We can’t stress to you enough that federal contractors, like Lutheran Family Services, cannot sell a refugee resettlement plan to a community by telling citizens the whole truth up front!
In fact, the driving force behind this blog from day one has been our fury over this very point—if it’s a good program, then dammit tell the public the whole plan. If you can’t sell it with the truth, then it shouldn’t be done with secrecy (or emotional appeals using refugees as poster boys and girls). In fact, this is exactly why citizens everywhere are sick of government at all levels, government-funded non-profits like this Lutheran bunch, and our so-called leaders.
Sorry, let me get to what has me furious!
Below is all you need to know about Gov. Matt Mead’s naive plan!
This is a letter to the editor from a Mr. Cassidy to the Laramie Boomerang(hat tip: Joanne). Emphasis is mine:
Dear Editor,
On Monday, I sent all of the members of the Legislature an email regarding Gov. Matt Mead’s planned creation of a refugee resettlement center in Wyoming.
I wondered why I hadn’t received a single response to my letter. Then I received a copy of the board meeting minutes for the Lutheran Family Services Rocky Mountain Area.
Isn’t this a fascinating little paragraph that I found regarding the proposed Wyoming Refugee Resettlement plan? I guess we don’t want the boobs to find out about it until it is fait accompli.
Well, what the heck. I’m sure the government knows what’s best for us. In the future, I’ll try not to point out issues that are supposed to be secret.
“This has been further 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, especially when it takes place in advance of comprehensive consultation with a broad spectrum of community stakeholders.”
Edward Cassidy
Laramie
Thank you Mr. Cassidy! This is one of the most important pieces of information we have ever posted.
P.S.
You, the taxpaying citizens, who largely fund Lutheran Family Services, are definitely NOT a “stakeholder.”
For all of our previous coverage of the plan to open Wyoming to refugee resettlement, click here.
In 2005, the UN was promoting Utica as the “Town that Loves Refugees.” http://www.unhcr.org/426f4c772.html
Utica police and judges say the Mohawk Valley Resource Center for Refugees needs to develop a program to stem a growing problem of refugees driving under the influence.
Check out the information at the Resource Center’s website, here. It was established by the Lutheran contractor, Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service.
The largest number of refugees resettled there come from Bosnia and the refugee population is now 12% of the city. In another report I saw that the refugee population is 1/4th of the “welcoming” city’s population, but that seems like a stretch to me.
Here is a listof the 31 countries represented by refugees in Utica.
From the Utica Observer-Dispatch (Hat tip: ‘pungentpeppers’) Emphasis is mine:
First, it was car seats.
Then, it was driving lessons.
The next expansion of the Mohawk Valley Resource Center for Refugee’s driving education program? Teaching non-native populations the dangers of driving under the influence.
“Driving while intoxicated is a foreign concept to them,” said Alban Uryniak, traffic and safety instructor for the center and former Utica Police Department sergeant.
Jean Skahan, training manager for the driving safety programs at the center, said in an email that drunk and distracted driving “is a growing problem among certain refugee groups.”
She said that Utica police and judges have requested the refugee center concentrate on this issue this year.
Most times when a refugee is involved in an arrest, Utica police Lt. Steve Hauck said alcohol is involved, though it is not always in a car.
“Sometimes, it’s driving; sometimes it’s domestic,” he said.
In an effort to combat the problem, the refugee center is pairing with the Oneida County STOP DWI Program to eventually offer workshops that would teach interpreters ways to communicate with the various refugee and immigrant populations about the subject, how to prevent it and explaining what might happen if they’re involved in an accident.
Language barriers are not the only things that could get in the way of the refugee communities that will participate in the workshops. Driving culture is just as varied as the languages people speak, Uryniak said. [But, that diversity gives us strength—right!—ed]
We have several previous posts on Utica, here. And, here, is one about a big food stamp fraud bust there.
Sure enough, the whining has paid off for the resettlement contractors, Congress is going to send more of your money their way! The excuse this time is that the poor contractors now have 26,000 illegal alien kids to care for—the unaccompanied minorswe have been hearing about.
Make no mistake, this is not money going to the “refugees” this is money to keep the small and large contractor fiefdoms going—for staff, for offices, for travel, for lobbying even! There is one bright spot in this article—a Duke University professor, who works with refugees, is calling these numbers into question!
Duke professor Suzanne Shanahan: “…the math is extremely wrong.”
Despite budget increases, experts fear for the future of refugee services.
Congress has largely increased funding for the Office of Refugee Resettlement to $1.489 billion from last year’s $1.12 billion, said Jen Smyers, associate director for immigration and refugee policy at Church World Service—a group that works with refugees in Durham and across the country. ORR estimated it would need $1.6 billion to serve all the populations in its care this year—a half billion increase from last year’s budget—and is looking for ways to meet the more than $100 million shortfall, Smyers added.
“We never thought [the funding] was going to get cut from last year’s level,” Smyers said. “Our fear was that they would not get anywhere near [ORR’s] needs. Due to some really great advocacy and last minute phone calls, we were able to get the number to $1.489 billion, which is a substantial increase, but there still is a gap between that number and the number ORR projected.”
Projected costs for this fiscal year increased by nearly half a billion dollars to cover an estimated 26,000 unaccompanied alien children coming to the United States from Mexico and Central America this year, Smyers said. This is an increase of approximately 10,000 unaccompanied children from the number of children in the 2012 fiscal year.
Suzanne Shanahan, associate director of ethics at the Kenan Institute and associate research professor in sociology, was critical of the calculations used to reach the increase in ORR’s budget requirements. She said that taking care of 10,000 extra children should not require a 30 percent increase in funds.
“The U.S. resettles 60,000 refugees a year, and the 60,000 refugees cost $1.12 billion [last year],” Shanahan said. “To say that a half billion dollars is what it takes to increase that by 10,000, the math is extremely wrong.”
With regard to the $100 million shortfall, Shanahan said this is only between a 6 and 7 percent total shortfall, which is not “extraordinary.”
“Even if refugees had to bear the entire cost of this, it’s not clear that [the burden] would be that dramatic,” Shanahan said.
It is unclear how the shortfall will affect refugees. Smyers said Congress appropriates an agency to their funds, and the agency decides how those funds are used. Currently, the ORR provides refugees with eight months of assistance. If, however, the shortfall cannot be remedied, the ORR may reduce the duration of assistance they are able to provide. ORR will likely prioritize unaccompanied children over longer-term refugee assistance.
The article goes on to discuss how surprising it is that refugee allocations should be increased in light of the fact that refugees have little clout in Congress. Refugees may not, but you can be absolutely sure the contractors, including the US Conference of Catholic Bishops, have a huge amount of clout on The Hill! Not to mention the hard Left open-borders lobby (which overlaps with the contractors).
By the way, the USCCB and Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Services have federal contracts to take care of the illegal alien kids (dreamers or schemers?).
See my previous post—if we can’t afford them why bring so many refugees?
Cargill, the largest employer in the county, gets its refugee laborers through Lutheran Family Services! Taxpayers foot the bill!
Ho hum! Here we go again. Why on earth are US taxpayers paying Lutheran Family Services to bring immigrant labor to meat packing towns in the heartland? And, if you missed our posts the other day, hereand here, about Noel, Missouri, maybe you don’t know that the federal contractors, like the Lutherans, are working side by side with the meat packers to get “comprehensive immigration reform” (S.744) through Congress.
A growing, distinct group of people has been immigrating to the United States, and Nebraska, in the past few years.
They are refugees, escaping their homeland because of war, oppression or famine.
Two representatives from Lutheran Family Services spoke about Nebraska’s growing refugee population during the quarterly community forum held Dec. 12 at St. John’s Lutheran Church.
Lacey Studnicka, development officer for the community services program, said Schuyler is a good example of how a small town can help refugees looking to start a new life. [This is a standard talking point—praise the community for being “welcoming” before they have a chance to complain, or if they are already complaining it’s a way to make them feel guilty!—ed]
[…..]
These refugees come from all over the world, but recently, large populations coming to Nebraska have been from Burma and Bhutan, two countries located in southern Asia.
If you are wondering, the Bhutanese and most of the Burmese are not Muslims. A few years back it was all the rage to bring Somali laborers for the meat packers, but when Somalis began striking and demanding religious accommodation on the job, the US State Department shifted to bringing in more Bhutanese and Burmese, I believe because they are more docile workers.
The ‘do-gooders’ at Lutheran Family Services depend almost exclusively on taxpayer dollars for anything they do for refugees! These articles always make it sound like the Lutheran contractor is doing all of this out of private charity.
Lutheran Family Services gets two- to four-weeks notice before the refugees arrive in Nebraska. The organization provides the refugees with a foundation, including a furnished apartment and groceries.
Social security cards are obtained within the first 90 days, the adults receive job-placement services and schools are located for the children.
“Cargill has been a great partner!”
Studnicka gives credit to Cargill, which has helped immigrants and refugees make a life for themselves in the community. [Oh yeh! And, Cargill is doing all this out of the goodness of its corporate heart!—ed]
“We have seen a lot of growth,” Studnicka said. “Cargill has been a great partner.”
Lutheran Family Services is the largest refugee-resettlement agency in the state.
Last year was the organization’s busiest yet, with 478 refugees resettled in Omaha and 120 in Lincoln. Statewide, there were almost 1,000 refugees who came to Nebraska.
Lutheran Family Services gets paid by the US State Department to bring-’em in by the head. Cargill gets cheap reliable labor while the town and state get to support the immigrant families’ other needs (housing, education, food stamps, medical care). It’s a great business model, wouldn’t you agree!
And, Lutherans use your tax dollars to supply cheap labor to Marriott and Hilton!
Truth be told, I don’t have the energy this morning to go through Bhutanese refugee, Som Nath Subedi’s, opinion piece with a fine tooth comb refuting each of his claims about how refugees are a net benefit to the US economy. But, I also did want to post this and pull out a few things that interested me.
Lutheran leader Roberta Nestaas: Doing well by “advocating for justice” and finding cheap foreign labor for large corporations!
Som Nath Subedi is an exception to the rule when he says this:
When a refugee comes from refugee camps overseas or from a country torn by war or political unrest, he or she takes a travel loan from the U.S. government for airfare. Refugees have to pay that money back. I owed $1,300 for my one-way plane ticket. Within a year, I paid every penny back.
In fact, Som Nath Subedi, who says he was resettled by Lutheran Community Services, paid a portion to the US government but Lutheran Community Services, or its parent agency (as the collection agency), received a cut of the travel loan that really should have all been returned to the US Treasury.
Tellingly, the US State Department does not reveal how many of those travel loans go unpaid leading us to assume it’s a figure they are ashamed of.
Som Nath Subedi goes on to say that he has paid $30,000 in taxes (including property tax) working for Lutheran Community Services. He is an outlier. When he says most refugees pay taxes, he is just flat out wrong. Incomes are so low that most refugees fall below the levels required to pay taxes at all (if they are working) and in fact probably receive money back through such giveaways as the child tax credit programs.
They don’t get off welfare that easily either, the large majority continue in subsidized housing, get medicaid, and receive food stamps at least.
Then he uses figures from more than ten years ago to say that refugees are employed at a higher rate than US citizens. It is just not so today and it may not have been so then. The contractors, like his Lutheran bosses, find menial labor for refugees, count them as employed for reporting purposes, and it doesn’t matter if a few months down the road they are unemployed again.
Here is the part that I especially wanted to note—-here is the truth!
Big corporations lobby Congress to bring in more LEGAL immigrant labor. The reason refugees fit the bill is that THEY CANNOT GO HOME. They are essentially captive (slave!) labor. And, it’s beneficial to the employer to have workers, like the Bhutanese, who are a bit more docile than say the Somalis the meatpackers had trouble with in recent years.
As a matter of fact, I think that after the stink the Somalis caused with demands for religious accommodation in the workplace, I envision a scenario where big corporations went to the Bush Administration and said we need less troublesome workers and the Bush State Department found them the Bhutanese.
Initially, limited English skills lead most refugees to work entry level jobs that average Americans would rather not do. Big corporations like Marriott and Hilton count on refugees coming here to fill a legal workforce. Those same corporations donated to both Democratic and Republican parties*** and their candidates during the 2012 general election to push for the admission of more legal workers. These hard-working refugees stay at work longer than American co-workers. This helps American employers save some money on training and hiring costs.
Som Nath Subedi goes on to make a pitch for ‘comprehensive immigration reform’ so more refugees can get here more easily, but little does he know that once a few million illegal aliens are legalized it will mean less employment for his people.
It makes me want to scream! In order for Marriott and Hilton to have cheap, legal, uncomplaining workers (Americans would complain if working conditions weren’t acceptable and wages low), we, the taxpayers must subsidize the lives of foreign laborers while the Lutheran contractors act as the middlemen.
If Lutherans (who are being paid by us right now) want to be head-hunters for Marriott/Hilton why don’t they just do it directly and leave the US taxpayer out of it. Let the Lutherans sponsor families privately and hand the workers over to the big corporations!
I said I wasn’t going to get into this story too deeply, but I just looked at Lutheran Community Services Northwest’s latest Form 990, and I am even more furious!
On page 9, they took in $21,992,854 that year and $19,879,656 came from GOVERNMENT GRANTS. 90 % of their “charitable” income came from you via the US Treasury (why isn’t it paid by Marriott?).
They paid out over $17 million in salaries/benefits and other employee related expenses.
Office expenses were $1 and a quarter million. Rent was $1 million (I’m rounding numbers now).
They spent $386,000 traveling and $229,000 on conferences.
Their president Ms. Nestaas took in a cool $216,393 in salary and benefits and it’s almost all on you—the taxpayer!
***Who else is working for Marriott?—Grover Norquist—because it’s all about the $$$.
We can’t stress to you enough that federal contractors, like Lutheran Family Services, cannot sell a refugee resettlement plan to a community by telling citizens the whole truth up front! 
