The Jewish News Syndicatefinds that many Jews are wondering where HIAS (formerly the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society) is going with its policies and programs now that very few Jews arrive in America as refugees.
For readers who want to know more about who is changing America by changing the people, have a look at this story entitled:
With HIAS changing longtime focus, supporters question some of its priorities
The Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society, better known as HIAS, was for the better part of a century responsible for helping settle generations of Jewish refugees in their new homes in the United States. From 1881 through the release of Jews from the Soviet Union in the early 1990s, the organization worked not only to resettle the new arrivals, but was involved in assisting them legally as well. Yet in a way, HIAS was a product of its own success and the success of the American Jewish community, whose activism helped bring most Jews over who wanted or needed to leave other countries.
Mark Hetfield, President and CEO of HIAS, the global Jewish nonprofit that resettles refugees as one of nine federal contractors, led an anti-Trump rally in New York in 2017. The event was the first of many rallies HIAS organized or participated in working against the President. They have also been the lead plaintiffs in lawsuits attempting to stop the Trump Administration’s immigration reform efforts.
Today, nearly all of the refugees HIAS resettles on an average each year are non-Jews—many of them Muslims from Syria, Iraq, Libya, Afghanistan, Somalia and other Middle Eastern countries.
[….]
As an organization with deep Jewish roots, HIAS’s new mission and purpose are being questioned by some observers, especially during a time of global uncertainty and rising anti-Semitism.
In 1975, the U.S. State Department asked HIAS to expand its portfolio and assist in resettling 3,600 Vietnamese refugees after the end of the Vietnam War and nearly two decades of US involvement in Southeast Asia.
In 2014, HIAS dropped the word “Hebrew” from its name and was simply called HIAS. At the same time, HIAS announced relocation of its headquarters from New York City to suburban Maryland.
Most notable among criticisms is that several HIAS partners have been linked to organizations with ties to terrorism, including Islamic Relief USA and the Islamic Relief Worldwide (IRW), whose leadership recently called Jews “the grandchildren of monkeys and pigs” and referred to the terrorist group Hamas “the purest resistance movement in modern history.”
[….]
There’s a crucial difference between past Jewish refugees and current Muslims, argues Richard Landes, a retired Boston University history professor now living in Jerusalem. “Jews came into the country determined to contribute to America—to be American—but the Muslims arriving now don’t always feel that way. We like to think if we are nice enough to our enemies they will stop hating us, but our history has shown that the incapacity to see malevolent intent in others is itself very dangerous to Jews.”
“He (CEO Hetfield) expects HIAS to spend $80 million this year, its largest budget to date.”
I recently showed you, here, that indeed the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society (one of nine federal refugee resettlement contractors***) is doing better under the Trump administration than it did previously for most of the Obama years.
Now here is news where HIAS CEO Mark Hetfield tells us why that is.
They are expanding their offices into Central and South America, and elsewhere.
So why the wailing about the Trump administration’s reduction in numbers? HIAS can certainly do its ‘religious charitable work’ elsewhere and stop pushing more migrants to America, right?
Refugee crisis continues to grow, HIAS director says
When we spoke earlier this week, Mark Hetfield, president and CEO of HIAS, was traveling through Central and South America, visiting some of the organization’s many offices in the region. The number of those offices continues to grow.
We’ve long had programs in Venezuela, Ecuador, and Panama for refugees from Colombia,” Mr. Hetfield said. But now, with the refugee crisis in Venezuela, the organization has had to create new centers to handle the situation. And while thousands of refugees are streaming out of Venezuela, others continue to come in.
Only one year ago, HIAS had 45 offices across the world; today it has 71.
Most are in Central and South America and Mexico. “Our office in Ecuador has 250 staff members, with 16 offices across the country,” Mr. Hetfield said. He noted that in the United States, Venezuelans comprise the number one asylum-seeking group, “but nobody seems to be noticing this crisis.”
HIAS also has offices in Africa, Israel, and the United States. “We aspire to be where there is a refugee crisis,” Mr. Hetfield said.
Here is my favorite bit of news from this story!
They don’t want to reform the US Refugee Admissions Program because they fear they would lose in a fight in Congress because they know the American people are not on their side!
Unfortunately, he noted, “All international and domestic law is basically responding to the problems of World War II. It hasn’t been updated to reflect realities. And people are afraid to revisit it because of the fear that if we reopen it, it will be contracted rather than expanded.”
See my post yesterday about a Catholic publication pushing the BIG LIE that the Refugee Act of 1980, which is 40 years old this month and needs to be repealed or reformed, was signed into law by Ronald Reagan. It was not! Our peanut farmer President was responsible for creating the dysfunctional program that set up the taxpayer-funded money stream to these nine contractors.
***For new readers these (below) are the nine federally-funded refugee contractors that operate as a huge conveyor belt monopolizing all refugee placement in America.
A ‘religious’ message from CWS one of three federally funded contractors suing to stop the President’s effort to reform the UN-driven Refugee Admissions Program.
And, they do not limit their advocacy toward only legal immigration programs, but are heavily involved in supporting the lawlessness at our borders.
The question isn’t as much about refugees per se, but about who is running federal immigration policy now and into the future?
I continue to argue that these nine contractors are the heart of America’s Open Borders movement and thus there can never be long-lasting reform of US immigration policy when these nine un-elected phony non-profits are paid by the taxpayers to work as community organizers pushing an open borders agenda.
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The Trump Administration has been an unrelenting 17 month assault against America’s values as a nation welcoming of immigrants and refugees.
(Mark Hetfield, CEO of the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society)
You all know what happened in the Supreme Court yesterday. In a nutshell, the court affirmed that the President of the US has the power to limit immigration.
However, the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society one of the primary groups that sued the Administration from day one about the so-called Muslim ban isn’t giving up and is urging its followers to participate in anti-Trump rallies coordinated by Linda Sarsour’s group MPower!
That is HIAS ‘Refugees Welcome’ banner as they protested with the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) against the President in January of this year. https://refugeeresettlementwatch.org/2018/01/28/church-world-service-and-hias-join-cair-to-protest-at-white-house/
And, although this articleat ‘Sight’ magazine got my blood boiling for its promotion of the six ‘religious’ charities (Ha! Ha!) that (out of the goodness of their hearts?) are ‘welcoming’ refugees and getting them their services in your towns and cities, it is very revealing.
Before reading on, maybe revisit my post yesterdayand know that the offices that the ‘religious’ contractors are closing could stay open if they raised private money to pay the salaries of their workers to care for the refugees they placed a few months, or a few years, ago. To SATISFY THEIR CHARITABLE INCLINATIONS, THEY COULD TAKE CARE OF THOSE WHO ARE ALREADY HERE! NEW REFUGEES ARE NOT REQUIRED FOR THAT! However, new refugees are required if they want to suck down millions of federal dollars (through per refugee head payments) and continue their high-flying spending especially on salaries for the big wigs—like Mark Hetfield in the photo that Sight uses to decorate its story.
Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society CEO Mark Hetfield (left) demonstrating against the President last month in Washington. Being a humanitarian is lucrative if you can get the work! His annual salary (and related income) amounts to $343,630, and taxpayers pay a hefty chunk of that! Adding insult to injury, Hetfield sits down with the US State Department on a weekly basis to make decisions (in secret!) about which of your towns will ‘welcome’ refugees.
Sightmagazine (looks like it is a mag for the international religious Left):
A program under siege!
Refugee aid groups have conducted massive layoffs and office closures ever since the Trump administration began issuing various versions of a travel ban, sometimes called a “Muslim ban”.The groups have been left on the hook for empty apartments and have had to explain to interested churches why they can’t bring refugees to their areas. And many refugee advocates have expressed concern over how long it will take the groups to come back from those cuts, if they can at all.
[….]
President Trump has also slashed the total number of refugees who will be admitted into the US, from 110,000 in fiscal 2017 – a bar set by former President Obama – to 45,000 in fiscal 2018, which started in October. And agencies say they aren’t even on track to settle that number: Just over 6,000 had come to the country in the last three months.
Hidden behind these figures is the decimation of an expansive refugee resettlement apparatus composed largely of faith-based nonprofit organisations that have partnered with the federal government for decades.
Of the nine groups helping refugees find a home in America, six claim a religious affiliation: World Relief, the US Conference of Catholic Bishops, Church World Service, HIAS (founded as the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society), Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service and Episcopal Migration Ministries.
Historically, these groups are contracted by the government to help take in refugees after they undergo a lengthy application and vetting process that involves several agencies, including the State Department and the Department of Homeland Security. (The placement of families is determined on a weekly basis through consultation between the State Department and the resettlement groups.)
Once people are brought to the US, resettlement groups authorised annually by the State Department typically provide new arrivals with housing and food, as well as long-term assistance for achieving self-sufficiency such as help in finding jobs, learning English and often becoming permanent US residents or citizens. [And signing them up for their WELFARE, food stamps, medical care, etc.—ed]
But leaders of these groups say the Trump administration’s new policies are hobbling their operations and hurting those they serve. They’re fighting back and finding hope in a groundswell of support from people of faith, but the future remains uncertain. [If they have a groundswell of support, can’t those supporters send enough cash to keep the low level employees in their jobs?—ed]
“I don’t know how long it will take to undo the damage that has been done,” said Matthew Soerens, US director of church mobilisation for World Relief.
A program under siege
The harm inflicted on the resettlement program by the Trump administration is difficult to calculate. Each organisation is structured differently and many partner with independent local groups for on-the-ground efforts.
[….]
Meanwhile, officials say the cost of the ban can sometimes fall disproportionately on the resettlement agencies*** instead of on the federal government.
When you have contractors (see below) that are 97-98% federally funded I can’t see that the costs will fall disproportionately on the contractor!
For serious students of the UN/US Refugee Admissions Program there is a lot of really good information in here, so continue reading here. I may actually revisit this article tomorrow so I can be sure you see the individual contractor’s sob stories. And, I got a chuckle out of their glowing use of quotes from the recently departedLinda Hartke.
Where is Congress?
As long as the nine federal contractors are almost entirely funded by the US taxpayer and then are permitted to protest, community organize and lobby Congress for more refugees and more money, this program will never be reformed!
Photo caption! Just so you know I am not making up Hetfield’s handsome salary, here is a page from HIAS’s most recent Form 990:
*** These are the nine federal resettlement agencies, six are (LOL!) ‘religious charities.’
The original Refugee Act of 1980, that set up this monstrosity, envisioned a public-private partnership that over the years has almost completely morphed in to a federal program and that is why these agencies are hurting now—they got fat and lazy on the federal teat!
The number in parenthesis is the percentage of their income paid by you (the taxpayer) to place the refugees and get them signed up for their services (aka welfare)! From most recent accounting, here.
Thanks to several readers who sent it, here is yet another reason for the US government to cut off funding for refugee resettlement groups who have become out-of-the-closet political agitation groups.
Hetfield
Longtime readers know that HIAS receives millions of taxpayer dollars to place refugees in unsuspecting towns and cities and they have led the charge in the courts against Donald Trump’s efforts to keep us safe by limiting certain migrants entry in to the US.
HIAS also recently helped organize an anti-Trump rally along with CAIR in Washington, DC, here.
And, they invited Rep. Keith Ellison to speak at an anti-Trump rallyhere.
(Sure hope HIAS is keeping its pots of federal and private money separate! Is there a funding firewall at HIAS?)
Is this the moment when Mark Hetfield and HIAS officially joined the anti-Israel lobby?
Mark Hetfield had already hijacked HIAS and transformed it from a Jewish organization to a radical left-wing group concerned entirely with Muslim migration.
Hetfield’s HIAS had already attacked Israel and collaborated with the anti-Israel group, J Street.
But signing a statement in support of Linda Sarsour, an Islamic anti-Semitic activist who celebrated throwing stones at Jews, is Mark Hetfield’s official coming out party.
The immediate trigger for this was having Sarsour head a New School panel accusing Jews of exploiting anti-Semitism. That’s quite a show for a woman who is quite comfortable with Louie Farrakhan and the Nation of Islam.
[….]
Previously, Mark Hetfield had avoided getting his hands dirty. Now he no longer seems to care.
Go here to see my ever-expanding file on HIAS (aka Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society) one of the US State Department’s nine federal resettlement contractors.
Here are the nine (LOL! I haven’t named them often enough lately). I sure hope all of them have built firewalls between their federal funding and the money they use for political activities.
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