ORR embroiled in controversy about illegal alien minors getting abortions

10/17/2017 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

This is yet another reason that Congress should review the entire US Refugee Program with an eye to trashing it or at least reforming it.

How is it that the federal Office of Refugee Resettlement is in the business of housing illegal alien minors (so-called unaccompanied children) in the first place, let alone be in the position of facilitating abortions when the kids get pregnant?

They are not refugees!

Screenshot (160) — Obama’s Director of ORR, Bob Carey, told Politico that he signed off on the use of federal funds for abortions three or four times a month during his tenure. Pictured here with Linda Hartke, CEO of the Lutheran resettlement agency which receives federal funding for unaccompanied minors.

Here is the story at Politico which I haven’t the time or energy to extensively analyze and comment on.

The gist of it is that the present ORR Director is saying the feds are not going to facilitate abortions for ‘minors’ in their care while the previous Obama Director (Bob Carey) did.

Of course all those interviewed for the story are lined up against Trump’s appointee.

AUSTIN, Texas — The Trump administration is preventing an undocumented, pregnant teenager detained in a Brownsville refugee shelter from getting an abortion in a policy shift with big implications for hundreds of other pregnant, unaccompanied minors held in such shelters.

She is not the first to be stopped, according to advocates who work with undocumented teenagers.

For the last seven months, the Health and Human Services Department has intervened to prevent abortions sought by girls at federally funded shelters, even in cases of rape and incest and when the teen had a way to pay for the procedure. The agency has instead forced minors to visit crisis pregnancy centers, religiously affiliated groups that counsel women against having abortions, according to documents obtained by POLITICO, interviews with sources involved in the Brownsville case and those familiar with the agency’s policy.

In some cases, a senior HHS official has personally visited or called pregnant teens to try to talk them out of ending their pregnancies.

“There is a pattern of unconstitutional overreach of power in a minor’s abortion decision,” said the teen’s lawyer, Brigitte Amiri of the ACLU.

The ACLU brought suit on Friday on behalf of the 17-year-old in the Brownsville shelter….

[….]

“What’s especially disturbing for us about this case, is that the child is in the custody of ORR [the Office of Refugee Resettlement], so she has no other choice, and she is stuck in a form of custody or detention,” said Michelle Brane of the Women’s Refugee Commission.

The “child” in question arrived illegally across our border, we expect her (all of them!) to be held in custody! But, that custody needs to be under a different federal agency—not one whose mission is supposed to be to care for refugees, not to care for illegal aliens!

Continue reading here.

By the way, you need to know that at least two federal contractors—the US Conference of Catholic Bishops and Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service—receive money from you to take care of some of the ‘children.’ The UACs cost the US taxpayer at least $1 billion a year.

Report to Congress now available for FY18 refugee admissions

10/05/2017 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Screenshot (913) — ttps://www.documentcloud.org/documents/4063604-Report-to-Congress-Proposed-Refugee-Admissions.html

I have to admit, I haven’t read it yet, but, for diehard grassroots investigators, know that the report is a treasure trove of information on the US Refugee Admissions Program and Trump’s 45,000 refugee ceiling *** for the year that began this past Sunday.

Don’t miss the tables at the end, often more useful than all the verbiage about why we need to save this or that ethnic group by hauling them to your town.

Here is the table that shows that the US admits the vast majority of permanent refugees.

Screenshot (914) — Be sure to keep this so that the next time some Open Borders pusher says that Lebanon, Turkey, Germany and Jordan are doing more, remind them that ours are PERMANENT, not temporary residents. (note that this table uses calendar year numbers when we usually use fiscal year)

And, here is a table showing the costs of just the resettlement (this year, FY18, for up to 45,000 refugees).

Come to think of it, when those economic studies are done to ostensibly show how much refugees benefit America, do they ever show that it will cost the US taxpayer over $1 BILLION just to get 45,000 bodies in here?

Screenshot (915)

Read the footnotes!

Please note that the anticipated costs do not include taxpayer funding for: educating the kids, Medicaid, some forms of cash assistance, food stamps, housing subsidies, interpreter costs, criminal justice system costs, etc.

Again, go here for the full report. One of the things I’ve noted over the years is that the report has no date on the cover. I can only guess that is because it is always very late and they don’t want any record of the fact that they skirt the law always on the whole determination/consultation process.

***Did you see that the Federation for American Immigration Reform called this a “responsible” number! Have friends like these been in the swamp too long?

Readers should know, that until very recently FAIR has not taken much interest in the UN/US Refugee Admissions Program.

Good luck getting data on refugee welfare usage when Congress can’t get it!

08/15/2017 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

There have been many efforts in recent years to press local and state governments to cough up data on the cost of refugees placed in communities—most recently in North Dakota and Minnesota.

This Congressional Research Memo to Congress from 2015 gives you a glimpse in to why they aren’t able to do it (assuming they were willing!).

Refugees are not identified (separately from other immigrants) at the local level when they go to the local social service agency to get their “benefits.” Indeed, immigrants may not even be designated as such on welfare applications.

Of course, this could easily be remedied by writing a few laws that direct local welfare agencies/school systems getting federal funds to require immigration status at the time one signs up for benefits or enrollment. Is the recipient a ‘refugee’ or one of many other categories of legal immigrant (or illegal!)?

In 2015, unknown Senators attempted to get some answers and this is what they got. (Hat tip: Joanne)

So, has the recipient of the report done anything about it?

From Congressional Research Service:

So the Senate requester is directed to this table (below) from the 2013 ORR Annual Report to Congress. You might wish to see some of those yourself by clicking here.

You will find, as I have (see here in 2014), that data like this below is completely extrapolated from self-reporting by refugees who are called on the phone (who can be found and who answer the phone!) and are WILLING to tell a stranger (a contract worker) what ‘benefits’ they are getting.

You can then imagine how useless this data really is!

As much as I want to encourage efforts to get the true costs for refugees to the American taxpayer, it won’t be possible until local and state agencies are forced to get the information on immigration status of someone coming in for benefits. And, if it is required to divulge one’s legal status (refugees are legal of course), then, in the process, the local agency will necessarily have to admit the illegal status of some beneficiaries of your taxpayer-funded kindness. They do not want to do that!

And, one more thing! If you think you can get a true study where you live, you must make sure that included in the cost side of the ledger are costs to the criminal justice system (how much is a life sentence in prison costing some states?), interpreter costs, emergency room costs, monitoring and medicines for those with TB, and the cost to the US economy of remittances (money sent out of the US economy to the refugee’s home country). Other costs I’m not thinking of?

Are alleged Rockville rapists Unaccompanied Alien Children?

03/22/2017 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

That is the question I have about the story you can’t possibly have missed over the last day or two.
Were the pair (one from Guatemala and the other from El Salvador), who are behind bars in Maryland for dragging a 14-year-old girl into a boys bathroom and raping her considered ‘refugees’ by the Obama Administration that would have been in charge of them if they turned themselves in at the border as part of the flood of ‘children’ that invaded our border for years during the Obama presidency, so-called UACs?

Questions abound! Is he older than 18? Did he arrive among the waves of so-called ‘Unaccompanied Alien Children? Was he in the care of the Office of Refugee Resettlement or one of its contractors? And, of course, why had he not been deported? Did MoCo, MD sheriff protect him?

Keep an eye out for any news about whether they were actually under the protection of the federal Office of Refugee Resettlement.
***Update*** Montgomery County Superintendent of schools implies they were federally-screened “unaccompanied minors,” see here.
BTW, some question whether the 18-year-old (9th grader) was 18, or indeed much older.
As a Maryland resident, I can assure you that Montgomery County, Maryland, where the alleged assault occurred, has long been a county famous for coddling illegals who get to the state.
***Update*** to see what we are really up against in Maryland, go here and watch Tucker Carlson interview Baltimore city council member.
Here is Leo Hohmann’s shocking report at WND:

Two illegal-alien teenagers who were placed in ninth-grade classes at Montgomery County Schools, Maryland, have been arrested and charged with the brutal rape of a 14-year-old girl, and at least one of the boys had a pending deportation order from ICE.

The boys, identified as Henry Sanchez, 18, of Guatemala and Jose Montano, 17, of El Salvador, approached the young girl in the hallway near the gymnasium inside Rockville High School during school hours about 9 a.m. on Thursday.

[….]

Maryland is perhaps the most welcoming state for illegal aliens and refugees in the Eastern United States, with Montgomery County the most welcoming county in the state. Maryland gives in-state tuition rates to illegal-alien college students, and its legislature is considering a bill that would declare Maryland the country’s first sanctuary state. Montgomery County is already a sanctuary county, denying 63 ICE requests to turn over illegal-alien criminals last year, Fox News reported.

These policies helped create a culture that allows a young girl to be raped and sodomized in a bathroom stall by two illegal-alien boys, at least one of whom was ordered to be deported, border hawks told WND.

[….]

Sanchez and Montano were living in the Aspen Hill neighborhood of Rockville, and they have been charged with first-degree rape and two counts of first-degree sexual offense. They were denied bond by a judge who said they were dangerous and a flight risk.

If convicted, they could get life in prison. [What an investment for American taxpayers, two more in the slammer for life!—ed]

[….]

William Gheen, president of Americans for Legal Immigration PAC, said this is a rare case where the news of a rape of a student on school property managed to leak out into the local media.

Much more here with details of the police report and quotes from Marylanders.
Well the story did break out of the local news and made it to at least Fox News. I haven’t seen it reported on CNN broadcast news, have you?
We have an extensive archive on the so-called Unaccompanied Alien Children mostly teenage boys from Central America. Although they had been coming for years, a huge flood of them crossed our southern border in 2014, with another huge wave in 2016.
Their ‘care’ is through the federal Office of Refugee Resettlement (in Health and Human Services) and consumes the largest portion of that agency’s budget. Two federal refugee resettlement agencies—US Conference of Catholic Bishops and Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Services—get millions each year to manage the ‘children.’ Other contractors have gotten in on the lucrative federal grants awarded for really what amounts to care for illegal aliens. These ‘children’ are NOT legitimate refugees!
I’ve long suspected that the US Conference of Catholic Bishops, which sent an envoy to Central America in 2013, and then wrote a report warning of the flow coming, actually lit the fuse for the 2014 border invasion, see here.

Trump’s people now run ORR, someone should be able to find out if these two alleged Rockville rapists were on ORR’s radar screen or in their care.

Click here for more on UACs.

Bye! Bye! Bob! (Carey) Director of the Office of Refugee Resettlement

01/21/2017 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

“Warrior spirits” needed to advance the Trump agenda!

Elections have consequences and one of those is that political appointees must resign by Inauguration Day. Two key political appointees run the UN/US Refugee Admissions Program—the Asst. Sec. of State for Populations, Refugees and Migration (often abbreviated as PRM) and the Director of the Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) in the Dept. of Health and Human Services.

We told you about the resignation of Anne Richard, here, the other day. And, two days ago we received a copy of Bob Carey’s farewell message. (See it below).
I want to make a couple of points about it. First note that Carey says the FY2015 Annual Report to Congress is out (see here, as of this writing it isn’t on their website). He brags that it has been issued in “record time.” No it was not.
According to the Refugee Act of 1980 it was supposed to be out by the end of the 4th month following the close of the fiscal year, so it was supposed to have been out by January 31, 2016! See my 2013 discussion of how the ORR has played fast and loose with that requirement since the Clinton era.
The other thing I wanted to mention is that although Carey is leaving, he has left planted in the ORR, Anastasia Brown, who previously worked for the US Conference of Catholic Bishops and headed the Refugee Council USA (the lobbying arm of the refugee industry). She is a longtime hardliner on bringing more refugees to the US, including more Muslims as she recommended at a US State Department hearing I attended.

I was shocked in 2013 to see Anastasia Brown testify on behalf of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops to the US State Department that she wanted more Rohingya Muslims admitted to the US.
Because, seeded throughout the government are going to be people like Anastasia Brown, Hans von Spakovsky, a Senior Legal Fellow at The Heritage Foundation, in an important analysis at Conservative Review about Trump’s incoming team, said this of those who will be leading government agencies where entrenched bureaucrats will fight change. (Hat tip: Richard at Blue Ridge Forum)

….the most important characteristic the Trump administration should look for in its political appointees is a warrior spirit!

Here is Bob Carey’s farewell letter from the day before yesterday. BTW, Ken Tota has been around there for a long time and they let him run the agency in between political appointees.

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