Tag: S.744

Blog cites RRW on Bishops taking money from Caesar, gets a good discussion going

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

You might want to check out Juicy Ecumenism a blog at The Institute on Religion and Democracy on the issue of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops receiving millions of tax dollars every year to resettle refugees.  I wasn’t familiar with it, but blogger Marjorie Jeffrey cites RRW and pulls in other information about the USCCB pushing the Gang of Eight bill (S.744) through Congress.  A lively discussion follows in the comment section.

You might want to join the discussion!

Our extensive archive on the USCCB and its entanglement with the US government and dependence on taxpayer dollars is here.

IBD: La Raza and other non-profits will benefit from S.744 “slush fund”

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Your tax dollars!

That is exactly what we have been saying for months—S.744, the Gang of Eight plus Grover bill provides massive new funding for non-profits including the nine major refugee contractors.

This excellent summary by M. Stanton Evans for Investors Business Daily, even suggests that the slush funds might be the major reason behind the whole monstrosity.  Thanks to Creeping Sharia again for alerting us to an important news item.

[Note to readers:  The link is giving me fits this morning, so what I have snipped below is all I could get before getting error messages]

The title, La Raza In Line To Pocket Reform-Bill Slush Funds, focuses the piece around The National Council of La Raza, but what La Raza presently gets from you, the taxpayer, is chump change ($10 million annually) compared to the tens of millions NGOs like the US Conference of Catholic Bishops, Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society and Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Services receive now for their immigrant services.  If S. 744 (or anything like it) becomes law, they will be rolling in your money.

LOL!  Yesterday I saw a Catholic official quoted as saying the Catholic Church is “enriched” by immigrants!  Can’t find the link right now, but I did laugh at the choice of the word “enrich.”

Here is some of the IBD piece by Mr. Evans, but check out the whole thing.

The avowed purpose of the immigration bill passed by the Senate and pending in the House is to provide a “path to citizenship” for the illegal immigrants in exchange for tough new enforcement measures that would prevent other such incursions in the future.

But buried deep within the immigration bill are hidden multimillion-dollar slush funds for left-wing nonprofit groups to provide services to the estimated 11 million illegal immigrants now in the U.S. Once enacted, the slush funds would total almost $300 million over three years and grow over time.

Reviewing the massive legislation, it’s obvious that lawyering would be needed. The 1,100-page proposal is a network of legal requirements and protections, waivers and exceptions, including a new “provisional immigrant” status (the first phase of legalization for illegals), appeals of adverse rulings, stays of deportation, applications for work visas, and countless other such guarantees.

Within this thicket of new rights are features that would vastly increase the flow of immigrants to perhaps 30 million or 40 million over the next decade. One is a set of “chain immigration” clauses, legalizing the spouses and children of illegals.

Recipients of the pork (Obama’s redistribution of your wealth) are not named in the bill.

The bill provides a sizable slush fund for leftward groups in the immigrant serving, advocacy and lobbying business. As Sen. John Cornyn, R-Tex., puts it, the bill is “chock-full of de facto earmarks, pork barrel spending, and special interest sweeteners.”

Though the nonprofit agencies getting the money aren’t named in the bill, their identities can be deduced from the history and politics of the issue.

We can name some, besides La Raza, the advocacy groups getting more of your money will be Casa de Maryland, Tennessee Immigrant and Refugee Rights Assoc., Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights, Mass Immigrant and Refugee Advocacy Coalition, others for your states!

Then here are the nine major refugee contractors (plus they have 300 or so subcontractors making it very difficult to follow your money):

Evans continued discussing the various slush funds and then says this:

One section creates a “New Immigrant Council,” including representatives of nonprofits “with legal and advocacy experience working with immigrant communities,” to “introduce and integrate” new immigrants “into the state.” The bill authorizes an additional $100 million — $20 million a year for five years — to finance these efforts. Thus a second slush fund is created.

A third grant program appears in a later section, funding an outreach “campaign” to inform immigrants and the public about employee “rights, responsibilities and remedies” in the legislation. This recruitment project too would be contracted to nonprofits, at a cost of $120 million — $40 million a year over a three-year span.

While the Senate bill is advertised as a “tough, conservative” measure, the largely unnoticed sanctuary funding and La Raza clauses may be the real point of the legislation.

Our entire archive on S.744 and the refugee contractors can be found by clicking here.

Call your Congressman to stop the train wreck!

Obama/Dems pin hope on Rep. Paul Ryan for their amnesty goals

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

That’s what an AP story published in the Boston Globe tells us.  And, a good part of the reason Ryan is pushing the “comprehensive reform” bill that includes a “slush fund” for the US Conference of Catholic Bishops is because the Bishops depend on taxpayer slush to survive.  And they are counting on Ryan to provide their slush.   Of, course the AP doesn’t tell us that, but I am.

Ryan and dumbbell. Photo: Gregg Segal for Time

Here is what AP says (emphasis mine):

WASHINGTON (AP) — Democrats doggedly pursuing a far-reaching immigration bill are counting on help from Republican Rep. Paul Ryan, Mitt Romney’s running mate last year and an unlikely candidate for delivering the centerpiece of President Barack Obama’s second-term agenda.

Ryan, the House Budget Committee chairman who is frequently mentioned in the GOP lineup of possible 2016 presidential candidates, stands apart from many fellow House Republicans in favoring a way out of the shadows for the 11 million immigrants living in the U.S. in violation of the law.  [Note to Ryan, no hope for 2016 if you continue down this path—ed]

He casts sweeping overhaul as a necessity to ensure both economic and national security — a fitting argument for an acolyte of Jack Kemp, the late Republican congressman and 1996 vice presidential candidate who backed an ill-fated effort in 2006 to overhaul the immigration system.

‘‘Paul Ryan says we cannot have a permanent underclass of Americans, that there needs to be a pathway to citizenship,’’ says Rep. Luis Gutierrez, D-Ill., who has been working relentlessly on immigration legislation. ‘‘He is my guiding light. I know I get him in trouble every time I say it.’’  [LOL! Gutierrez is killing Ryan.  First get him to support amnesty, then pin it on him so that he can’t win the Republican primary, slick, huh?  They killed Rubio too!—ed]

Senior White House aides often mention the Wisconsin Republican as crucial to the prospects for legislation this year, hoping the Republican with impeccable conservative credentials will sway recalcitrant House members. Ryan also is a reminder of two other powerful forces backing an overhaul of immigration laws — the Catholic Church and business.

Ryan is a practicing Catholic who made a point of attending Mass every Sunday during the jam-packed 2012 campaign; the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops strongly favors the first major changes to immigration in 27 years.

There it is in print—the US Conference of Catholic Bishops, lobbying for amnesty too.

We told you about the Lutheran Immigration service and the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society this week.

What makes me steam over this is that there is never a next paragraph that explains that the USCCB is the largest of the federal refugee contractors.  They receive the majority of their funding (their DC lobbying office is even paid for by the US State Department) from you—the taxpayer—to bring refugees and asylees to your cities and towns, get them hooked up with services (food stamps, health care, education), find them subsidized housing and maybe a job (although the unemployment rate for refugees is through the roof and lack of work is blamed for high suicide rates in Bhutanese refugees).

The racket!

If S.744 becomes law the USCCB will receive even more of your money to help the newly legalized aliens get their services too!  The Gang’s bill also expands the refugee program making it easier for more refugees and asylum seekers to enter the US.   So, why can’t AP and others in the mainstream media ever point this out—-it’s about MONEY (and future “progressive” voters), but mostly it’s about money?

So, how much is the USCCB getting in federal refugee and migration funding—-just about their entire budget!

Go to page 20 of their 2011 annual report (didn’t see a more recent one).   Archbishop Jose’ Gomez (bring in the Syrians!) heads up the USCCB MIGRATION services.

Their revenue for the year was $72,102,484

Of that, $66,723,452 came directly from federal grants and contracts

Additionally, $3,751,295 came from travel loans.

Do you know what the travel loans are?   Another government agency (your money) pays for refugees to fly to the US. Then the USCCB (and the other contractors) dun those refugees for the air fare money, and for their services (as a collection agency) they get to keep a portion of the money they wring out of refugees.  That is your money too!

Add the travel loan money to the federal grants and you have 98% of the US Bishops MIGRATION services are paid for by the US taxpayer!

So how about a little honesty from Rep. Paul Ryan, Senator Marco Rubio and the mainstream media!  This is not about humanitarianism, it’s about Caesar’s money!

Senator Jeff Sessions, the man of the hour as Senate votes 68-32 for amnesty

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

All of the Democrats agreed with the special interests looking for cheap labor and 14 Republicans joined them.  Why? They were bought, plain and simple.  See vote on final passage here.

Thirty two Republicans realized that legalizing 11 million aliens spells the end for America as we know it—not to mention the end of the Republican Party (if you care!).

The 14 Republicans who should now be targeted for removal from office when they run again are:  Alexander (TN), Ayotte (NH), Chiesa (NJ), Collins (ME), Corker (TN), Flake (AZ), Graham (SC), Hatch (UT), Heller (NV), Hoeven (ND), Kirk (IL), McCain (AZ), Murkowski (AK), and of course Rubio (FL).   And, from now on give them hell when they are home in their states!  (See RedState on the stories they told, here)

***Update! *** See Gateway Pundit for ‘Dump the Amnesty 14 in 2014’, here.

Senator Jeff Sessions names names!

Be sure to watch Sessions floor speech by clicking here, in which the great defender of the rule of law and our American history and culture describes who the “masters of the universe”  and the “powerful special interests” are behind this monstrosity.  S.744 is not a bill to be kind to immigrants, it’s a bill to benefit powerful forces mostly seeking cheap and readily available labor, or political advancement for their corporatist government agenda.  LaRaza is in it for the Leftwing voters.

Sessions names the following as those special interests meeting behind closed doors and pulling the strings of the Gang of Eight:

Richard Trumpka, AFL-CIO

Tom Donohue, Chamber of Commerce

Agribusiness

LaRaza

Hi-tech Billionaires

Immigration Lawyers Association, and get this!

MEAT PACKERS!

He named meat packers!  (at just about 3 minutes).  Further confirmation of my theory!  For regular readers of RRW you will understand the significance of this.  We have  maintained all along that some in the US State Department and others in the refugee industry are really out scouting for captive refugee labor to supply the meat packing industry (and other industries) all the while justifying what they do with pontification about their humanitarian mission.

Here is Sessions press statement today—-This bill should never become law:

WASHINGTON—U.S. Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL), a senior member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, issued the following statement after the Senate passage of the immigration bill:

“Sponsors of this legislation—despite the array of financial, establishment and special interest support—failed to hit their target of 70 votes. The more people learned about the bill the more uneasy they became. Failure to reach 70 votes is significant, and ensures the House has plenty of space to chart an opposite course and reject this fatally flawed proposal.

So while the bill passed the Senate, this is just the beginning.

The legislation adopted today guarantees three things: immediate amnesty before security, permanent future illegal immigration, and a record surge in legal immigration that will reduce wages and increase unemployment.

There will be no border fence, no border surge, nothing but the same tired illusory promises of future enforcement that will never occur. Americans have begged and pleaded time and again for Congress to end the lawlessness. But this amnesty-first bill is a surrender to lawlessness. As ICE and USCIS officers have warned, it will decimate immigration enforcement and erode the constitutional rule of law upon which our national greatness depends. And it remains unfair to the legal immigrants who put enormous time and expense into following the rules our nation has established.

This legislation demonstrates that the governing body in Washington has become severed from the people it is supposed to represent. It is a broken promise 1,200 pages long.

The Senate’s loyalty must be to the American people—immigrant and native-born alike—who work hard, pay their taxes, fight our wars, and obey our laws. 21 million Americans cannot find full-time work. Medium household income is almost ten percent lower today than it was in 1999. But this proposal would double the number of guest workers for businesses and provide permanent legal status to more than 30 million mostly-lower skill legal immigrants in the next ten years. This huge increase in the legal immigration flow will reduce wages and raise unemployment, and displace those who have suffered the most economically. As wise observers have said, we are a nation with an economy—not an economy with a nation.

We can create a lawful immigration system that makes us proud. But for that to happen, this bill must never become law. We must return to the drawing board and produce legislation that serves the just and legitimate interests of the nation, its people, and all who wish to call America home.”

Let’s draft Jeff Sessions for President!

NumbersUSA: Senate phone lines jammed with anti-amnesty calls

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Editors note:  This is cross-posted from Potomac Tea Party Report.  Remember S.744 is not just about illegal immigration, it will increase the number of refugees and asylees admitted to the US and give more of your tax dollars to refugee contractors and open borders advocacy groups.

It is not too late and NumbersUSA is reporting movement toward the NO column by some Senators.

Call all evening and early in the morning too!  Final cloture vote likely in the morning.

Here is another number you can use to call your Senators if the one below is jammed:  888-995-8349

Here is the latest from NumbersUSA:

  IN THIS ALERT:

~Senate phone lines jammed with anti-amnesty calls — some phone alternatives — keep it up

~Chambliss, Chiesa, Enzi & Wicker joined our side in procedural cloture vote this aft — up to 33 and growing

~Red-state Dems take callous view toward struggling workers in their state — especially Black Americans

~Media coming to grips with bruising Senate battle making House far less receptive to amnesty this year

~Send Immigration Grade Cards to the Senators who are so proud of themselves for engineering a massive increase in foreign labor.

Please keep phoning Senators the rest of the afternoon. The Senate switchboard and individual office phones are often jammed, so just keep trying.

ACTION 1: Refer to the alert I sent you this morning for the toll-free number into individual Senators’ offices. [That is this number:  888-995-8349]

ACTION 2: If that or the 202-224-3121 switchboard number can’t get you through, go to our directory for all DC and home-state office phone numbers and use one or more of those. It is important that the staffs of these Senators do little else but answer phone calls opposing S. 744 today.

https://www.numbersusa.com/content/congress/phone-numbers-and-mailing-addresses-memb.html

Chambliss, Chiesa, Enzi & Wicker joined our side in procedural cloture vote this afternoon

Those of you in Georgia, New Jersey, Wyoming and Mississippi, call and give heartfelt thanks to these four who on an interim cloture vote this afternoon joined the Senators who had also voted on the anti-amnesty side on Monday. (The key cloture vote happens tomorrow).

That brings to 33 the Senators who have been willing to vote to just end the whole process on S. 744 before getting to a final vote. That is up from only 15 who would take that stand nine days ago.

The Alert continues.  Sign up here to receive these Alerts directly from NumbersUSA as this travesty moves forward in Washington.