package of goodies) to America in some other state.

If secondary migrants are coming in any large numbers to Wyoming they are either coming there because there is some industry luring them (like BIG MEAT in some other western states), or Wyoming has generous welfare benefits like Minnesota and Maine.

Here is more of what Republican Mead (who sounds like a big D) said in defending his position in what has become a hot-potato issue in Wyoming:

There have been recent discussions about refugees coming to Wyoming. It is an important issue as refugees are coming now and have been coming to Wyoming with our state having no plan or say on the matter. Questions of what, if any, resources are being used and how they are used remain unanswered. We are the only state in the country without a plan or process.

So it is clear … refugees are people who are in the United States legally after being vetted by the Office of Homeland Security and others. The program started following World War II to address a number of Europeans who were displaced by the war. Sadly, conditions exist in places around the globe where people are faced with hardships so severe that they must flee their homes in order to be safe. These men, women and children are fleeing persecution, torture, violence and war. There is understandable sympathy for these people. The United States has set standards to evaluate the conditions that qualify a person for refugee status.

As refugees have been coming to Wyoming –without a plan or program – I felt it important to learn more about what is done in Wyoming. The United States accommodates a relatively small number of people from around the world when refuge is needed. Most refugees choose to stay in our nation’s larger cities. A small number are choosing a rural state like Wyoming. It is a responsibility to our taxpayers to know, as refugees come to Wyoming, what is the impact.

Again, the governor confuses secondary migrants with newly resettled refugees who are under the care and control of a contractor for only 3-6 months, then they are free to strike out on their own and move elsewhere (presumably without any hand-holding from government agencies).

Although, one caveat, is that the contractors are now expanding their “services” in order to get more federal grants for such things as “healthy marriage programs” (where the contractor gets the taxpayer $$$, not the state), but the contractor needs a large “refugee” population in a specific community to get those.

If he would like to know more about such migrants, check out St. Cloud, MN, Lewiston, ME, or Ft. Morgan, CO.  I doubt there will be a great migration of them to Wyoming any time soon.   However, if he sets up a “program” with Lutheran Family Services Rocky Mountains, he will indeed start the flow to Wyoming because LFSRM will, after resettling the ‘seed community’ then apply for all the family members to follow (they are paid by the head for those too!).

They (the feds and the contractors) need Wyoming because they are running out of “welcoming” communities elsewhere!

All of our coverage of the Governor’s appeal to bring in the federal government to help determine the demographic future of Wyoming may be found by clicking here.

Photo:  my reference to Norquist is because Norquist and pal Suhail Khan recently got up a letter pushing for more refugee resettlement.

Wyoming: Republican primary candidate challenges governor on refugee resettlement

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment
Dr. Taylor Haynes challenges Governor Mead on invitation to federal government.

It seems that the subject of Wyoming possibly getting a refugee resettlement program has worked its way into an election year issue.   See all of our previous posts on this hot button issue in Wyoming.

A letter this week in the Casper Star Tribune from Dr. Taylor Haynes questions whether it is a good idea for Wyoming to invite the feds in.

The writer describes problems with Somalis elsewhere in the US (check out our post just yesterday from Minnesota!) and in Europe.

For readers in Wyoming who are asking Dr. Haynes, ‘who said anything about Somalis coming to Wyoming?’ let me emphasize again—-WYOMING WILL NOT CHOOSE THE ETHNIC GROUPS IT WILL RECEIVE. The US State Department and the resettlement contractor will.

In this case it’s contractor Lutheran Family Services Rocky Mountains, which has had a hand in bringing Somalis to Greeley and Ft. Morgan, CO (both cities have had many problems with the influx), that would be the lead agency in Wyoming.

Here is Dr. Haynes:

Did Governor Mead apply to the Office of Refugee Settlement, indicating that Wyoming is interested in establishing a public–private center to help refugees? If this is true, what would it mean for Wyoming?

What it has wrought in Europe from the Netherlands to the United Kingdom is devastating. Most immigrants from war-torn East Africa have few to no job skills and exhibit tremendous language and cultural handicaps. They overburden the social welfare system. That’s the bright side.

The “rest of the story” is honor killings and unbelievably violent gangs, centered on the various clans from the home country. They have been exposed to the horrors of war from birth. Violence is the only coping means they know.

[….]

We must very sternly question the governor’s motive for making this request. Could it be the federal dollars funneled to the “private charities” to manage the re-settlement of these refugees? If so, which charities have been selected to receive the grant? What are their connections to the governor?

We, the “sitting duck” citizens of Wyoming, must demand that Governor Mead withdraw this request immediately if he made it.

I wish I had more time to write about this (heading out of town), but be sure to visit the story about Dr. Taylor Haynes at the Wyoming Tribune Eagle.   Here is one of the many things he says that has motivated him to run:

Haynes said he’s running because he believes Wyoming needs an executive willing to fight against what he sees as federal meddling in business that the state should be responsible for.

The present governor, Matt Mead, has done just that—invited federal meddling in state business—by opening the door to the US State Department and its refugee resettlement contractors.