Tag: Refugee resettlement contractors

How much of your tax dollars are the federal refugee resettlement contractors receiving?

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

I’ve been busy doing research for a couple of upcoming projects/events.  And, so here is some data I want to share with readers.  Be sure to check our ‘where to find information’ category from time to time for the latest facts and figures involving refugees and immigration generally.

Lavinia Limon (right) with Angelina Jolie. Limon was Bill Clinton’s director of the Office of Refugee Resettlement and now has the distinction of being the refugee contractor CEO (USCRI) with the largest percentage of federal cash flowing to her “non-profit”—99%!

These are the nine major contractors the US State Department and the Office of Refugee Resettlement (HHS) fund.  They call them Voluntary Agencies (VOLAGs) which is such a joke considering the large amount of federal funding that flows to each one!  There are approximately 350 subcontractors in 180 cities working under the nine biggies.

(An attempt was made to choose a recent year for which all of the nine had submitted financial documents. Although some VOLAGs have slightly different reporting periods and reporting methods, for our purposes the 2012 ‘year’ is adequate. Also, keep in mind that some of the agencies reported their IOM travel loan income, some did not. The IOM is the International Organization for Migration, another huge federal contractor that makes the arrangements for the refugees to prepare to leave for America and it purchases their airline tickets. Refugees must reimburse that taxpayer-funded travel loan, but the VOLAG that collects the loan, pockets a percentage of it—justified as a collection fee.)

We did not include the two new contractors primarily responsible for the ‘unaccompanied minors.’

Church World Service
(From 2012 Form 990)

Total revenue: $76,185,774
Govt. grants and contracts: $45,431,781
Percent taxpayer funded: 60%
Top salary: $286,000 (Top salaries throughout include benefits and income from related activities)

Ethiopian Community Development Council (secular)
(From 2012 Form 990)

Total revenue: $15,244,802
Govt. grants: $14,609,687
Percent taxpayer funded: 96%
Top salary: $233,228

Episcopal Migration Ministries

This gets tricky. Apparently EMM (or now known as Domestic and Foreign Missionary Society of the Protestant Episcopal Church of America), does not produce a Form 990 (no response from them to a recent inquiry was received) nor do they publish their federal income in their annual report.

The only accounting we could find is an independent auditor’s report that reveals they received $17,365,325 from the federal government for their refugee program in 2012.

Further examination by a qualified accountant would be needed to find out how they spent the $17 million.

Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society
(From 2012 Form 990 for HIAS, Inc. Can’t be found at Guidestar under its full name only as HIAS,Inc, just one of those things that makes tracking these VOLAGs very difficult.  LOL! we have learned that they have dropped the “Hebrew” from their name.)

Total revenue: $25,418,714
Govt. grants and contracts (including travel loan income): $15,426,116
Percent taxpayer funded: 61%
Top salary: $323,162

International Rescue Committee (secular)
(From 2012 Form 990)

Total revenue: $456,122,865
Govt. grants and contracts (including travel loan income): $332,271,151
Percent taxpayer funded: 73%
Top salary: $485,321

US Committee for Refugees and Immigrants (secular)
(From 2012 Form 990)

Total revenue: $39,205,548
Govt. grants and contracts: $38,817,939
Percent taxpayer funded: 99%
Top salary: $289,192

Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service
(From 2012 Form 990)

Total revenue: $43,563,804
Govt. grants and contracts: $42,047,935
Percent taxpayer funded: 97%
Top salary: $214,237

World Relief (National Association of Evangelicals)
(From 2012 Form 990)

Total revenue: $56,842,649
Govt. grants and contracts: $38,837,294
Percent taxpayer funded: 68%
Top salary: $211,651 (again the ‘salaries’ include other related compensation)

US Conference of Catholic Bishops

Last, but by far not least, is the US Catholic Bishops whose finances now require further explanation. The USCCB, by the way, resettles the largest number of refugees in the US with the help of Catholic Charities located throughout America. They make no effort to single out Christians for resettlement and in fact, in 2013 they were requesting that the US State Department bring more Rohingya Muslims from Burma (Myanmar) to America.

Up until recently we could access their annual reports to determine their direct income from the federal taxpayer (for their migration program), however, it appears that since RRW and others began publishing the information, we are no longer able to access those reports.

To our knowledge, no Form 990 is filed. Churches are not required to file 990s, so perhaps the Bishops consider themselves a church.
Also, since federal funds go directly to myriad Catholic Charities around the country especially to states such as Tennessee where Catholic Charities and the federal government have complete control of who comes and where they are placed with virtually no state input (called the Wilson-Fish program), it would require very knowledgeable forensic accountants to follow the money.

Here is the information we previously obtained from the USCCB’s 2012 Annual Report (it is a good thing we captured it at the time!).

Total revenue: $70,975,237
Govt. grants and contracts (includes over $3 million in travel loan income): $69,534,230
Percent taxpayer funded: 98%
We have no idea what salaries are paid in the USCCB Washington office.

A billion dollars a year!

That is how much we are spending (that we know of!) for refugee resettlement, here.  That figure does not include subsidized housing, most healthcare, food stamps, other cash assistance, educating the kids or the costs to the criminal justice system!

Pennsylvania: Burmese refugee shoots wife, faces death penalty

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Well what do you know—another refugee criminal case (requiring a translator of course!).***

Never forget! Diversity brings strength to your “welcoming” community, or so we are told!  See our previous post on Burmese living in poverty in America, kids dropping out of school.

Burmese refugee accused of murdering his wife in Bethlehem, PA (Express-Times Photo | BILL ADAMS)

From Lehigh Valley Live  (hat tip: ‘pungentpeppers’ crime finder!):

Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty against a Bethlehem man accused of shooting his wife in the street in front of their children the day a protection-from-abuse order was approved against him.

Win Min Htut is charged with homicide, burglary and criminal trespass in the Dec. 17 killing of 37-year-old Thida Myint.

Prosecutors say they’re seeking the death penalty for three aggravating circumstances: During the killing, Myint committed felony burglary, presented a grave risk to others, his children, and violated the protection order.

Htut remains in Lehigh County Prison without bail. He was scheduled to be arraigned today before Judge Robert Steinberg, but the Burmese interpreter Htut requires was unable to attend due to the weather.

There is more, see how the prosecutors believe the murder went down.

Pennsylvania in top five resettlement states

I’ve been thinking about Pennsylvania ‘finding itself’ in the top five resettlement states in the US.  It occurred to me after we noted that former Governor Tom Ridge signed the Republican ‘bring more refugees to America’ letter with Grover Norquist, that perhaps it was during Ridge’s term as governor that Pennsylvania became an enthusiastic resettlement ‘leader.’

There is a snowball effect, once your state or city becomes a preferred resettlement site, more refugees (often the relatives) of the first group are brought there by the contractors or their subcontractors (they are paid by the head to bring in the family members) and there is also some ‘rule’ the US State Department has about a hundred mile radius in which they place related people.  There is also the secondary migrant effect when refugees resettled elsewhere migrate within the US to be near their people.   Wyomingites!  Do you get that?

***Just for fun I went to our ‘crimes’ category with its 1,396 posts to see how many criminal court cases we wrote about just since the beginning of the year (specifically involving refugees).  Too lazy to link them (you can find them in the crimes category by clicking here).

We had the Colorado Iraqi rapists, the Utah Burmese rape/murder trial, the Iowa Bosnian sex abuse case, the Illinois Sudanese murder retrial, Washington Somali rapist, New York Afghan welfare cheats, Florida Sri Lankan illegal alien trafficking case, California Somalis sentencing in terror funding case, Minnesota Somali woman sentencing delayed (terror funding), and the Nevada Chinese refugee ripping off the casinos!  All within the last seven weeks!

Catholic Patriarch: Don’t move all Christians out of Syria to the West!

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment
Melkite Catholic Patriarch Gregory III Laham
http://clericalwhispers.blogspot.com/2013/09/melkite-leader-says-attacks-on-syria.html

Expressed misgivings about refugee resettlement of Christians from throughout the Middle East to the West.

From Catholic Culture:

Syria’s leading Catholic prelate has voiced misgivings about refugee programs that are helping Christian families from Syria resettle in the West, saying that it is better if they remain in the Middle East.

Melkite Catholic Patriarch Gregory III Laham, who doubles as president of the Syrian bishops’ conference, said that the flight of Syrian refugees threatens to aggravate the overall exodus of Christians from the Middle East. “The danger is that if they leave the Middle East, they will never go back,” he said.

The Melkite Patriarch said that he could readily sympathize with the Christians who choose to leave the region. “Of course, we cannot decide for ourselves what response our people should make,” he acknowledged, adding that “the suffering is great.”

However, Patriarch Gregory suggested that aid programs should concentrate on helping people to remain near their homes. “It is better to help the people within the country or the region, and not invite them to go outside,” he said. “There is more that can be done locally,” he said.

Agreed!  But, unfortunately then the US refugee resettlement contractors who are being paid by the head and doing the UN’s business will be happy to bring more Muslims to America and that includes among them the US Conference of Catholic Bishops!

Addendum: Check out this useful world map of countries where Christians are being persecuted.

Congress throws more money at Refugee Resettlement program

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Your tax dollars!

Sure enough, the whining has paid off for the resettlement contractors, Congress is going to send more of your money their way! The excuse this time is that the poor contractors now have 26,000 illegal alien kids to care for—the unaccompanied minors we have been hearing about.

Make no mistake, this is not money going to the “refugees” this is money to keep the small and large contractor fiefdoms going—for staff, for offices, for travel, for lobbying even! There is one bright spot in this article—a Duke University professor, who works with refugees, is calling these numbers into question!

From the Duke Chronicle.  Hat tip: Joanne:

Duke professor Suzanne Shanahan: “…the math is extremely wrong.”

Despite budget increases, experts fear for the future of refugee services.

Congress has largely increased funding for the Office of Refugee Resettlement to $1.489 billion from last year’s $1.12 billion, said Jen Smyers, associate director for immigration and refugee policy at Church World Service—a group that works with refugees in Durham and across the country. ORR estimated it would need $1.6 billion to serve all the populations in its care this year—a half billion increase from last year’s budget—and is looking for ways to meet the more than $100 million shortfall, Smyers added.

“We never thought [the funding] was going to get cut from last year’s level,” Smyers said. “Our fear was that they would not get anywhere near [ORR’s] needs. Due to some really great advocacy and last minute phone calls, we were able to get the number to $1.489 billion, which is a substantial increase, but there still is a gap between that number and the number ORR projected.”

Projected costs for this fiscal year increased by nearly half a billion dollars to cover an estimated 26,000 unaccompanied alien children coming to the United States from Mexico and Central America this year, Smyers said. This is an increase of approximately 10,000 unaccompanied children from the number of children in the 2012 fiscal year.

Suzanne Shanahan speaks up!

Suzanne Shanahan, associate director of ethics at the Kenan Institute and associate research professor in sociology, was critical of the calculations used to reach the increase in ORR’s budget requirements. She said that taking care of 10,000 extra children should not require a 30 percent increase in funds.

“The U.S. resettles 60,000 refugees a year, and the 60,000 refugees cost $1.12 billion [last year],” Shanahan said. “To say that a half billion dollars is what it takes to increase that by 10,000, the math is extremely wrong.”

With regard to the $100 million shortfall, Shanahan said this is only between a 6 and 7 percent total shortfall, which is not “extraordinary.”

“Even if refugees had to bear the entire cost of this, it’s not clear that [the burden] would be that dramatic,” Shanahan said.

It is unclear how the shortfall will affect refugees. Smyers said Congress appropriates an agency to their funds, and the agency decides how those funds are used. Currently, the ORR provides refugees with eight months of assistance. If, however, the shortfall cannot be remedied, the ORR may reduce the duration of assistance they are able to provide. ORR will likely prioritize unaccompanied children over longer-term refugee assistance.

The article goes on to discuss how surprising it is that refugee allocations should be increased in light of the fact that refugees have little clout in Congress.  Refugees may not, but you can be absolutely sure the contractors, including the US Conference of Catholic Bishops, have a huge amount of clout on The Hill!  Not to mention the hard Left open-borders lobby (which overlaps with the contractors).

By the way, the USCCB and Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Services have federal contracts to take care of the illegal alien kids (dreamers or schemers?).

See my previous post—if we can’t afford them why bring so many refugees?

Eeeek! Crisis for CRIS! Refugee contractor(s) out of money AGAIN

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

How many times have we heard this over the years!  It is the same old story.  The federal contractors and their subcontractors (hundreds of them) are begging for more taxpayer dollars for refugees (and themselves!).  When the Refugee Act of 1980 was signed into law by Jimmy Carter, the VOLAGs (He! he! voluntary agencies) were supposed to form public-private partnerships with government, but increasingly over the years, the contractors raise little money themselves and depend on the federal government for larger and larger shares.  Some contractors are now more than 90% funded by tax dollars.

AND, as much as they tell you the refugees are working and becoming self-sufficient within a few months it’s a lie (sorry to be so blunt!).   That is why they are now lobbying like heck to get more federal funding as this Ohio subcontractor of Episcopal Migration Ministries is doing (they were previously affiliated with another contractor, Church World Service).  Hat tip: Joanne

Angela Plummer Executive Director of CRIS (right) met with Somali President Mohamud when he spoke in Columbus in September of last year.
http://criscommunity.wordpress.com/2013/10/11/a-presidential-visit/

See action alert below directly from the website of Community Refugee and Immigration Services (CRIS).  They even supply a script for their followers to use when calling Congress.   Interesting we just reported on advocacy (aka lobbying) in our previous post.   For legal sticklers out there, we know they can legally do this, but it’s morally wrong in my view for religious organizations, like the Episcopalians, to run to Congress for payola. 

Are they doing this from the pulpit too?  Do they have a Washington DC lobbyist like the Lutherans, Evangelicals and Catholics do to tell them it’s time to gin up the grassroots?  Of course they do!

Here is CRIS’s action alert:

Calls Urgently Needed for Refugees and Unaccompanied Children

BACKGROUND: The U.S. Refugee Admissions Program provides persecuted refugees with safe haven and a chance at a new life. Additionally, the United States must care for a growing number of children fleeing violence in Central America who arrive within our borders alone. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS)’ Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) urgently needs additional funding for FY 2014 to serve all of the vulnerable migrants under its care – refugees, asylees, victims of human trafficking and torture, Cuban-Haitian entrants, Iraqi and Afghan Special Immigrant Visa holders, and unaccompanied alien children (UAC). If ORR is not able to secure more funds, the road to self-sufficiency and integration could be hampered for thousands of refugees and other populations assisted by ORR. In addition, the ORR funding that states, counties, and cities rely on would also be at risk.

Take a moment to call your TWO Senators and your Representative by dialing (202) 224-3121 to encourage them to support. Calls are especially needed to members of the appropriations committees, which can be found here http://appropriations.house.gov/about/members/ and here http://www.appropriations.senate.gov/about-members.cfm

Here is a sample script you can use to tailor your personal message, describing your own work or relationships with refugees, unaccompanied children and other vulnerable migrants:

Hi, my name is [NAME], from [CITY, STATE]. May I please
speak with the staff person who handles appropriations issues?
I am calling to urge the [SENATOR OR REPRESENTATIVE]
to support increased funding in the Labor-HHS appropriations
bill, specifically for the Department of Health and Human
Services’ Office of Refugee Resettlement. Without Congressional
intervention to increase this funding, America’s ability to
provide persecuted refugees and vulnerable unaccompanied
children with safe haven and a chance at a new life would be
compromised. Funding for this program is an investment in the
safety and self-sufficiency of people we welcome to American
communities. Please ensure that Congress appropriates
sufficient funding for HHS’s Office of Refugee Resettlement for
FY 2014.

If you think they don’t need more money, why not have some fun, use their script and tell Senators and Members of Congress to not increase their funding—they should be raising private money for any shortfalls they have (it’s mostly for their offices and salaries anyway!).

CRIS is in Columbus, Ohio.  I wonder how many Somalis they resettled in probably the second largest Little Mogadishu behind Minneapolis?