With added Syrian numbers, are cities and states prepared to help pay for more refugees?

That is not exactly the title of this excellent article at, of all places, the Huffington Post, but it’s my version of it!  I’m actually blown away that Pew Charitable Trust’s Stateline news service has really dug into how the Refugee Admissions Program works.  It confirms some things we knew, but that I had not seen so clearly revealed in print before.
Although it does skew toward advocating more resettlement to America (what else from a very far left foundation), someone did a lot of work.  All of you in ‘Pockets of Resistance’ must read this whole article!
By the way, decades ago I knew something about the environmental hard left and property rights, and at that time Pew infamously began a propaganda campaign called the ‘Greening of the Churches.’   It was a strategy they knew that they needed in order to advance the cause of environmental fascism—they had to infiltrate the churches with the green (global warming etc.) message so good churchgoing people would carry their message.  I digress, but that is my first encounter with Pew.  So, I’m a bit surprised at how useful this article will be to you!

Ed+Pawlowski+Obama+Speaks+White+House+Forum+tWSUAoB7Yyjl
Allentown, PA is going to get slammed with (mostly Muslim) Syrians thanks to welcoming message from Mayor Ed Pawlowski who admits to the Pew reporter that he has little say in how many get resettled in his city. Here is Pawlowski with guess who.

The article, besides some very useful information on how the program works, basically gives us the road map for slowing the flow—if the federal government does not have enough money appropriated for refugee resettlement (aka colonization), they can’t bring in large numbers of refugees for your town and state to care for.
Only problem (and it is a big one!) is that our do-nothing House of Representatives is too chicken to use their power of the purse.
From the Huffington Post (emphasis is mine):

The U.S. plans to increase the number of refugees it takes from 70,000 to 100,000 over the next two years. New York, Los Angeles and 16 other cities have urged President Barack Obama to accept even more refugees from Syria.

But is the country—along with the aid groups that help in resettlement and local communities that receive refugees—ready for an increase in arrivals? And where will the new arrivals go?

The increase could strain America’s sprawling refugee admissions program, a partnership between the federal government, international organizations like the United Nations, nine national nonprofits and their hundreds of local affiliates.

Cities and states may need to spend more money on social services for refugees, particularly if Congress doesn’t approve additional federal funding for resettlement.

The nine non-governmental (unelected) federal contractors meet every week in northern Virginia to decide the fate of your town.

Parceling out tens of thousands of refugees to U.S. communities takes advance planning. Each week, representatives of the nine nonprofit groups meet in the Rosslyn, Virginia, offices of the Refugee Processing Center, a State Department contractor. Some groups attend via conference call.

Staffers sit around a table and review a thick packet of refugee case files. The files contain the addresses of any family members the refugee wants to join in the U.S., medical information and other personal data. The nine staffers then talk through the cases and match each refugee (or refugee family) with a city and a local nonprofit that can help them adjust to new lives in America.

[….]

To decide how many refugees to send to, say, Allentown, Pennsylvania, each year, the State Department considers how many people local nonprofits say they can resettle there. Philadelphia-based Lutheran Children and Family Service (LCFS) settled between 100 and 200 refugees in Allentown, Lancaster and Philadelphia this year; Allentown’s allotment included 39 Syrians.

Pay attention Wyoming!  Governor Mead has been misinformed.  He says that the refugees won’t cost the taxpayers of Wyoming anything! See his preposterous statement here back in July.***  This Pew article (below) tells us why he is wrong and is thus misleading Wyomingites.

Every state except Wyoming has a partnership with the federal government and local nonprofits to provide aid to refugees (and Wyoming Gov. Matt Mead, a Republican, has supported starting such a resettlement program).

[….]

Although cities and states have the opportunity to weigh in on the resettlement process, they don’t have much control over how many refugees are settled where. “We really don’t have any say, to be honest with you,” said Allentown Mayor Ed Pawlowski, a Democrat.

[….]

The big national nonprofits that select and resettle refugees have called for the U.S. to help even more people: 200,000 refugees in fiscal 2016, including 100,000 from Syria.

[….]

The federal government spends a lot of money processing refugees overseas and then helping them to resettle. The State Department spent over $3 billion to assist and process refugees overseas in fiscal 2015 (including through grants to the U.N.) and to settle refugees in the U.S. (through grants to the nine nonprofits).  [$3 billion for the resettlement alone, not including welfare is much higher than we knew—-ed]

The $1,975 per refugee local nonprofits receive from the State Department covers 30 to 90 days of furnished housing, help buying food and clothing, and a case manager who can shepherd refugees through what can be bewildering first days in their new country, including tasks like applying for a Social Security card.

The Pew author fails to tell readers that upwards of half of that $1,975 goes to the resettlement contractor.

For all of you being told that the resettlement being decided for your town or state by NINE PRIVATE ORGANIZATIONS (not elected by you) will cost local and state taxpayers nothing, read this! 

Remember readers, this is Pew saying this, not RRW!

Federal aid doesn’t cover everything. “Refugees would never be able to resettle based on what’s available in the refugee resettlement pot of funding,” said Charles Shipman, state refugee coordinator for Arizona.

Private donations bolster the services local nonprofits provide [private donations are minimal and usually involve junk furniture and clothes contributions.—ed]. And states and local communities help pick up the tab, too, because refugees—who arrive with little more than the clothes on their backs—are immediately eligible for mainstream benefit programs like food stamps, Medicaid and cash assistance for low-income families. States play a role in funding some of those programs.

When the refugee resettlement program began, in 1980, the federal government reimbursed states for providing cash assistance, Medicaid and supplemental Social Security benefits to refugees for their first three years in the country, said Ann Morse of the National Conference of State Legislatures.

Now, the federal government only repays states for one service: providing eight months of cash and medical assistance to childless refugee couples or single adults, who don’t qualify for family-based benefits.

Read it all!
***Here are Wyoming REPUBLICAN Governor Matt Mead’s exact words back in July (click here).

The federal Office of Refugee Resettlement and the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees “pay 100 percent of the costs of refugee resettlement for many years. It’s not like we’re going to get stuck with an unfunded mandate,” he said…

Lancaster, PA 'welcomes' 500 refugees a year as more family members arrive

Lancaster Co CoalitionThis is a news story from over a week ago that I’ve been meaning to post because it makes one important point among many points about when a town has become a preferred resettlement site.

The point I want to highlight is that, once a “seed” community is established the resettlement contractors, in this case Church World Service and Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service, will be busy bringing in the family members of the first group and ethnic enclaves will be established!

That is why as I intimated in my previous post that it is very important to learn if your town is being targeted in advance  because once your city or town is an established site it is virtually impossible to stop the growth or even control it.
Here is the gushing news account about Lancaster at Pennlive which early in the story tells us this:

Jessica Knapp
Jessica Knapp, colonizing Lancaster as director of the Lutheran Refugee Services program there. https://www.linkedin.com/pub/jessica-knapp/5b/607/963

Refugee resettlement in Pennsylvania is among the most robust in the nation with Lancaster second to only Philadelphia in resettlement numbers, said Jessica Knapp, interim coalition facilitator at the Lancaster County Refugee Coalition. More than 500 refugees resettle in Lancaster annually, she said.

Then this is what I want you to focus on (wherever you live):

Lancaster is appealing as a resettlement area for its low cost of living, employment possibilities and the city’s walkability, she added. Over time, as refugees sponsor family members over and the population grows, others may also be drawn to the area for its sizable community.

This is why we now have Minneapolis, MN and Columbus, OH as Somali enclaves, or likewise Ft. Wayne, IN for Burmese and so on. This is what the refugee industry calls ‘secondary migration.’
By the way, it was in Lancaster, PA where I first heard about ‘Pockets of Resistance’ and the Office of Refugee Resettlement hiring “Welcoming America” to head off more.
Here we have many other posts on Lancaster.

PA Rep. Barletta worried about Syrian refugees, tells local audience

I have a ton of catching up to do after being out in California for a week.  So, let’s see if I can post on a bunch of topics and not say too much!
Pennsylvania Republican Congressman Lou Barletta chose to talk about the threat posed by Syrian refugees entering the US to a local audience in Hazelton, PA.  Barletta is on the House Homeland Security Committee that heard testimony, here, the week before last.

Rep Lou Barletta

Here is some of what he had to say from the Times-Leader:

HAZLETON — The city’s native son returned Wednesday to talk about threats at home.

U.S. Rep. Lou Barletta, R-Hazleton, said he enjoys coming home and he got to renew friendships with about 50 members of the Hazleton Rotary Club at Genetti’s on Route 309.

[….]

The issue of illegal immigration brought Barletta to the national stage. When he was mayor of Hazleton, Barletta felt his city faced a serious financial dilemma because of illegal immigrants residing in the city but not paying taxes.

Barletta contended that his city’s population doubled while its tax revenue stayed the same.

[….]

Barletta said he has expressed concern about Syrian refugees being admitted to the U.S. At a recent House Homeland Security Committee hearing he quizzed experts on the extent of U.S. intelligence gathering capabilities while the State Department considers admitting up to 2,000 Syrian refugees in the coming year.  [For new readers, there is a push on to admit 65,000 Syrians before Obama leaves office—ed]

At that hearing, Barletta noted that Syria is a hotbed for terrorism, and he questioned witnesses at the hearing regarding America’s ability to properly vet those under consideration for refugee status and relocation to the the United States.

Barletta said the United States has to take a serious stand on the issue. He also said any U.S. citizen who goes to Syria to train with ISIS should not be allowed back into the country.

“They are traitors,” he said. “And traitors should not be allowed to come back into this country.”

By the way, most of those going to train with ISIS are immigrants we ‘welcomed’ to America at one point in time.
There is more.
I’m posting this to remind readers that your Member of Congress is home in the district for the 4th of July holiday and it is a good time to discuss refugee resettlement with them.  Every little way you can throw a shoe in the machinery of this government is useful!
Pennsylvania is rapidly becoming a leading refugee resettlement state.

Sudanese man charged with murdering Hispanic co-worker in PA meat plant

Ah the joys of multiculturalism brought to us by one more foreign-owned meat packing company….

Peter Jok Atem, 32 charged with murder

Longtime readers know that meatpackers love their cheap immigrant labor and are changing the face of small town America by luring refugee and other immigrant laborers to towns across the country for jobs that they say Americans won’t do.  This is one of many posts on the subject here at RRW.

Senator Jeff Sessions told us here that BIG Meat is behind the amnesty push.

The alleged murderer is most likely a refugee as the State Department and its contractors bring many from the Sudan to your communities.  Immigrants from some cultures apparently can’t take a joke so I guess we will soon need re-training in what is funny and what isn’t in our diverse workplaces.

From Philly.com (Hat tip:  Pungentpeppers):

“Prosecutors say an employee at a Franconia meat-packing plant was stabbed to death after feuding with and pranking his co-worker.

Danny Vazquez, 25, is dead for pulling a prank on African immigrant co-worker. Didn’t Mopac see this coming? Photo and more here: http://www.nbcphiladelphia.com/news/local/Chair-Prank-Led-to-Deadly-Stabbing-at-Meat-Plant-292731421.html

Peter Jok Atem, 32, was charged with first-degree murder Thursday, a day after he allegedly stabbed 25-year-old Danny Vazquez at the Mopac plant on Souder Road.

The Montgomery County District Attorney’s Office said Vazquez on Tuesday had tried to pull a chair out from under Atem. An employee who witnessed the prank told detectives that Atem said he was “going to get you for that.”

[….]

A Mopac employee told detectives that Atem and Vazquez had been “having words back and forth . . . for the past six months,” the complaint says.  [Mopac is owned by JBS (Swift) a Brazilian owned company.—ed]

Atem, who was born in Sudan and lives in Lansdale, has no criminal record of violence. But in cases from 2010, 2011, 2012 and 2013 he was charged with driving under the influence, driving an unregistered vehicle, and disorderly conduct, and was evicted by his landlord.”

Click here for more meatpacker-generated criminal, cultural and societal problems.

Catholic Charities and Methodists hold community luncheon to persuade folks that refugees are not just “plopped” in PA

They must be spreading the refugees and ‘Unaccompanied alien children’ out from Harrisburg and are getting a little blow-back or they wouldn’t have needed a get-their-minds-right luncheon for the community in Mechanicsburg (8 miles west of Harrisburg, PA an overloaded resettlement city).

By the way, this is standard operating procedure.  Just like Minneapolis and the bedroom community of Eden Prairie we wrote about yesterday.  The US State Department and its refugee contractors overload a city, tensions build and then have to spread new refugees out to the surrounding towns and cities because they want to keep families and ethnic groups linked up in a 100 mile radius of the original “seed community.”  Mechanicsburg!  See your future in Eden Prairie!

Luncheon to make sure a ‘pocket of resistance’ isn’t growing in PA?

From The Sentinel:

The word refugee became a hot potato topic in recent months as the United Nations and other organizations called on the United States to grant the refugee status to thousands of unaccompanied immigrant children who have crossed the southern border while fleeing violence and crime in Central America. The United Methodist Home for Children in Lower Allen Township announced in July it was planning to provide shelter for some of these children.

Reverend Robert Visscher Director of the Methodist Mission Central: “They aren’t just plopped here randomly.” Really! Photo: http://www.missioncentral.org/staff.php

Given the flurry of discussion, Catholic Charities and Mechanicsburg-based Mission Central provided a community educational luncheon Thursday to discuss the similarities and differences between the unaccompanied children and other refugees, clear up misconceptions about immigrants, and give suggestions for how the public can help care for refugees in the area.

Catholic Charities again stretching that definition of the word “refugee.”  In my view that is what this whole UAC push is about.  They want the “children” to seek asylum and be recognized as full-blown asylees (which means refugee) so they can be hooked up with their social services (normal legal immigrants have to wait five years for welfare) and be on the fast track to US citizenship.

Catholic Charities does not currently provide shelter for unaccompanied Central American children — although they have requested grant funds to do so in the future — but the organization currently helps immigrants from countries like Bhutan, Nepal, Somalia and Burma, said Sara Beck, ESL services manager.

To be a refugee, a person has to be fleeing from a well-founded fear of persecution or violence in their home countries — and the situation many of the Central American children are facing “sounds a lot like a refugee,” Beck said.  [Beck is quoted as an authority, but if its the same Sara Beck I found, she is a recent college student, probably on loan from AmeriCorps—ed]

Beck and Visscher said fears of immigrants bringing disease or security concerns to the United States should be relieved by a proper understanding of the screening process both the unaccompanied children and refugees undergo.

“These people aren’t just plopped here randomly — there’s a whole process to this,” Visscher said.

We have dozens of cases where in fact they were just “plopped” down and were later found to have some serious crime, terrorism, or health issues and they were “plopped” down without the community having been fully informed of what was being done to their community in the name of Christian (government-funded) “charity.”

All of our posts on the ‘Unaccompanied minors’ can be found by clicking here.

And remember, Pennsylvania is in the top ten resettlement states in the US, here Click here for our Pennsylvania archive.

Update:  Reader Joanne just sent this detailed report from the Pennsylvania Health Department about refugees and their medical issues in PA.  You can even see how many positive TB cases went to your counties.