Tag: Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Services

Lutherans resettle 10,095 refugees in US in FY2013

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

What do you think the odds are that a paper like the Sacramento Bee would publish a press release from us verbatim as if its a news story?   Zip, zero, nada!    However, if what a refugee resettlement CONTRACTOR says (because they are good people) is published with nary a critical commentary.

LIRS CEO Hartke: In FY2014 we are focusing on bringing Tutsis to your towns!

Here is most of a press release from Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Services (LIRS) published today in a paper near you!  LIRS is one of nine major federal contractors resettling refugees, but note (LOL!) they still call them “voluntary agencies.”

Headline is:  LIRS Helps U.S. Reach Refugee Admissions Target for First Time Since 1980  (emphasis is mine):

WASHINGTON, Oct. 31, 2013 — /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ — Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service (LIRS) resettled over 10,000 refugees in fiscal year 2013, thereby contributing, as America’s second-largest resettlement agency, to the United States reaching its refugee admissions target for the first time since 1980.

“LIRS has resettled 10,095 refugees in 2013, including many refugee kids who arrived without a parent or guardian and in desperate need of protection and human care,” said Terry Abeles, LIRS Director for Refugee Resettlement. “This achievement comes as we approach our 75th anniversary in 2014, and marks an important new milestone in a history in which we’ve helped nearly 400,000 refugees rebuild their lives.”  

[Readers, up until 1980 they may have helped refugees out of Christian charity, today they receive millions of taxpayer dollars to bring immigrants to your towns and they hope to have even a larger clientele when (if!) Comprehensive Immigration Reform becomes law.—ed]

“LIRS is proud to have worked with our outstanding affiliates to play a key role in the nationwide effort that brought 69,930 refugees to safety and new lives in the United States in fiscal year 2013,” said Abeles. “That number is nearer to the authorized ceiling – 70,000 in 2013 – than in any year since 1980.”

“Reaching this threshold demonstrates this Administration’s efforts to create a refugee admissions program that meets the important security screening standards required by the American people and the growing humanitarian need,” added Abeles. “Research shows that refugees become successfully employed, tax-paying citizens and contribute in a relatively short period of time to the well-being of the United States.”

In fiscal year 2013, refugees were resettled in 186 communities in 49 states. For FY2014, President Barack Obama has authorized the admission of up to 70,000 refugees. Over 60 nationalities are expected to be admitted, with continued strong arrivals from Iraq, Burma, and Bhutan.

“Thousands of people overseas and across the United States make the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program possible each year,” added Abeles. “Their successes are a testament to the effective partnership between the public and private sectors, and express America’s commitment to being a country of refuge.”

LIRS welcomes refugees and migrants on behalf of The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, and the Latvian Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, thereby following God’s call to welcome and lifting up the importance of congregations in the work of welcome.

In the next paragraph they say they are lobbying for “comprehensive immigration reform.”

Check out LIRS’s digs at “Don’t break our rice bowls!”  (LIRS income $31 million and $30 million is from you, the taxpayer!)

Big news from LIRS website!

CEO Linda Hartke says this year they are going to put a focus on bringing Banyamulenge Tutsis from the Democratic Republic of Congo to your towns!

First Congolese settle in Lancaster Co. PA

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment
On-going conflicts in DR Congo is the US’s problem now—excuse for tens of thousands of “refugees” to be resettled in America.

This is your typical ‘formulaic’ story about a new refugee arriving in small town America.  I’m posting it here just to remind you that we are expected to take 50,000 refugees from the Democratic Republic of Congo over the next few years.

Why?  I don’t know, some fuzzy notion that Belgium and the West messed up West/Central Africa and now we are obligated to take in their people displaced by warring factions.

From Lancaster Online (emphasis is mine):

Terry K. Mulumba decided to leave behind his haunting past.

“Thinking about it would be wrong and would take me down,” he said.

Mulumba, a 22-year-old studying for the math and science portions of the GED test, is one of the first refugees from the Democratic Republic of the Congo to have been resettled in Lancaster County.

Lutheran Refugee Services and Church World Service each expect to resettle 50 more Congolese here in the coming year. To put that into perspective, Lutheran Refugee Services settles an average of 200 refugees of varying nationalities in Lancaster County each year.

Like Mulumba, who came here in 2012, many Congolese are escaping the eastern and southeastern regions of the country because of political and ethnic tensions that were fostered through years of Belgian colonial rule and a Western-backed dictatorship.

Just for your information, Lancaster (the city) at the heart of Amish country, has had refugee overload for some time and so the resettlement agencies are now spreading refugees to surrounding small towns in the county, like this one (Akron, PA) in this story.

For new readers, Lutheran Refugee Services (subcontractor of LIRS) and Church World Service are two of nine US State Department contractors resettling refugees with your tax dollars in the US.  Also, for new readers one of our top (most-clicked on) items here at RRW is our fact sheet, here.

Click here for previous posts on Lancaster.

Lutheran Leftists release propaganda to influence amnesty bill in Congress

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Just in time for the August recess, and time for Members of Congress and Senators to go home to their states and districts, a major federal refugee contractor and advocate for amnesty, the Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Services (LIRS), has come out with “mythbuster” handouts so that Lutherans can be sure to hit-up their members with literature in hand.

When I saw the list of those LIRS is thanking I want to ask all Lutheran readers—-is your church so far to the Left that you rely on the Center for American Progress (Soros!) for your talking points?

Linda Hartke, LIRS CEO. Big smooch to Soros and the boys at Center for American Progress.

Here is the news about the Mythbusters at the Sacramento Bee (which was too lazy to write its own story and just posts the press release from LIRS verbatim):

WASHINGTON, July 31, 2013 — /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ — Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service (LIRS)  today releases its Comprehensive Immigration Reform Mythbuster, a unique infographic resource that arms advocates with the truth about reform’s social and economic benefits, while debunking the most widely propagated misinformation.

“The Comprehensive Immigration Reform Mythbuster comes at an absolutely critical time,” said LIRS President and CEO Linda Hartke. “We can’t let the immigration reform debate be hijacked by propaganda or myths. At this moment in our nation’s history, perhaps more than at any other time, it’s clear that our nation’s future and economic well-being hinges on our welcoming of New Americans.”

“The facts are clear: Our immigration system is not working, and it’s time we enact fair and humane immigration reform that keeps families united and protects refugees and other vulnerable migrants,” said LIRS Director for Advocacy Brittney Nystrom. “The Comprehensive Immigration Reform Mythbuster makes the clear case that immigration reform with a roadmap to citizenship is the right thing to do for migrants and refugees and the right choice for our nation’s lawmakers.”

“Congress’s August recess is a pivotal time for immigration reform,” said Nystrom. “Armed with this new Comprehensive Immigration Reform Mythbuster, we all need to make our Members of Congress understand why immigration reform is critical for our nation’s families, communities, and economy.”

A reminder to readers, your tax dollars pay for the work of LIRS (96% of their funds come from you)!

LIRS is grateful to the Center for American Progress and the American Immigration Council for helping to ensure the accuracy of the Comprehensive Immigration Reform Mythbuster.

Let’s talk about the accuracy!!!   OMG! They use Malta as an example of a country that takes more refugees than the US per 1000 square kilometers. 

MALTA OF ALL PLACES! (click here then click on the refugee propaganda)

Suffering Malta doesn’t want to take them permanently (as we do), they are illegal migrants that Malta is trying desperately to return to where they came from or move on to other countries.  But, some dumb American (even a dumb Member of Congress) is going to assume from this “mythbuster” that Malta is somehow more generous than America.  I can hear it now:  ‘Isn’t that so welcoming of tiny Malta to be so generous to the downtrodden while we are so stingy!’

For the real truth about Malta, see our nearly 6-year-old Malta (Mess!) archive here.

Some of those other comparisons are nuts too.  Sure Jordan has more refugees at the moment, but we all know what that is from.  One can’t honestly compare their situation with America, but then honesty is not Soros’ and Podesta’s way (nor the Lutherans either I guess!).

Grrrrr!

US deporting minors by the thousands? Don’t believe it

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

The Huffington Post had a story a few days ago that I didn’t get around to posting because it seemed really too incredible to be true.   Upon reflection, I think it’s a complete fabrication.

We learned from the ‘horses’ mouth’ in June that the Office of Refugee Resettlement was expected to be in charge of over 20,000 “unaccompanied minors” this fiscal year (it was over 14,000 in 2012).  So, unless the ORR was seriously shopping in camps abroad for kids*, it’s hard to believe we sent a large portion (“the majority”) of the 13,454 cited in this story back to Mexico.

This is the Lutheran’s logo for its unaccompanied kids program. Most of the “kids” are teens, not cute little tykes like this one.

HuffPo (with a hat tip to a source called Latino Rebels, which says it all!):

U.S. immigration authorities apprehended 13,454 unaccompanied Mexican minors last year, the majority of whom were swiftly deported to their home country, news site Animal Político reported last week.

The figures, provided by Mexican consulates in U.S. border cities and submitted to the country’s lower house of Congress last month, highlight the increasingly common problem in the United States of unaccompanied minors crossing the border illegally.

Unaccompanied minors are normally repatriated within three days of being detained by Border Patrol, or taken in by the Office Refugee Resettlement. ORR often releases the minors to family members in the United States while they go through deportation proceedings.

The kids (LOL! the Dreamers!) aren’t deported.  The US taxpayer pays refugee contractors like the US Conference of Catholic Bishops and the Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Services to find places for the kids.  The illegal alien youths are released into America when they reach their late teens/early 20’s.

Update (sort of!):  Be sure to see this history of the unaccompanied minors scam, at VDARE in 2006.

*Sheesh, I sure hope we are not shopping for boys at Zaatari with the excuse of keeping them from becoming child soldiers!

Wanted: US Muslim families to “adopt” kids from camps

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Muslim kids of course.

Sheesh, and I thought the burgeoning ‘unaccompanied minors program’ of the Office of Refugee Resettlement (in the US Dept. of Health and Human Services) only took in kids who had come across our borders or had been abandoned by their parents when the family came across the border.  Now, we learn we are plucking ‘kids’ (16, 17, 18 year olds?) from camps elsewhere in the world, who supposedly have no parents/no family, and bringing them to the US.  And, you are paying for this!

Linda Hartke, CEO of Lutheran Immigration Services, will help facilitate the Muslim “adoptions.”

I recently mentioned the astronomical size of this program, here, in my report on the Lancaster meeting, and wondered about the huge number of kids I thought were coming across the borders.  Now we know they aren’t just ‘finding their way’ to the US on their own!  And, notice the word “orphan” isn’t being used.  This is what I learned in Lancaster:

In 2012, 14,700 kids arrived in the US without parents and in 2013 the number is expected to be 20,000.

Thanks to Creeping Sharia for tipping us off about this story at the Muslim Link:

It  has been nearly six months since the U.S. Government launched the Action Plan on Children in Adversity at the White House.  [here is a link to the Obama Administrations Action Plan—ed]

[….]

The Action Plan represents the first-ever whole-of-government strategic guidance for the U.S. Government’s international assistance for children.

[….]

The Joint Council on International Children’s Services, a Virginia-based NGO has been working for decades on the pillar of advocating for children in family care – especially for those around the globe who may be growing up on the streets or in orphanages or other institutions.

[….]

In the greater Washington DC area, government agencies identify refugee youth overseas (often living in camps outside of their country of origin) who are eligible for resettlement but who do not have a parent or a relative in the US. Due to their age (under 18), these children are placed into the Unaccompanied Refugee Minors program and receive refugee foster care services and benefits.   [Ahhhh!  What about a parent or relative right there in the camp?—ed]

One of these benefits is placement in a compatible home with matching ethnicity, language, and religion where possible.  The placing agencies are always seeking families to volunteer to help these teens by providing a home as they are receiving schooling (which may have been interrupted in their country of origin or while they were living in a camp) and be involved with their case-specific programs with an aim to helping them achieve eventual independence by their early 20s.

So we could see a youth  of 17 or 18 (who says he has no parent) plucked from a refugee camp for Syrians brought to the US to be “adopted” by an American Muslim family and then when he turns say 21, he just becomes one more alien on the path to US citizenship who will also be able to bring in his family who will surely be ‘discovered’ at about that time!

And, to top it off, the family who “adopts” the teen gets paid by you—the American taxpayer—to care for the child!  Some racket!  And, look who is here—LIRS and the USCCB (getting paid to make the arrangements)!

The two leading placement organizations, Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Services and the US Conference of Catholic Bishops, are especially keen to work with the Muslim community in our area since it is likely they could find matches for many of the children enrolled in the program. Specialized training in helping these children adjust to their new life and situation is a part of becoming involved as is a background check.  Financial support for participation is provided.   [Yippee!  They will get paid for their “charitable” work!—-ed]

I sure hope LIRS and the USCCB are doing some really good screening of American families—sure would hate to hear about a sexual abuse charge or a slavery charge (wasn’t it only a week or so ago a Saudi woman was charged with keeping aliens as slaves?)

Photo:  More on LIRS and Hartke’s Baltimore digs. See ‘Don’t break our rice bowls!‘

 Have a look at a recent Form 990 for Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Services, page 9. They had income in that year of $31,653,748 and, of that, you, the taxpayers of America, gave them $30,376,568.  Their CEO makes $204,186 in salary and benefits.  (Doing well, by doing good!  Hartke’s bio is here.)