Each of you must get the planning documents and attend refugee “consultations”

10/16/2017 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

You are going to get so sick of hearing this from me!

Reader Paul reminded me again of this quote by David Gergen reported in the NY Times in 1993, here.

I’m taking my cue from Richard Nixon!

nixon

What Nixon advised is likely the single most important thing that you can do to bring attention and possible change to the refugee resettlement industry where you live (or to any issue that concerns you!).

Gergen said of Nixon:

He learned the importance of saying the same thing, over and over and over: “Nixon taught us about the art of repetition. He used to tell me, ‘About the time you are writing a line that you have written it so often that you want to throw up, that is the first time the American people will hear it.’ ”

The more I think about this, the more I realize what masters the Left are at this: “Diversity is beautiful,” “America is a nation of immigrants,” “Refugees undergo ‘robust’ screening,” yada, yada, yada.

(LOL! btw, try to work that word ‘robust’ into anything you do. I want to barf whenever I hear it from the Left, so let’s have some fun with it!)

We don’t repeat things enough! Why is that? We tend to think our people are smart enough and will get it the first time? We aren’t willing to get to the barf stage?

Anyway, back to my headline….

For a few months, I had high hopes that we were going to see some significant demands for reform of UN/US Refugee Admissions Program in Washington. Dropping the ceiling to 45,000 for this fiscal year is not significant. If no reform of the general structure of the program happens, as soon as Trump is no longer Prez they will just boost the number to make up for lost time.

Therefore….

As I have already said, our energy must now shift back to grassroots activism on the local and state level. And, first, don’t worry that you haven’t hundreds of people behind you, just get to work yourself (with maybe a friend or two, for help and support).

Lancaster, PA

Let’s use Lancaster, PA which I wrote about yesterday as a model for a step-by-step action plan.

First, go here and find your State Refugee Coordinator. The list is a little old but through these contact numbers you should find your state’s key people. (This link and many others are at my Frequently Asked Questions, here.)

Ask the coordinator politely for your State’s refugee plan (usually not of great interest because it’s likely written in a mealy-mouth format, but get it). Tell the coordinator where you live and ask to be included in (put on the list for notification of) the “QUARTERLY CONSULTATIONS.”

Obviously for our Lancaster model, find the coordinator for Pennsylvania (often these are employees of the State government).

Next, find out, which resettlement contractors/subcontractors work where you live. Find any office here that is within 100 miles (generally 2 hours drive time) from where you live. Refugees can be placed within that distance from the office. If you live on a state border, be sure to check the neighboring state.

For Lancaster, there are two contractors listed (one for Church World Service the other two for Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service). You might find numbers and addresses have changed because the feds are pretty lousy at keeping this up to date.

Screenshot (987) — Contractors are the abbreviations in the left hand corner: Church World Service and Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service

For folks in Lancaster, call all three subcontractor offices and politely ask for R & P (Reception & Placement) Abstracts for FY16, FY17 and the new one for FY18. These are plans for your town. Of course the FY18 plan is most interesting, ask for three years for comparison.

And, so you understand, if you get one abstract from one contractor that will only be information on their batch of refugees. They ‘bid for bodies’ so in order to fully understand what the total number is for your town, you must add the abstract projected numbers together. There might be 4 or 5 contractors operating in the same city!

You will likely be told NO, you can’t have them. By the way, on FY18, until a couple of weeks ago, they might have said you can’t have that one because it is a document not yet approved by the State Department. But since the fiscal year began on October 1, that excuse is no longer valid. (See what the Abstract looks like here).

Mayor Rick Gray — Welcoming Mayor Gray. Has he ever seen the Abstracts for Lancaster?

If you get a NO at the contractor’s office, go back to your state coordinator and ask him/her for those important documents. Be sure to say you want the entire document which includes more than just the pages with numbers and spells out the amenities your town is offering refugees.

At this point if you are still getting a runaround, you may have to use your state’s public information law to attempt to get them.

Put your mayor and council on the spot!

However, while waiting for that to work through the system, ask your Mayor and Council for the R & P Abstracts. Either your local elected officials will say they don’t have such documents, or they will say you can’t have them.

For Lancaster, contact “welcoming” Mayor Gray!

Now you have some excellent political ammunition if they don’t give you the R & P Abstract.

Either the mayor/council is completely unaware that a document like this exists or they keep it from you on purpose, and either way they are politically in a hot seat!

They are either so incompetent they didn’t know that a federal contractor was sending plans for their (your) town to Washington, or they did know and kept it from the citizens (aka voters). Lack of transparency/secrecy are words that you can use against them (until you want to barf!).

Screenshot (986) — Republican Rep. Smucker. If he can’t get the Abstracts he should be pretty angry at the US State Department!

Next! Contact your Representative in the US Congress. It looks like for most of Lancaster that is Rep. Lloyd Smucker.

You are going to report to his staff (try his local office first) that you are getting a runaround and can’t get the R & P Abstracts for Lancaster and ask his staff to get them for you.

Again, this is an important exercise, not so much that the documents contain bombshells (although most I’ve seen are very interesting), but it will tell you something about the man representing you in Congress. If he can’t get the documents (and get you invited to quarterly consultations), he is weak, or he is lying.

You will do the same exercise with the US Senate offices of Pat Toomey an Bob Casey.

For additional fun contact your governor’s office too. See if the governor’s office is being kept informed by the state coordinator (who may actually be employed by the governor’s office).

Presumably you now have the documents and are on the list to be invited to the next QUARTERLY CONSULTATION (aka Stakeholder meeting). Look for another post from me on what to do next involving publicizing what you have learned and pushing for the Abstract to be made public BEFORE it goes to Washington next year!

If no transparency….

If you are still getting a runaround, you have some perfect ammunition to use in the next mayor/city council election (and in 2018 for your member of Congress!). They are all keeping you, taxpaying citizens of refugee resettlement towns and cities, in the dark about plans from Washington about your very neighborhoods!

Say that over and over and over again until you want to throw up!

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

Lancaster, PA where we are told that the Amish welcome one and all

10/15/2017 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Update October 16th: Today I used Lancaster as my example of what you should be doing as a first step locally if you are unhappy with the secrecy surrounding the refugee program where you live. Click here to see what you need to do! Hold your mayor’s feet to the fire!

We are told that by the big German publication, Deutsche Welle which claims Lancaster is “dubbed America’s refugee capital.”

It is probably written to make Germans concerned about the migrant invasion of their homeland feel bad by encouraging them to think everything is sweetness and light in America (well, except for Trump!).

It is the same old story line….

Welcoming people

Welcoming mayor

Refugees supposedly contributing to economy

Kind-hearted ‘Christian’ resettlement agency

Worries that the flow is slowing

Evil Donald Trump

Yawn!

But, I am posting it as background for my next post (either later today or tomorrow).

Deutsche Welle:

As the US isolates itself under President Donald Trump, one rural town in Pennsylvania keeps rooting for refugees. The Amish and Mennonite communities of Lancaster County say “refugees welcome.”

[….]

Lancaster Mayor Rick Gray explains that welcoming refugees by supporting religious freedom and tolerance “is in [Lancaster’s] genes.”

[….]

Stephanie Gromek, who works for Church World Service***, one of nine refugee resettlement agencies in the US, says that in the past year alone, the organization has resettled almost 700 refugees here. The Amish “worked so hard to keep their culture, and that’s what we hope for with our refugees,” she says. [Islamic ‘culture’ too?—-ed]

[….]

Gromek deals with cases from around the world in her work and says that in recent times there has been an influx of people from Syria, Somalia and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).

[….]

But changes in US policy doesn’t bode well for the countryside community. President Trump’s push to put limits on the number of refugees admitted into the US will likely leave its mark on Lancaster, says Jonathan Charles. [Charles is just some local guy they quoted. Bet you could find a local guy with the complete opposite view—ed]

Stephani Gromek — At least Gromek is being honest! No new refugees means no federal money for her non-profit ‘Christian charity.’

“This current president is not a person we are very fond of. We haven’t had any new arrivals since [Trump] became president. And it will take a few years to see how much it impacts us. But I’m sure that it will.”

Fewer than half as many refugee resettlements are expected this year as compared to last year, says Stephanie Gromek. Still, she remains optimistic: “If we don’t get any refugee arrivals, our organization doesn’t get funding. However, the reasons for what the administration is trying to do are not holding. There’s no weight, no justification for what Trump is trying to do.”

Mayor Gray, however, is worried there might be more at stake and is paying attention to what the migrant community has to say about the political developments in the US. “Some refugees I spoke to are now afraid of what’s going on a national level. They say they’ve seen this kind of thing happening before in their own countries.

“I really hope they’re wrong.”

More here.

See my archive on Lancaster. There are a lot of posts there. Don’t miss the one where I attended an Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) meeting in Lancaster a few years ago and first learned that the feds were referring to communities (where citizens were asking questions) as ‘Pockets of Resistance.’ They reported happily that Lancaster and PA generally had no such resisters.

*** Church World Service is the federal government contractor whose subcontractor, Virginia Council of Churches, sent the first refugees to the county where I live in Maryland beginning in about 2006. We were told we were getting spillover from Lancaster of Meskhetian Turks (Sunni Muslims) because there had been some problem in Lancaster. (We never learned what that was, but we heard that from our sheriff at the time.)

You can learn more about CWS’s finances here.

They are 71% funded by the US taxpayer. So much for Christian charity!

Scranton, PA school district struggling under weight of needy immigrant students, working poor

10/09/2017 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

The next time you see one of those head-scratching claims that assert that bringing more third world poverty to a dying city will revitalize it, think about this news from Scranton. (Pennsylvania is usually one of the top ten states ‘welcoming’ refugees.)

And, instead of leaving this admonition to the end where you might miss it, here is what you need to do. (See my post on focusing on local and state action where one of the targets of your political action should be mayors!)

First, try to get your paper to do a study like this one about your local education department, the place where a negative impact on your community usually shows up first. It is really unusual to see an analysis like this one. If the paper won’t do it—you should do it!

Then of course use the information to ‘educate’ your elected officials.

Here is the Times-Tribune:

Scranton classrooms seat more students today than they have in at least 25 years. With 10,222 students enrolled as of last week, the district is also experiencing:

Low-income enrollment of 82.5 percent. The number is the highest in the region and up from 60 percent in 2010.

Mayor of Scranton — Democrat Mayor Bill Courtright: we welcome everyone (who will become Democrat voters!) to Scranton even as we go deeper into debt and might have our school system taken over by the state. (He didn’t really say that last part!) http://thetimes-tribune.com/news/global-tastes-dinner-welcomes-congolese-refugees-1.2107781

A record-high population of students requiring special education services. As of last week, nearly 23 percent of children are classified as special education students — up from 19 percent just three years ago.

A record-high enrollment of 902 students requiring English as a second language services, now called English learners, or EL. That number could climb to 1,000, or about 10 percent of the population, by the end of the year.

The growth creates unique issues, such as staffing and resources, as the district faces a deficit expected to reach $40 million by the end of the year.

“As a public school district, we are required to serve all our students, and to provide a quality education for all,” said Superintendent Alexis Kirijan, Ed.D.

[….]

District demographics mirror the city’s population. Scranton’s population has increased 1.5 percent from 2010, to 77,291, according to U.S. Census estimates released earlier this year.

The district now must educate more students as it faces growing financial problems. The state put the district on “financial watch” status in June, the first in a series of steps that could eventually lead to a takeover by a state receiver.

[….]

As enrollment increases, so do the number of students who speak a language other than English. Scranton students speak 36 different languages, and as of last week, 902 students received English support, or about 9 percent of the total population.

Some of those students escaped from war-torn countries, as their families sought a better life in the United States. Through the refugee resettlement program of Catholic Social Services, 140 refugee children were students in the Scranton School District during the 2016-17 school year. Students include former residents of Syria, Bhutan/Nepal, Sudan, Iraq, Afghanistan and the Democratic Republic of Congo. Many lived in refugee camps, without access to education.

[….]

Over the last six years, low-income enrollment in the district has increased by 37 percent. According to data released by the Pennsylvania Department of Education last week, 82.5 percent of students in the district live in low-income households, meaning the students qualify for free or reduced-price lunches.

For a family of four, students qualify for reduced-price meals when the annual family income is below $45,510. The students receive free meals when the annual income is below $31,980. Last year, Scranton became part of a federal program for school districts with high poverty levels, which allows all students, regardless of family income, to eat breakfast and lunch at school for free.

As poverty increases, area social service agencies see more families seeking services.

At United Neighborhood Centers of Northeastern Pennsylvania, people come in looking for assistance with rent, utilities and other necessities, said Michael Hanley, the organization’s chief executive officer. Many of the jobs available in the area do not offer a wage able to support a family, he said. [But, they keep pouring in refugees anyway!—ed]

“More and more of the people we see are the working poor,” he said. “They just can’t make it paycheck to paycheck.”

[….]

Languages spoken in the Scranton School District

Albanian, Arabic, Bulgarian, Cantonese, Chinese, Creole, Danish, Dari, English, Farsi, Filipino, French, Gujarati, Hindi, Indonesian, Japanese, Kannada, Kinyarwanda, Lao, Mandarin Chinese, Nepali, Pashto, Persian, Portuguese, Rohingya, Russian, Serbian, Slovak-Polish, Spanish, Swahili, Tagalog, Turkish, Ukrainian, Urdu, Uzbek, Vietnamese.

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

The "Gypsies" causing community outrage in a Pittsburgh suburb are wannabe refugees

07/18/2017 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

A friend e-mailed last night to alert me to the controversy she had been hearing about through another friend living in the outraged community—California, PA.
Coincidentally, although I didn’t see it, I believe Tucker Carlson did a story on the town and its enraged citizens last night as well.

Downtown California, PA, another town roiled by a federal immigration agency from Washington, DC. secretly placing migrants there. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California,_Pennsylvania

It seems that rather than hold in detention migrants who got to the US illegally and have apparently asked for political asylum, the federal government is placing large numbers in unsuspecting communities. Although I have no proof, I will bet a buck that the placement of wannabe ‘refugees’ is being facilitated with our usual gang of refugee contractors.
I looked around for news on the “gypsy” controversy and found many stories including this one at The Blaze:

Residents in California, Pennsylvania, a small borough of the Pittsburgh metropolitan area, have said they are outraged after the federal government moved 40 Romanian “gypsies” into the town of 7,000 as part of the government’s Alternative to Detention program.

On Thursday, more than 150 residents attended a community meeting about the immigrants, who residents say have failed to assimilate to American customs and norms. The residents cited trash in yards, disruptions in town markets, children and men defecating in public streets, and immigrants cutting off the heads of chickens in public areas, according to a report by WTAE-TV. None of the immigrants, who are undocumented, have been charged with any other serious criminal offenses. [I’ve found over the years that there is nothing that infuriates a community more than public crapping!—ed]

[….]

The Romanian immigrants ended up in the California borough as part of the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s Alternative to Detention program, which allows immigrants to live in U.S. communities instead of being detained while they await a final decision about their immigration status.

[….]

About 600 residents have signed a petition demanding the gypsies change their living habits. [Assimilation issue again!—ed]

More here.
Although the word ‘asylum’ is not mentioned, surely these Roma people are waiting for a decision from an asylum court about whether they will be granted refugee status.
For new readers there are two normal channels for getting that most desired immigration status we can bestow on anyone (because doors are opened, the migrant gets a caseworker and refugees are eligible for most forms of welfare)—refugee status!
The normal channel is the one we write about most often—that is where we fly refugees in (most chosen by the UN) and place them with a refugee contractor. The other channel is for a migrant to get to the US on his/her own steam (most often illegally) and then ask for political asylum. If granted asylum, the migrant is just as much a refugee as the ones we fly in. The Tsarnaev (Boston Bombers) were in a family granted asylum and were therefore REFUGEES.
We approve asylum for about 25,000 each year (see here) and that is in addition to the numbers we are always talking about as part of the President’s annual determination (50,194 as of today for FY17).
Those hundreds of thousands of mostly economic migrants from Africa and the Middle East working their way to Europe are going to ask for asylum there (they are NOT refugees, yet)—European countries could turn them down if they had the guts.
I spent a few minutes looking around for other information on the illegal movement of Roma and found this very informative AP story from 2012 about Roma crossing the Mexican border on their way to Canada. So, it appears we have apprehended this group in California, PA before they could get to our northern border.

Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society bringing Syrian Muslims to Philly

01/17/2017 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

This is a longish story meant to be warm and fuzzy about how the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society*** is injecting diversity into crime-ridden Philly. That should be really good for the struggling African Americans there, but who cares about them, HIAS is being paid to do a job. This is a business.
The reporter has the facts down fairly well and I recommend reading it, especially for Pennsylvania residents who should know that your state is in the top ten resettlement states in the nation right now.

HIAS’s Philly rep Rona Buchalter is worried about what Trump will do once he arrives at the White House. Bio and photo are at HIAS’s website: http://hiaspa.org/rona-buchalter

I quibble with the selective reporting here where we are told that the refugees get $1,125 each (from US taxpayers). To be completely accurate it should be mentioned that the contractor (HIAS here) gets an equal amount for its payment to do their ‘charitable’ work. All of the contractors are quaking in their boots now as the wait to see what Donald Trump does after Friday because cutting the numbers means cutting their income!

HIAS Pennsylvania is an affiliate of one of those nine organizations that receives funding from the U.S. Department of State to resettle refugees. They are funded to provide initial casework and help refugees spend $1,125 per person they get in assistance from the government to pay for housing, groceries, bills and other necessities. From there, it’s enrolling kids in school, finding adults work and getting families integrated into their communities. Quickly.

By the way, I once had an American, who was trying to help a new refugee family in his neighborhood, contact me to ask why the refugee doesn’t get the full $2,250 because the contractor was not helping the family. Why? This is a business!

How many Syrians since the beginning of the 2017 fiscal year?

I haven’t checked the Syrian numbers at Wrapsnet lately, so checked just now.

In the first 3 and 1/2 months of the fiscal year (it began on Oct. 1, 2016) we have admitted 4,005 Syrians, and 98% are Muslims.

Here is where they were ‘planted’ in Pennsylvania from October 1, 2016 to January 15, 2017:

screenshot-151 — 98% of Syrians arriving in US are Muslims.

For new readers, know that it was HIAS which first directed the Southern Poverty Law Center to investigate RRW, see here.
***They don’t want to be called by their full name anymore, they changed it to HIAS (why was that?).