Michigan story about refugee slowdown reveals what citizens really think

10/24/2018 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Today when I saw one more story about some gathering somewhere meant to tell the public how bad the Trump administration is as it slows the flow of third worlders to unsuspecting middle America towns, my first thought was: blah! blah! blah!

However, for a change I had a good look at the comments to the story at Michigan Live, and I am glad I did!

‘America looks terrible’ with record-low refugee admissions, panelist says

ANN ARBOR, MI – The U.S. accepted a record low number of refugees in 2018, and now Michigan resettlement agencies are questioning their future.

Hetfield at NY protest — This is Mark Hetfield of the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society protesting the Trump presidency at a rally in New York shortly after Trump was inaugurated in early 2017. Last I checked he was pulling down a salary and benefits package of nearly $350,000 a year as HIAS CEO. Good work if you can get it! https://refugeeresettlementwatch.org/2018/06/27/hebrew-immigrant-aid-society-urges-followers-to-take-to-the-streets-in-wake-of-supreme-court-decision/

Right now America looks terrible because we are no longer out there defending the most vulnerable people in the world,” said Mark Hetfield, CEO of HIAS, the world’s oldest refugee resettlement agency, based in Maryland. “That’s something that we have done consistently across Republican and Democratic administrations, and we have stopped doing that and thrown refugee protection into reverse.”

Hetfield participated in a panel discussion on present and future challenges related to refugee resettlement on Monday, Oct. 22, at the University of Michigan’s Rackham Graduate School.

The panel was part of a two-day “Keeping Our Door Open” symposium in Ann Arbor coordinated by UM’s School of Social Work, C.S. Mott Children’s Hospital and Jewish Family Services of Washtenaw County.

Needless to say the panelists go on to complain about how the refugee program is being diminished by this president. See more here.

If readers simply look at the title and read a bit of the story one would think that the propagandists might actually be reaching people.

That is, until one looks at the comments.

Get a load of these (and this is just a sampling!):

Space Ace
5 minutes ago

Don’t we have our own poor people to be concerned about? Since when is it our moral imperative to alleviate all the suffering of the world? Homelessness is up 50%, FIFTY PERCENT, in many parts of the country from 15 years ago. How about we deal with that first, then maybe consider importing more poor people?

Xchips
8 minutes ago

“Right now America looks terrible because we are no longer out there defending the most vulnerable people in the world,” said Mark Hetfield, CEO of HIAS who’s nearly $350,000 compensation package is nearly wholey paid for by taxpayers.

So here’s a guy getting taxpayer dollars to help other people get taxpayer dollars. Nice racket.

Tom
1 hour ago

Refugee (noun): a person who has been forced to leave their country in order to escape war, persecution, or natural disaster.

How many of these “refugees” are actually falling into one of these categories? How many are coming here because they just don’t like where they live and they heard you can get in by claiming refugee status.

According to the article – “Refugees are entitled to government assistance coordinating travel plans to get to the U.S. and then resettlement services that can include assistance with transportation, housing, English language classes, health care, food, education, employment and citizenship services.”

So if I lived in a very poor country – that sounds like a good deal to me.

So maybe consider those actual refugees are being turned around because they actually aren’t refugees.

E
1 hour ago

I’d say the lovely citizens of Ann Arbor sponsor refugees and house/feed/guarantee non-reliance on government programs to show their support.

Freedom Lover
1 hour ago

Have you noticed that most of the immigrants in the horde coming from Guatemala and Honduras are males in the 20 to 30 age group. They carry their country’s flag but refuse to stay in their country and make it better. I’m sure glad the colonialists were not like them. They stayed and fought to make a better country. Also many who are interviewed say they are coming to the USA for a job. A job is not a reason to seek asylum.

Shawn Letwin
updated 1 hour ago

Yep, you are at risk of losing your jobs and no longer living off the trough of the taxpayers…”Que Sera, Sera”

Rbg1
updated 1 hour ago

Did these opportunist mouthpieces disclose the taxpayer-funded profits (BILLIONS) involved with resettling and wrap-around assistance? This isn’t compassion, it’s greed. Everyone involved is making money off the scam. Except, of course, middle class taxpayers.

This is an encouraging example of how educated citizens are becoming about the US Refugee Admissions Program.

All of you should take the opportunity every chance you get to comment to news stories in your communities.

And, then go vote!

Michigan: refugee contractors and employers boo-hooing; not enough cheap labor coming in

03/19/2018 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Ten years ago they hid the fact that those poor third worlders coming in to the US as refugees were providing a steady supply of cheap labor for big business, now they are admitting it right up front and trashing Trump because he has cut their supply.
Do you humanitarians out there really understand that the US Refugee Admissions Program is first and foremost for the pleasure of the Chamber of Commerce and businesses large and small which want to keep wages low? Why do you think the Republicans in Congress have made no serious move to reform the program?

And, secondly it is about giant ‘non-profits’ like Samaritas (formerly Lutheran Social Services Michigan) keeping their government funding flowing.
By the way Samaritas is a made-up word and why they dropped “Lutheran” is a mystery. (It is like HIAS dropping the “Hebrew” from its name!)
As I said here recently, if we have a labor shortage, let’s debate that, but then shut up about this being all about saving the downtrodden of the world and trying to silence those of us questioning the business model (cheap immigrant labor brought to the US and supported with welfare by THE TAXPAYERS!).
One of the things I’ve wondered for years is: do the refugees coming in understand that low wage, often very dirty and difficult, jobs await them?
The wailing has become deafening as the refugee flow to America has slowed in the last year.
Here is Crain’s Detroit Business with this headline:

Refugee clampdown hits local nonprofits

The subheadline should be: Businesses aren’t getting their steady supply of taxpayer-supported laborers!
Here is a bit of the story:

Nonprofit services to help refugees fleeing war or persecution resettle in Southeast Michigan are a shell of what they were a year ago.

Local resettlement agencies have laid off much of their staffs and closed offices, following revenue decreases tied to a federal clampdown that has significantly reduced the number of refugees coming to the U.S., especially those from Middle Eastern and African countries that have been the mainstay of local resettlement efforts in recent years. [Revenue decreases because they are paid on a per refugee head basis!—ed]

Screenshot (1285) — We need immigrant laborers in Michigan (to heck if we change America by changing the people)! Picture kind of reminds one of picking cotton (just saying!). Steve Tobocman, executive director of Global Detroit, a proponent of immigration as an economic development strategy. http://www.modeldmedia.com/features/tobocman060610.aspx

Crain’s goes on….

The slowdown in acceptance of refugees and increased vetting was ordered by the Trump administration over concerns about security. It has had an impact on not just nonprofits but also employers who were relying on resettled refugees as a source of labor, local nonprofits say.

Similar cuts have played out at similar agencies in other parts of the country, said Steve Tobocman, executive director of Global Detroit, a proponent of immigration as an economic development strategy.

“Ultimately, the current state of affairs impacts the services agencies can offer to integrate new refugees,” given the loss of economies of scale that come with larger resettlement numbers, Tobocman said.

[….]

To continue providing services to refugees already here, resettlement agencies are seeking alternative funding such as grants from private funders.

And some are looking to local churches and community groups for help.

It is about time, why haven’t they been doing this (above)? Why? Because taxpayer funding was readily available, so why bother trying to raise private charity—that is hard work!
Crain’s continues….

VickieThompson-Sandy-mug-01_i — Vickie Thompson-Sandy, president of Samaritas makes over a quarter of a $million annually, according to a recent Form 990. Will she give up some of her salary to care for refugees who are down and out now?

“When we’re closing offices in Ann Arbor, where does a refugee go? They can no longer stop by our office to get basic support,” said Vickie Thompson-Sandy, president of Samaritas, a Detroit-based social services agency that counts refugee resettlement among its services.

[….]

Some local companies are feeling the squeeze in their workforces.

Local manufacturing and retail employers that relied on new refugees as employees are calling the U.S. Committee for Refugees and Immigrants Detroit on a weekly basis, said Tawfik Alazem, director of its Dearborn office. [USCRI is another of the nine federal contractors*** the US State Department hires to place refugees in your towns and cities.—ed]

Among them is Reino Linen Service, a company that launders and returns about 50 million pounds of linens to area hospitals, health clinics and doctors’ offices each year.

The company’s location in Brownstown Township, where public transportation is an issue, leads to high employee turnover, said Mary Onifer, a corporate human resources specialist for the company. [Truly a sweat shop says one commenter, here.—ed]

Reino has turned to organizations like USCRI Detroit for the past nine years to engage refugees as employees.

Once again we see federal refugee agencies are contractors (head hunters!) for businesses while they collect federal dollars for their supposed good works!
There is much more here, I’ve only snipped a tiny bit.

Don’t cry for Samaritas!

Now just to show you how Samaritas (a subcontractor of Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service) is rolling in taxpayer bucks, and the head honchos are pulling down huge salaries, here are a couple of screenshots from a recent Form 990.
Here is there income page—$30 million from taxpayers!
Samaritas income

And here check out these huge salaries!

Samaritas salaries — Yikes! Ms. Thompson-Sandy’s salary isn’t even the largest! Doing well by doing good!

See more on Michigan by clicking here.
***The nine federal contractors you fund are here:
The number in parenthesis is the percentage of their income paid by you (the taxpayer) to place the refugees, line them up with jobs, and get them signed up for their services! From most recent accounting, here.

Michigan: Do we see a new trick by the US State Department to keep information from citizens?

11/27/2017 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

For new readers, and for seasoned activists too, we have been telling you for several years to obtain your R & P Abstracts for your city.

The R & P Abstract (Reception and Placement Abstract) is prepared by your local resettlement agencies each year in advance of the new fiscal year which begins October 1 (we are now in FY18) which outlines a kind of wishlist for the number of refugees your city has the ‘capacity’ to absorb, from where they will come, and what amenities your community has to offer.

Those amenities include housing, jobs, medical care, schools, etc.

To see examples of these important planning documents, see here about Reno, Nevada, and here about St. Cloud, MN.

The Abstract is prepared by a local non-profit group refugee office and then goes up the chain to one of nine major federal resettlement contractors*** who present them to the US State Department in order for the DOS to prepare the President’s Annual Determination and for the contractor to get its federal bucks (on a per refugee head basis).

You will find the Abstract very informative, that is, if you can get it!

Keeping the Abstracts from the public is part of the secrecy game going on with the US Refugee Admissions Program!

If you call your local resettlement office (see list here) they will either tell you that you can’t have a recent Abstract (ask for FY18) or will pretend they don’t know what you are talking about.

Now to Michigan….

fbi-raid-dearborn — Everyone should visit Dearborn once in your life!

After running in to the roadblocks set up by the refugee contractors, the leaders at Secure Michigan have in the past gotten their Abstracts by doing a state public information act request (like the Freedom of Information Act at the federal level).

Not this year!

Incredibly the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services, which oversees a state refugee coordinator, told Secure Michigan that quote:

“We do not have the resettlement agency proposals you are requesting. We no longer receive them.”

Just think about that, the Michigan DHHS is not able to see the plans that some non-profit contractors have with the federal government to place refugees in Michigan cities.

The state is not permitted to know what nationalities are coming, where refugees will likely work, what housing opportunities are available in various cities and so forth?

And, here is the takeaway for me: If the state doesn’t have the Abstracts, they can’t be obtained by you—taxpaying citizens—through public information act requests!

The MDHHS went on to say:

“The US Department of State chart is the only data we have regarding his request”

Here are the raw (anticipated) numbers for Michigan:

Screenshot (1187)_LI — At the present rate of entry, Michigan will be lucky to get 600-800 refugees this year. Resettlement contractors will be hurting for taxpayer dollars.

I just checked Wrapsnet and so far this fiscal year, just short of two months, Michigan has received a grand total of 96 refugees. If this pace continues, Michigan would be looking at 600-800 for the year.

If you would like to try to get your FY18 R & P Abstract, go here and find which offices are operating in your city (remember they can place refugees from 50-100 miles from this office).

Call those local offices and ask for the R & P Abstract for this year, FY18. If they refuse, then call your state refugee coordinator (list here) and ask that person. If the coordinator gives you a runaround then consider doing a freedom of information request using your state’s laws (you should be able to find templates for that request on line).

Don’t forget Congress!

And, to make your elected officials earn their keep. Contact your US Congressman’s office and ask him or her to get you the FY18 R & P Abstract for whichever resettlement offices are working where you live.

To have even more fun, call your local elected officials (mayor, council, etc) and ask them if they have the plans, the R & P Abstract, for your town or city. I’ll bet they don’t and I will bet that they have no clue what you are even talking about—dereliction of duty in my opinion!

By the way, not to hammer the point too hard (but I will!), the Heritage Foundation clearly has no clue about the resettlement process and the secrecy surrounding it as there is no mention of YOUR issue (the problems impacting you where you live) in their “reform” proposal that focuses on America looking good to foreign governments!

This post is filed in my ‘What you can do’ category, here.

***These are the nine federal refugee contractors (paid by you) making plans for your towns and cities. See that Michigan has six of the nine bidding for bodies from the US State Department.

Sterling Heights mosque could be delayed further as local community files its own lawsuit

03/15/2017 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

For background see our earlier post, here. And, take note that the Obama US Attorney who sided with the mosque builders was one of those asked to resign by President Trump a few days ago.
From Leo Hohmann at World Net Daily (Christians who escaped persecution in Iraq are fighting back!):

The saga of the 21,000-square-foot mega-mosque in Sterling Heights, Michigan, is not over yet.

The mayor and city council voted Feb. 21 to settle a lawsuit by a Shiite Muslim group and allow it to build a mosque in a residential neighborhood populated largely by Chaldean Christian refugees who escaped Islamic persecution in Iraq.

A companion suit against the city by Barack Obama’s Department of Justice alleging the city had denied the mosque a permit based on “anti-Muslim” sentiments in the community was also settled at the Feb. 21 meeting, paving the way for the mosque to start construction.

Nahren Anweya: “This minority group consists of more than four generations of refugees and genocide victims under radical Islam.”

But the counter-lawsuit filed Monday argues that city officials were actually favoring the Shiite Muslims of neighboring Madison Heights while ignoring the wishes of its own citizens who were overwhelmingly against the mosque.

If built, the American Islamic Community Center, or AICC, will become the third mosque in Sterling Heights.

Second DOJ-imposed win for Muslims in less than year

It was the second bitter mosque battle in Southeastern Michigan in less than a year.

Obama’s DOJ forced a madrassa on Pittsfield Township, near Ann Arbor, and that town had to pay out $1.7 million to the mosque while sending township employees to be trained on how not to discriminate against Muslims.

After the contentious Feb. 21 meeting in Sterling Heights in which the mayor ordered police to empty the city-hall chambers before the council took a vote on the mosque deal, WND reported that the Chaldean Christians were upset and talking about a counter-lawsuit.

On Monday, they acted. They had Ann Arbor-based American Freedom Law Center, or AFLC, file a civil rights suit on their behalf against the city and Mayor Michael C. Taylor, alleging violations of state and federal law.

“The mayor and the corrupted personal interests behind him have outraged a community which is comprised of the largest minority Assyrian/Chaldean Christians from Iraq,” said Nahren Anweya, spokeswoman for the Chaldean and Assyrian Christians in Sterling Heights. “This minority group consists of more than four generations of refugees and genocide victims under radical Islam.”

CAIR crows and threatens:

Dawud Walid CAIR Michigan. Learn more about him here: http://www.investigativeproject.org/2438/dawud-walid-unhinged#

When the city agreed to settle the suit and allow the mosque to be built, the Michigan chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, or CAIR, said the victory for the mosque should teach Michigan cities a lesson.

“We hope that this settlement, along with last year’s settlement in Pittsfield Township regarding a previously blocked Islamic school project, sends a strong message to city governments in Michigan seeking to deny zoning of religious institutions simply because they are led by Muslims,” said CAIR-Michigan Executive Director Dawud Walid.

An attorney for the AICC mosque, Azzam Elder, threatened to “monitor” local residents he felt were Islamophobic.

“Moving forward, we’re very concerned about some of what you’ve seen at the public hearings with some of the residents,” Elder told the Detroit News. “We’ll be monitoring what we feel (could be) potential hate groups.”

Hohmann’s story is very thorough. I have only snipped a small portion of it, go here to learn more.
Besides the lawsuit, I’m thinking that the citizens there might follow the Rutland model and work very hard to remove (at the ballot box!) the elected officials who caved!
One of the great and lasting legacies of a naive federal refugee program is that the US State Department and its contractors have placed Middle Eastern groups who have been in conflict for centuries in close proximity to each other in American cities assuming, we can only presume, that their religious conflicts will melt away in the great (mythical?) American melting pot.

Michigan: More confirmation that refugee resettlement is an industry

03/11/2017 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

I don’t have enough time in my day to post all of the stories from around the country where federal refugee resettlement contractors are crying about their loss of clients and thus their loss of taxpayer funding.
But, this one from Michigan has a few extra nuggets of information that further confirms our contention that refugee resettlement is more of an industry than it is a humanitarian endeavor.

Julie Harris, St. Vincent Catholic Charities Refugee Services, photo here from one year ago this same week (what a difference a year/election makes). http://www.secondwavemedia.com/capitalgains/features/fugee1005.aspx

The Trump Administration must pressure Congress to repeal, and, if necessary, replace the Refugee Act of 1980 with its perverse incentives to place refugees (secretively) in towns that can ill afford the additional poverty.
If a town is overloaded with costly-to-support refugees, the system is set up in such a way as to conspire against rational decision-making.
Watch for these key points:

~Contractors are paid by the head, so there is no incentive for contractors to voluntarily slow the flow.

~Landlords with low income and subsidized rentals have become dependent on the arrival of poor people from the third world.

~Businesses want the cheap compliant immigrant labor.

~And, ‘refugees’ have become dependent on the idea of being able to bring over the whole family after one member scouts out your town to see if it suits them before others are brought over (with the help of those same contractors and their per head payment).

From WKAR Lansing, Michigan:

The executive orders on immigration directly impact immigrants and refugees trying to come to the US and those living here already. But the orders are also causing problems for organizations who support refugees.

[….]

There’s a call for a 120 day delay on all refugee resettlement from everywhere. And during that time presumably there will be a revision and a a reestablishment of vetting procedures. And then the other piece of that that will be hurting us is the overall reduction in the number of refugees coming in for the rest of 2017 and 2018 probably.”

And this impacts St. Vincent and other refugee resettlement organizations because they are based on a per-capita funding structure.

“All of that greatly reduces the number of refugees that we’ll be receiving, and that in turn reduces our budget. So we’ve had to do some staff reductions and layoffs and reorganizing while we’re still trying to serve the people who are here, the people who have already arrived” Harris says.

It goes beyond just St. Vincent. Harris says the community and the organizations they partner with when resettling refugees are impacted too.

“We work with a lot of different landlords and different apartment complexes and different landlords around the city and some of them have called us and said ‘what are we going to do? Who are we going to put in our housing?’

Because they rely on us because there’s a lot of folks who move in and out, and a lot of the low income places who have been very kind to the whole community, they need people to be coming in and keeping their units full. And also a lot of our employers, we work with some big companies who look forward to having a steady stream of people who come in. A lot of refugees will start off in an entry level job and they’ll work hard and after they learn English, they learn a few more things, they’ll move up. And so these companies need the steady flow of people coming in and keeping their businesses running.”

Continue reading here to learn about how the family reunification works and will be disrupted by the Trump EO.
If you are working in a ‘pocket of resistance’ investigating the program where you live, be sure to research costs, but look for those people/businesses benefiting from the refugees. Remind your fellow (taxpaying) citizens that there is money (for some people) in the resettlement industry.
Endnote: I just did a quick look at USASpending.gov and see that the Diocese of Lansing gets millions of $$$ of federal funding from the usual agencies—HHS and Dept. of State, and that St. Vincent’s also got money from HUD.
They aren’t in the landlord business themselves are they?