That is a rally partially sponsored by the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) to be held in Washington, DC this coming week. (As of this writing they have 847 confirmed planning to attend, here.)
I told you about it here when the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society was pushing its groupies to attend.
Curious about whether the other eight federal refugee contractors (some receiving nearly all of their funding from the US Treasury)*** were involved, I asked in that post if anyone knew.
I got my answer just now at twitter when the lobbying arm of the refugee industry (Refugee Council USA) put out this message:
So who are the membersof the refugee lobbying consortium. Here they are:
***Check out those logos, below are the nine contractors. Where is Congress? Shouldn’t there be a law that if you take most of your funding from taxpayers, you shouldn’t be marching in the streets against the President and us!
Think about it! All nine contractors (the Catholic church included!) are telling their people to march against the President and for CAIR!
Why don’t they just take good care of the refugees they are being paid to care for!
From the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society website: https://www.hias.org/support-presidential-determination-least-75000-refugees
In mid-September the Trump Administration will be sending its ‘Presidential determination’ to the Hill.
The determination will set the CEILING for the number of refugees the President would like to see admitted to the US and sets priorities for what regions of the world will be the source of those refugees.
It also tells Congress how much money the Administration needs to get that job done.
Obama’s average admissions for 8 years was 69,683. Do they really think that Donald Trump will ask for 75,000?
For the umpteenth time, the number is a ceiling that is rarely reached.
The contractors*** are telling their followers that the magic number for FY18 is 75,000. They must be taking a new tack because at this time last year they were asking Obama for 200,000. I suspect they know the situation is bad for their budgets and they need more than 50,000 (paying refugee clients) to stay afloat.
By the way, Trump reset the ceiling for FY17 to 50,000.
And, as of this morning (according to Wrapsnet) Trump is at 50,672. This is the first time in the history of the program that the ceiling has been surpassed.
For the eight years of the Obama Administration the average number of admissions was 69,683 (see here). The average would have been much lower if it weren’t for his last year, an outlier, of nearly 85,000.
So, if Trump goes to 75,000 for FY18, which begins October 1, he will be proposing to bring in more refugees than Obama’s average.
Ginning up their base!
Just one portion of the “members” page at the RCUSA. http://www.rcusa.org/members/
In an August recess toolkit prepared by the Refugee Council USA(the lobbying arm of the refugee industry), here is what they are telling their activists (and using your tax dollars for their community organizing!):
Trump’s attacks on refugees, immigrants, and their families are morally detestable, discriminatory, and violate our sacred honor to protect the most vulnerable among us. Right now, we need Congress to urge the administration to resettle at least 75,000 refugees next year and protect DACA. Congress must also robustly fund refugee assistance overseas and the U.S. refugee resettlement program, at minimum at last year’s levels, and reduce funding for mass immigration detention, deportation, and border militarization.
One of the most active of the activist groups is the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society (HIAS) which has instructions to its supporters on what to say to Washington Representatives and Senators.
Scratching your head about why Jews would import their enemy? Learn about “Stalinist Jews” where “ideology over reality” rules. Watch starting at minute 46 in this new documentary: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FmhfRi5j8aA
They know that the Republican Congress can be manipulated easily by public opinion on this issue because the establishment GOP fears being labeled racist AND many R’s are beholden to the Chamber of Commerce, big business and global corporations looking for more consumers and a ready supply of cheap labor.
***The Federal contractors/middlemen/employment agencies/propagandists/lobbyists/community organizers?paid by you to place refugees in your towns and cities are below. Under the nine major contractors are hundreds of subcontractors.
The contractors income is largely dependent on taxpayer dollars based on the number of refugees admitted to the US, but they also receive myriad grants to service their “New Americans.”
If you are a good-hearted soul and think refugee resettlement is all about humanitarianism, think again! Big businesses depend on the free flow of cheap (some call it slave) labor.
The only way for real reform of how the US admits refugees is to remove these contractors/Leftwing activists from the process.
So far, the US Department of State says no…. Justice Clarence Thomas (Alito and Gorsuch)were right that the Supreme Court’s effort to ‘split the baby,’ with its decision on Trump’s ‘travel ban’ and refugee moratorium, will invite litigation through the remainder of the summer.
I wasn’t planning to write today (except maybe a post about this being RRW’s Tenth Anniversary) because it is Saturday of a big holiday weekend, but I want you to see that, yes, the contractors*** are getting in gear to sue the feds claiming that since refugees are assigned to them for placement in your towns, they are bona fide entities. They sue while we pay their salaries!
Longtime readers know that it is my contention that the system in place for decades, where a federal contractor is hired to place refugees in your towns and the contractor is ostensibly a non-profit (some are ‘religious’) charitable organization being paid with your tax dollars yet can file lawsuits and lobby Congress, is an outrage.
Congress could do something about this, if it had the will (the Labrador bill is insufficient), but since leading Congressional Republicans are in the pockets of lobbyists (Tyson Foods for instance!) and the Chamber of Commerce in need of cheap labor, no real reform ever happens.
Carving itself out as the leader of the pack for political advocacy is the politically aggressive Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society (HIAS). HIAS was a litigant in one of the cases before the Court.
I just checked USA Spending and found that HIAS got over $104 MILLION from taxpayers since FY08.
And, what do you know, the feds paid them over $4.1 million in the 5 days before Donald Trump was inaugurated. Here, about 3 weeks later, HIAS organized a NYC rally against Trump featuring speaker Rep. Keith Ellison. How much of your money was used for their protest?
Yesterday we learned a lot about what they plan to do next—sue!
And, LOL!, the Christian Post says not one word about how the do-gooder organizations are paid per refugee head to do their good works!
Refugees with connections to the nine refugee resettlement organizations in the United States should be allowed to enter the country in accordance with the Supreme Court’s ruling Monday that allowed a limited version of President Donald Trump’s travel ban to go into effect, advocates argue.
[….]
After the nation’s high court decided Monday that it would allow a scaled-back version of Trump’s March 6 executive order on immigration to be enacted, opponents of the travel ban were left wondering whether the the Supreme Court considers relationships with a refugee resettlement organization to be the type of “bona fide” relationships necessary to allow them to enter the country, once the 50,000 refugee cap set for fiscal year 2017 is met in July.
In 2016, Nezer of the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society was the chair of the Refugee Council USA (this lobbying consortium of the refugee industry has revolving chairmanship). RCUSA in August of 2016 said they wanted Obama to set a ceiling of 200,000 for FY17. https://refugeeresettlementwatch.org/2016/08/02/lobbying-arm-for-refugee-resettlement-contractors-wants-us-to-take-200000-refugees-in-fy2017/
As the travel ban — which bans immigration from six Muslim majority countries for 90 days and refugee resettlement for 120 days — took effect on Thursday, the Trump administration explained in guidelines sent to U.S. embassies and consulates what it considers to a “bona fide relationship.”
[….]
As for entities, the guidelines state that people seeking access to the United States must show formal proof of their relationship with the a business or educational institution. However, an administration official declared in a press call Thursday that “the fact that a resettlement agency in the United States has provided a formal assurance for refugees seeking admission is not sufficient, in and of itself, to establish a bona fide relationship under the ruling.”
[….]
Legal action has already been filed to seek clarity on the Supreme Court’s order, which was somewhat vague about what constitutes a “bona fide” relationship. On Thursday, the state of Hawaii asked a federal judge to clarify the ruling and argued that the administration’s interpretation is too narrow and violates the ruling.
On a press call Friday, leaders of resettlement agencies authorized to resettle refugeesin the United States decried the administration’s interpretation of the ruling. [You see how deceptive the press is—“authorized”—how about “contracted and paid!”—ed]
“Our argument is that under an interpretation of a clear reading of the Supreme Court decision is that a relationship with a resettlement agency does establish a ‘bona fide’ relationship for purposes of the ban,” said Melanie Nezer, the senior vice president of public affairs for HIAS, which was founded as the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society. [They dumped “Hebrew” from their name a few years ago. I guess when you are resettling large numbers of Muslim refugees, the word Hebrew was an impediment.—ed]
[….]
“We also imagine the debate about this in the administration, thinking that there was significant debate among people who really do understand resettlement in the administration and those who don’t,” Nezer said.“It seems pretty clear that this decision was made by people who don’t know or don’t much care about how resettlement works.”
[By the way, I don’t think the Supreme Court knew much about resettlement either or perhaps they wouldn’t have been rewriting refugee law, but that would be the fault of whoever presented the case for the Justice Department.—ed]
[….]
Director of the lobbying arm of the refugee industry Naomi Steinberg says 26,000 refugees are in the pipeline. What a convenient number. We are at 50,000 and Congress has appropriated enough money to admit 75,000 this fiscal year. If we hit 75,000, it will be about 10,000 ABOVE the average for the last ten years!
Around July 6 is when the United States is expected to hit the 50,000 refugee cap for fiscal year 2017 that Trump set in his executive order. After that, the “bona fide” standard will be going into effect for refugees, Nezer explained.
See my post yesterday about July 6th. As of today we are at 49,225 refugees admitted this fiscal year. We may not see new numbers reported at Wrapsnet until the 5th or 6th.
[….]
Naomi Steinberg, the director of Refugee Council USA, added that there are over 26,000 refugees total who have gone through security vetting and have been approved to the come the United States and be resettled around the United States.
More here.
All of my posts related to what the Supreme Court ruled last week are archived in my category—Supreme Court.
*** For new readers, these are the nine contractors that monopolize refugee resettlement in America. Saying they are “authorized” to resettle refugees is a media deception. They are paid out of the US Treasury per head for every refugee they resettle. The incentive is always to bring more while they pretend to be doing this work completely from humanitarian motives!
The UN/US Refugee Admissions Program will never be reformed until we stop paying non-profit groups to advocate and lobby for their vested (Leftist!) interests.
The President’s budget for next year is out, but I have to be completely honest with you, going through these numbers is not my thing!
And, consider that it is Congress that will in reality set the agenda and budget for refugee admissions by how much money they are sending to the program and ultimately out to the federal resettlement contractors.
In searching around this morning, I’ve found several indicators of what Trump might do, what he has done, what the budget might dictate, and how the contractors are reacting, and I will leave it to you (who have more patience to wade through numbers than I) to analyze the numbers. Just so you know, as of today (5/24/2017), note (from Wrapsnet) that Trump is now at 45,172 admitted refugees for this fiscal year (FY2017 ends on September 30th). (Average refugee admissions for the last ten years is around in the low 60,000s.)
Resettlement contractors happy with FY17 budget!
I missed this: The Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society was very happy with the Continuing Budget for the present fiscal year. See here earlier this month:
Today (May 5) President Trump signed into law a $1.1 trillion government spending bill to keep the government running through September 30, the end of the current fiscal year.
Sigh of relief! Maybe no salary cuts for the top executives? https://refugeeresettlementwatch.org/2016/11/13/hebrew-immigrant-aid-society-lectures-trump-never-mentions-its-pecuniary-interest-in-refugees/
Within that massive bill are a few items of particular importance for refugees who, after fleeing war and persecution, have either found safety abroad or are beginning new lives in the United States.
The spending bill funds the Office of Refugee Resettlement at a level equal to last fiscal year.ORR oversees the domestic side of U.S. resettlement and facilitates refugees’ integration and economic success in this country. This funding will allow ORR and its partner agencies (including HIAS) to continue providing services for refugees, asylees, unaccompanied refugee and asylum seeker children, Cuban and Haitian entrants, and Iraqi and Afghan Special Immigrant Visa recipients.
Also included is $3.06 billion for Migration Refugee Assistance, which is $99 million more than the Trump administration requested.
This funding will enable the U.S. State Department to provide humanitarian aid to refugees overseas as well as resettle refugees in the United States.
The bill also extends the Lautenberg Amendment, which ensures a safe means of exit for religious minorities from Iran and the former Soviet Union who are approved to come to the United States. [Bunch of hypocrites! They say Trump can’t legally select Christians over Muslims, but they have supported choosing Jews as a priority from Iran and Russia for decades!—ed]
This funding agreement, which originated in the House of Representatives and passed both chambers of Congress before it reached the President’s desk for signature, ensures that the U.S. refugee resettlement program will be sufficiently funded for the remainder of this fiscal year.
This means that communities in states across the country will be able to continue doing what they already do so well every day: welcoming newly arrived refugee families and helping them to integrate by providing a strong start in their new home.
Today marks a victory for our partners in Washington and around the country, who have been advocating for continued U.S. support for welcoming and protecting refugees. But there is still so much more we can and should be doing.
We continue to urge the Trump Administration to resettle at least 75,000 refugees this fiscal year.
That was May 5th. They have friends in the Republican Congress!
A couple of days ago (May 22nd), the President unveiled his FY18 budget and here at the Daily Caller we learn that it includes enough funding for 50,000 refugees for FY18 (begins September 30th, 2017), but just like the CR discussed above, Congress can, and likely will, add more money for MORE refugees! Why would Republicans who control Congress want more refugees? That is easy: cheap immigrant labor for their big business donors and for the Chamber of Commerce!
The markers are being laid down!
Trump wants 50,000 and they want 75,000 for FY18!
Here is what the refugee industry is saying about this budget, from their lobbying arm in DC yesterday—the Refugee Council USA:
WASHINGTON, DC—Refugee Council USA (RCUSA), a coalition of 24 U.S.-based non-governmental organizations*** dedicated to refugee protection, urges Congress to fund refugee programs at levels that reflect the reality that the world is currently experiencing the worst refugee crisis since World War II. The last thing that the United States should do during a time of historic refugee crises is to cut lifesaving refugee budget accounts.
The lobbying arm of the refugee industry is RCUSA. Its present chair is a Dutch citizen, Hans van de Weerd, lecturing us about American values. Bio: http://www.rcusa.org/staff/ Photo twitter: https://twitter.com/hansvandeweerd
“Now more than ever, we must allocate funding to programs that align with our American values of freedom, compassion and opportunity,” Hans van de Weerd, Chair of RCUSA, said. “The United States has historically been a global refugee protection leader, both through strong support for refugees overseas, as well as through funding a robust domestic refugee resettlement program. We can, and must, continue to do both. During this challenging and tumultuous time, we urge the Committees on Appropriations to demonstrate support for America’s leadership in the world and our longstanding tradition of welcome by robustly funding these important humanitarian accounts during the FY 2018 appropriations process.”
[You see, they know they can get to Congress even if Trump has slightly reduced the numbers—ed]
RCUSA is requesting that at least 75,000 refugees be resettled in FY18, and believes that the Administration’s budget proposal that would support the resettlement of 50,000 is inadequate and an abdication of U.S. leadership.
RCUSA is advocating for a continuance of FY17 funding levels, and therefore recommends funding of $1.688 billion for the Department of Health and Human Services’ Refugee and Entrant Assistance (REA) account. The REA account, which funds the Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR), is a crucial component of fostering refugee integration and self-sufficiency. In addition to providing services to resettled refugees, ORR is tasked with implementing social services for unaccompanied minors, asylees, Cuban and Haitian entrants, Special Immigrant Visa holders, victims of human trafficking, and survivors of torture. The President’s budget proposes a 31% cut to refugee services that help refugees achieve long-term integration and economic success and assist communities and local partners in welcoming new Americans. RCUSA also recommends $3.604 billion in funding for the Department of State’s Migration and Refugee Assistance (MRA) account. The MRA account provides overseas assistance to displaced refugees, supports admissions to the U.S. of the most vulnerable refugees, and funds lifesaving services in humanitarian emergencies.
[….]
RCUSA also strongly opposes the president’s proposal to eliminate the Department of State’s Emergency Refugee and Migration Assistance (ERMA) account, which for example, in recent years has provided stabilizing assistance to countries of first asylum that have given safety to South Sudanese and Syrian refugees. RCUSA urges a continued funding level of $50 million for this account in FY 2018.
I’ve included that last paragraph above because this ERMA fund is nothing to fight about. It is no great shakes for Trump to have omitted funding for it. Yes, it saves US taxpayers some money, but readers in the past have confused it with money used to bring refugees to America. It is for assistance abroad and not for resettlement here, so don’t let Trump people tell you this is some sort of victory. The battle lines are shaping up and it is pretty clear that the refugee industry is going to the Republican Congress to stop the President from reducing numbers to 50,000, a number that we think is outrageously high for a President who campaigned on stopping the program, at least temporarily, all together.
Sadly, instead of a fight about abolishing or reforming the UN/US Refugee Admissions Program (and getting the fraud out of it!) it sure looks likes it is going to be a fight simply over numbers—50,000, 75,000, or somewhere in between. At this stage it appears that the Trump Administration hasn’t any fight left for this issue.
***Go here to see all members of the Refugee Council USA. All nine federal resettlement contractors are a part of this lobbying office. I suppose one could look at this 75,000 demand as a comedown for them. In August of 2016 they urged Obama to set the ceiling at 200,000, see here. But, again, they are always pushing, pushing and pushing.
For new readers, the nine federal refugee contractors you pay to bring refugees to your towns and cities:
As we have reported on several occasions already, they are worried of course about the implications for their futures with Trump in the White House. The UN/US Refugee Admissions Program is built on massive amounts of federal dollars going to nine major refugee contractors (to be precise they have grants and contracts with the US State Department and the Office of Refugee Resettlement in HHS) to place refugees in hundreds and hundreds of American towns and cities. Naomi Steinberg, RCUSA Director: Closing refugee resettlement would “feed into narratives spread by ISIS that the U.S. is anti-Muslim.” So, we are trying to make ISIS happy with us?
When I read articles like thisfrom Lansing, Michigan about how every one in the resettlement industry is worried that the US will be diminished in the eyes of the world, that ISIS will have a recruiting tool (ISIS would be angry because we are not letting in Muslims!), or that many refugees will not be able to bring their extended families to America, I look for any reference made to the issue of their funding.
Usually there isn’t any—no mention of the fact that Catholic Charities or whichever agency it is, would have to close offices and eliminate staff if their per head payment for refugees, and their grants from ORR stopped coming.
It would be hard for me to list all the reasons I continue writing and educating about the Refugee Admissions Program, but near the top of the list is the fact that there are millions of your tax dollars going to supposed ‘religious’ charities and they never mention it. They pretend, when speaking to reporters who don’t know better, that their work is completely charitable and driven purely by humanitarian zeal. It is a big lie! ‘Humanitarianism’ is a fabulous cover for all sorts of other goals like bringing in cheap immigrant labor for BIG MEAT, etc., or bringing in reliable Democrat voters, or stirring tension in communities by shoving diversity down the throats of Americans who don’t want it. Or, in some sort of sick leftist assuaging of guilt, showing Muslims how loving and open-minded we are by bringing them to your towns by the thousands and putting them on welfare! Stacie Blake, right, fielding questions from angry citizens in Rutland, VT in June where her agency, USCRI, had been quietly working with the mayor to bring 100 Syrians to the small city. https://refugeeresettlementwatch.org/2016/06/26/lack-of-transparency-got-citizens-steamed-in-rutland-vt-in-the-first-place/
Sorry, I’m getting off track, but remember all those things as I tell you that the resettlement industry has a lobbying consortium in Washington, DC—Refugee Council USA—and they want to meet with the Trump team. They have a transition document they would like to present to Trump.
By the way, in August we reported that RCUSA, never satisfied with the number we admit, wanted 200,000 refugees admitted in FY17.
“Yes, we look forward to speaking to the Trump transition team. … We don’t know exactly what the president-elect is planning on doing,” said Naomi Steinberg, director of Refugee Council USA, a coalition of refugee resettlement groups that has reached out to people close to Trump.
She said that while much of the Trump campaign’s rhetoric was “deeply troubling and deeply inaccurate,” the community still wants to work with him and explain the broader value of welcoming refugees. [If there is inaccuracy about the program the fault lies with the feds and the contractors because of the incredible secrecy that has surrounded the program for decades, and continues today!—ed]
Closing off the U.S. from refugee resettlements, she and others said, would break humanitarian commitments made by the West, feed into narratives spread by ISIS that the U.S. is anti-Muslim and poison relationships with key military allies. [Military allies like Turkey? So we have to take in tens of thousands of Middle Eastern Muslim refugees to please Turkey?—ed]
“The idea that America would no longer lead on this issue is unfathomable,” said Stacie Blake, a spokeswoman with the U.S. Committee for Refugees and Immigrants, an advocacy and resettlement organization in northern Virginia. “We’ve been fielding calls already from individuals very worried about whether their adult child, their sibling, (their) mother will be able to join them as planned.”
Read the whole article, here, especially if you live in Michigan.
See all of our previous posts on the Refugee Council USA by clicking here.
For new readers here are the nine federal resettlement contractors that like to call themselves VOLAGs (that is short for Voluntary Agencies, which they definitely are not!):
