Thanks to all who sent this information from Paul Bedard at the Washington Examiner:
America loves kids, but Uncle Sam has a favorite: children of refugees.
Among recipients of food stamps, welfare cash and Social Security payments, refugee children receive more in taxpayer-funded aid than children of citizens, according to a new report on federal spending from the pro-immigration Migration Policy Institute***.
Click herefor more and to follow link to the report. We know that refugees generally get more welfare than American citizens. See stats in the most recent ORR Annual Report to Congress,here.
*** For regular readers, you may remember that it was the Migration Policy Institute which co-hosted a forum we attended last fall. I am so interested to see that they would actually publicize information that is critical of the US refugee industry. When Congress debated the bill that became the Refugee Act of 1980, members were told this was not a program to import poverty. Oopsy!
Over and over again we hear from political leaders and grassroots organizers looking to bring refugees into new (unsuspecting) communities that this is a federal program funded by the feds. (LOL! as if Washington has an orchard of money trees!)
However, this short model letter-to-the-editor in Tennessee quickly dispels the notion that the resettlement of refugees in your town will cost you nothing. Don Barnett, a resident of Tennessee, is a longtime expert on the US Refugee Admissions Program, and is a fellow at the Center for Immigration Studies.
The letter, by Don Barnett of Nashville, is in response to the debate on-going in the State Legislature which we reported recently, here. Tennessee is a Wilson-Fish state (a state where a federal contractor, Catholic Charities of TN, is making decisions for the state taxpayers with no accountability to those elected to protect the state’s purse).
Barnett inThe Tennessean (emphasis is mine):
The reporting on Senate Joint Resolution 467 is proof that, at the very least, something must be done to bring the refugee resettlement program out of the shadows.
So misunderstood and secretive is the program that contractors who profit from it are able to make blatantly false statements and be assured they will be reported as fact.
According to Tennessee’s state refugee coordinator, who is an employee of the main federal resettlement contractor, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, the program does not cost state taxpayers a dime.
But the contractors refuse to publicize the number of refugees they place into TennCare, a program paid for by state taxpayers as well as federal taxpayers. The last time they released this data, 2011, nearly 60 percent of refugees went into TennCare upon arrival.
The 2011 report of TennCare usage is consistent with national trends. According to the latest data available — a federal study of refugees who had been in the country five years or less as of 2013*** — 47 percent of refugees were dependent on cash assistance, 74 percent were in the food stamp program, and 56 percent were in Medicaid (TennCare) or short-term federal refugee medical assistance. Twenty-three percent were in public housing or receiving public housing assistance.
There is considerable evidence pointing to long-term dependence. The federal cash welfare program SSI is a good indicator of long-term welfare dependency rates. It is generally a lifetime entitlement and usually automatically includes Medicaid and other social services. The federal study of arrivals over the previous five years found that 21 percent of refugee families had one or more members receiving SSI.
For refugees from the Middle East, 91 percent of this population was on food stamps and 32 percent of families from this group had one or more members on SSI.
Is there really no cost to the state? And what about those costs to the federal government?
This is a letter you should use as a model where you live. Not mentioned by Barnett are the costs to local and state taxpayers to educate the children and the costs to the criminal justice system (for even minor legal infractions involving court interpreters).
***The report referenced here is the Office of Refugee Resettlement Annual Report to Congress for 2013. You can find all of the very useful reports (as of today) through 2013, here. But once again, the ORR is breaking the law! As of January 31, 2016 they are TWO years behind in sending reports to Congress.
Where are the reports?
In December, Senator Jeff Sessions and Rep. Marsha Blackburn sent a letter to ORR wanting them to deliver the 2014 report, see here. And, since reports to Congress are legally required to be delivered 3 months after the close of the fiscal year, ORR should now be providing the report for 2015 as well. Are they hiding something at ORR or is it just sheer incompetence and mismanagement? It certainly looks like a (excuse the expression) middle finger to Congress.
Update: Be sure to learn more about what you should do about this during Election 2016 at American Resistance 2016!
The so-called ‘religious’ charities*** that resettle refugees in America and those in the UN/US State Department administering the refugee admissions program that is bringing tens of thousands of Muslim (and other) refugees to your towns want you to think this is all about ‘humanitarianism.’ It is not!
The do-gooders bringing refugees to America are shills for big business whether they know it or not!
It is about globalization and multi-national corporations’ need for cheap migrant laborers!
Did you read our post about BIG MEAT and Amarillo, TX just this week? It went viral and has brought thousands upon thousands of readers to RRW! The business model is that companies, often times companies in the food industry, encourage (lobby for!) more refugees to be admitted to the US (or for amnesty for illegal aliens).
They get the slave laborers, your town gets the social/cultural tension, and taxpayers at all levels of government supplement the meager wages with WELFARE!
Twin Falls plant. As a driver of refugee resettlement, Chobani Yogurt is changing Idaho by changing the people.
Dems get reliable Leftwing voters!
(See also our post on foreign operatives changing America with refugee labor, here.) Rich people going to Davos to make plans for your town!
This is what got me started this morning. The Financial Times tells us that the founder of Chobani Yogurt will be making a pitch at Davos this week at the World Economic Forum for more companies to adopt that ‘business model’ and hire (read IMPORT) more refugees to small and medium-sized American cities! Financial Times:
Last year Hamdi Ulukaya, a Kurdish entrepreneur who created the billion-dollar US-based Chobani yoghurt empire, travelled to Greece to see the swelling refugee crisis with his own eyes. Unsurprisingly, he was horrified by the human suffering that he witnessed, particularly as he shares a cultural affinity with many of the refugees — he grew up near the Syrian border in Turkey, before moving to the US as a student.
But Ulukaya was also appalled by something else: the hopelessly bureaucratic and old-fashioned nature of the organisations running the aid efforts. “The refugee issue is being dealt with using [methods from] the 1940s and it’s in the hands of the UN and mostly government and you don’t see a lot of private sector and entrepreneurs involved,” he told me last week. “I decided we have got to hack this — we have got to bring another perspective into this issue, there are technologies that can be used.”
So Ulukaya decided to act. Last year he established a foundation, Tent, to channel financial aid and innovation efforts into refugee work.
[….]
And he has stepped up efforts to hire as many refugees as he can at his yoghurt plants, where they currently account for 30 per cent of the total workforce, or 600 people. “There are 11 or 12 languages spoken in our factories,” says Ulukaya. “We have translators 24 hours a day.”
[….]
At next week’s World Economic Forum (WEF) meeting in Davos, he will call on other CEOs to join a campaign to channel corporate money, lobbying initiatives, services and jobs to refugees. Five companies have already signed up: Ikea, MasterCard, Airbnb, LinkedIn and UPS — and Ulukaya says more are poised to join.
Continue reading! Reporter Gillian Tett quotes me, and mentions protests in Idaho and New York where Chobani is bringing in the refugee laborers.
See our complete archive on Twin Falls, Idaho and the ‘pocket of resistance’ that has formed there.
P.S. When I first learned about what Chobani Yogurt was doing to rural America (here), I never again bought any Chobani Yogurt! I go down that dairy aisle and give them a mental finger (sorry to our more proper and polite readers).
***Nine major federal contractors which like to call themselves VOLAGs (Voluntary agencies) which is such a joke considering how much federal money they receive:
Update:I have just been told that the per capita has been increased to $1975 (presumably the Volag/resettlement agency share went up with it).
I just came across this handy breakdown of which social services refugees can access immediately upon arrival in the US. Note that it does not show food stamps or subsidized housing (both available to refugees for years), or the cost of educating the children.
At the top you will see that each refugee gets $1850 [now $1975–ed] as a one time payment from the US Dept. of State (a family of 6 would receive $11,100). However, the contracting (non-profit) agency keeps about $750 of each refugee’s allotment for its own overhead.
But, that is not all the contractor receives, most get tens of thousands of federal dollars to run myriad other programs through their offices including English language lessons, employment counseling, and even are granted federal dollars to develop community gardens for their refugee clients.
See also: Jeff Sessions: 90% of Middle Eastern refugees on welfare, here. All non-profit groups are required to file Form 990’s with the IRS and must make them available to anyone who asks. You should not be told that you must do a Freedom of Information Act request to get their financials!
The diagram can be seen more clearly here in enlarged form: http://www.usccb.org/about/resettlement-services/upload/Refugee-Assistance-2.pdf
Yesterday we told you about the Center for Immigration Studies analysis of data indicating that legal immigrants (which include refugees) are using our social safety net at a higher rate than native born Americans, now we learn that Middle Eastern refugees are using welfare assistance at an even higher level than other legal immigrants. Senator Jeff Sessions with 2016 Presidential hopeful Donald Trump at August 21st rally in Alabama. http://www.breitbart.com/2016-presidential-race/2015/08/21/live-updates-donald-trump-holds-massive-campaign-rally-in-alabama/
From Breitbart(presumably these numbers include all Middle Eastern refugees no matter which religion they practice) Hat tip: Joanne.
The numbers are much more shocking than those we had previously obtained!
More than 90 percent of recent refugees from Middle Eastern nations are on food stamps and nearly 70 percent receive cash assistance, according to government data.
According to Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) data highlighted by the immigration subcommittee staff of Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL) chairman of the Subcommittee on Immigration and the National Interest — in FY 2013, 91.4 percent of Middle Eastern refugees (accepted to the U.S. between 2008-2013) received food stamps, 73.1 percent were on Medicaid or Refugee Medical Assistance and 68.3 percent were on cash welfare.
Middle Eastern refugees used a number of other assistance programs at slightly lower rates. For example, 36.7 percent received Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), 32.1 percent received Supplemental Security Income (SSI), 19.7 percent lived in public housing, 17.3 percent were on General Assistance (GA), and 10.9 percent received Refugee Cash Assistance (RCA).
The high welfare rates among Middle Eastern refugees comes as the Obama administration considers increasing the number of refugees — who are immediately eligible for public benefits — to the U.S., particularly Syrian refugees.
ORR defines refugees and asylees from the “Middle East” as being from Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Turkey, and Yemen. [Hah! And these figures don’t include the Somali welfare usage numbers!—ed]
More here….
Shortly after a meeting with Sessions on Capitol Hill, saying we need to take care of our own problems, Trump expressed reservations about plans to resettle Syrian refugees in the US. Addendum: Senator Jeff Sessions was the leader of the opposition to the Gang of Eight’s amnesty bill and here in 2013called out “meatpackers” as among the big industry lobbyists pushing for a greater supply of cheap immigrant labor. Long time readers here know the large role the meatpackers are playing in changing small town America by encouraging the resettlement of refugees.
Thanks to all who sent this information from Paul Bedard at the Washington Examiner:
