State Department: 30,000 refugee cap for FY19 may not be final number!

09/23/2018 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

We too were surprised when Secretary of State Pompeo announced a cap of 30,000 refugees to be admitted to the US in FY19 which begins in nine days.

Although as we have chronicled over the years, the State Department and Congress have played loosey-goosey with the required “consultation” between the branches over the refugee numbers for the coming year, Pompeo’s surprise announcement did seem premature.

(See my post of last year about what the process is supposed to entail, here.)

Goodlatte and Trump — Judiciary Chairman Goodlatte to the Prez: We want to “consult” on refugee cap. So Bob, where is the hearing also required by law!

Now we see there is some waffling after a sanctimonious Judiciary Chairman Bob Goodlatte has called out the Administration for not “consulting” with them first.

Many legally-required consultations over the last ten years have been nothing-burgers where a few staffers from the State Department went to the Hill to meet with staffers there to discuss the coming refugee year.

I don’t know if any Members even show up. I asked my Congressman if I might be permitted to go to the consultation one year and he reported that, no the public was not permitted to attend.

Although, in most years the consultations were perfunctory, there was one exception recently and that was the big show that Secretary of State John Kerry put on for FY2016 about Obama’s inflated 110,000 determination in the fall of 2016. (They thought Hillary was going to win and they were flexing muscles and getting ready for the big year ahead!)

Otherwise there has been only scant attention paid to the law requiring that the President consult with Congress over the numbers.

Now here we see that the outgoing Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, Bob Goodlatte, wants his consultation.

Heck, maybe the Administration can give him a consultation next month, or in November, and hold up the whole darn thing with zero coming in in the interim!

From The Hill:

Goodlatte: Administration undercut law, Congress by setting refugee cap

House Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.) on Thursday accused the State Department of defying the law by proposing a sharp reduction in refugees to the United States.

The charge marks a rare rebuke of the administration from Goodlatte, who wants officials to consult “immediately” with Congress before establishing a final cap on refugees to be accepted into the country next year.

“The law is clear: the Administration must consult with Congress prior to the President’s determination of the annual refugee ceiling,” Goodlatte said in a statement. “But this did not happen this year, and the Trump Administration has no excuse for not complying with their obligation under the law.”

[….]

Democrats have pounced on the cutbacks, warning that the administration is undermining the country’s historic role and international credibility as the world’s safe-harbor for threatened populations and a champion of human rights.

Republican critics have focused less on the figures than on the legality of the administration’s move to establish a cap without first seeking input from Congress. Earlier this week, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) condemned the administration’s unilateral move.

[….]

Goodlatte took that criticism a step further, suggesting no refugee cap can be legally established without Congress weighing in first.

“There is a real question as to whether the President can even set a number of refugees that carries the weight of law unless it is done after an appropriate consultation with Congress,” Goodlatte said.

He’s also calling for reforms that would empower Congress, not the administration, to have the ultimate say in determining that annual number.

By the way, Goodlatte has been responsible for this committee and the refugee program for years and never really pushed for serious reform of the Refugee Act of 1980. Oh yeh, he proposed some legislation, but never made it a priority.

Now we see that in response, the State Department is saying there is wiggle room in that 30,000 cap. The Hill story continues….

On Tuesday, the day after Pompeo’s announcement, State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert said the administration plans to consult with Congress before finalizing its refugee ceiling. The cap “may” change, she said, based on those talks.

Hey folks, don’t think this means the number could go down!

Remember I said it should be zero, which would be the only leverage the White House would have to push a complete overhaul of an ill-conceived US Refugee Admissions Program.

Where is Goodlatte’s hearing?

Before the President makes his final ‘determination’ a hearing “shall be held” in the House and Senate Judiciary Committees!

So let’s have the full legal requirements carried out which includes a public hearing by Goodlatte’s committee and the Senate Judiciary Committee centered around a report the State Department is supposed to send to Congress as part of the consultation process.

Let’s begin following the law now and maybe the whole decision can be dragged out for months.

Stephen Miller wins again trumpets NBC News, outmaneuvered his elders in setting refugee cap

09/21/2018 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

It is driving the Open Borders Left nuts (and the globalist RINOs) that Stephen Miller is still in the White House and still pushing what they call a hardline immigration agenda.

If you are new to all of this, you should know that before he devoted himself to the Trump campaign and presidency, Miller was a staffer for then Senator Jeff Sessions, chairman of the refugee/immigration subcommittee in the Senate Judiciary Committee, where Sessions consistently fought for you—the “deplorables” as Hillary called you—the America worker and average American taxpayers footing the bill for ever-increasing numbers of immigrants (illegal and legal).

niki haley and pompeo — We are told by NBC News that Ambassador Haley and Sec. of State Pompeo both wanted more refugees than the 30,000 cap announced and that they “got rolled” by a kid.

I wish I had time to say more, but here (below) is the headline at NBC News. We are told that US Ambassador Nikki Haley wanted more refugees than the 30,000 cap announced a few days ago.

(By the way, I wrote here that the cap should have been zero until the program was thoroughly reviewed and either dumped or reformed.)

Stephen Miller wins again: Haley, other foes excluded from immigration meeting

A planned cut in the number of refugees the U.S. admits is the latest win for hardliner Stephen Miller, who keeps beating the Trump admin’s pragmatists.

WASHINGTON — Days before the Trump administration announced plans to slash the number of refugees allowed into the U.S. to its lowest level in 40 years, Trump senior adviser and immigration hardliner Stephen Miller made his case for fewer refugees to a room of senior officials at the White House.

Stephen-Miller-with-Jeff-Sessions — Stephen Miller with his earlier boss Senator Jeff Sessions

His sales job was made easier by the absence of top officials who disagree with his stance. They weren’t there because they weren’t invited, according to two people briefed on the discussions. Missing from the room last Friday were U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley and the head of the U.S. Agency for International Development, Mark Green, both of whom have promoted a more generous policy toward refugees fleeing poverty, famine and persecution, the two sources said.

The planned cut in the refugee cap, now just 30,000 for the coming fiscal year, is the latest win for Miller, who has outmaneuvered opponents in and outside the administration to push through a crackdown on all forms of immigration.

[….]

In the administration’s internal discussions, Defense Secretary James Mattis — who was also absent from the Friday meeting — and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo had consistently opposed reducing the ceiling for how many refugees could be allowed into the country next fiscal year, former officials, humanitarian experts and Congressional staffers from both parties told NBC News.

But after the meeting of top officials at the White House, Pompeo unveiled plans Monday to scale back the cap for refugees in 2019 to its lowest level since 1980. The secretary gave no explanation as to why he had changed his position, or how that number was arrived at during the closed door “principals” meeting.

[….]

“Pompeo got rolled,” said one former official familiar with the deliberations who served under Republican and Democratic administrations. The secretary “got manhandled by a kid who knows nothing about foreign policy,” said the source, referring to the 33-year-old Miller.

What is this foreign policy crap—this is about domestic policy and what out-of-control immigration is doing to American citizens in American towns!

You must read it all!

Go here and see that Miller, who is carrying out the agenda the President campaigned on, is up against seasoned ‘moderates’ who frankly are working against key immigration restriction policies that we elected Trump to carry out.

I have said it many times to many people lately—you will know when the Trump presidency ends (when we go back to uncontrolled immigration) and that is when Jeff Sessions and Stephen Miller are gone from Trump’s team. And, you can bet there are many on both sides of the political aisle working toward that end.

So what is this asylum issue the Secretary of State mentioned?

09/19/2018 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Several people have asked me about the statement made by Secretary of State Pompeo when he announced the Administration’s intentions of capping refugee admissions at 30,000.

Intelligence Chiefs Testify To Senate Committee On World Wide Threats

According to the New York Times, Pompeo mentioned a backlog of 800,000 asylum cases piled up in immigration courts and the NYT is quick to point out that the number is too high.

It is ONLY 320,000!

(And, remember readers that those waiting for their asylum hearing are mostly free to roam the USA, relatively few are in detention!)

See here:

“This year’s refugee ceiling reflects the substantial increase in the number of individuals seeking asylum in our country, leading to a massive backlog of outstanding asylum cases and greater public expense,” he added.

Nazanin Ash (left) speaking for refugee contractor the International Rescue Committee: “In justifying its policy intention, the administration has pitted those seeking asylum against refugees.”

Mr. Pompeo said refugees had to be weighed against a backlog of 800,000 asylum seekers who are awaiting a decision by immigration authorities about whether they qualify as in need of protection under United States law and will be granted status to remain.

But he vastly overstated the numbers, while making a linkage between two groups of immigrants that are not the same and are processed differently.

As of the end of June, the Department of Homeland Security reported just under 320,000 people who had claimed asylum — meaning they had passed an interview conducted to verify that they met the “credible fear” threshold to be considered — and were awaiting a decision from the department about whether they could stay.

About 730,000 additional immigrants were waiting for their cases to be resolved by immigration courts, according to the Justice Department…

In other words Pompeo is saying that the Trump Administration is going to focus first on a huge backlog of asylum claims.

So what is this asylum issue?

Perhaps we haven’t talked about it enough over the years, but asylum is the other side of a two-sided coin for ‘refugee’ admissions to the US.

The cap we are talking about refers to the refugees who are found abroad, are accepted for admission and are flown here at taxpayers’ expense and turned over to one of the nine refugee resettlement contractors for care.

Asylum seekers are people who got to the US on their own dime and upon entering the country across a border illegally (or sometimes with a legal visa) they request asylum claiming they would be persecuted if returned home. They then go through a legal process to determine if their claims are legitimate or not. (Another can of worms involves the question of how many of those whose claims of asylum were rejected actually leave the country!)

If granted asylum they are called Asylees and are eligible for all of the social service goodies we give to the refugees we fly in. Therefore, US taxpayers’ generosity is not only to the smaller number of refugees we flew in, but potentially to tens of thousands more each year!

The asylum system here and in Europe has been massively scammed where worldwide millions are claiming asylum when in fact most are economic migrants or just plain crooks.

There are so many that they are overwhelming our legal system and that is why Sec. of State Pompeo says we are prioritizing—getting those hundreds of thousands processed.

(See Jim Simpson’s chart in this post to see how many had successful asylum claims for each of the last 10+ years. Total is over 266,000 since 2008!)

Refugee Industry thrilled with Asylum avenue to America!

In 2010 I attended the 30th anniversary celebration for the Refugee Act of 1980 at Georgetown University in Washington, DC and was struck by the focus speakers were placing on the asylum process.

Doris Meissner 2 — At the Georgetown anniversary event, it was Doris Meissner (who apparently had a role in crafting the Refugee Act of 1980) who said with obvious pleasure: We only expected the odd Russian ballet dancer to use the asylum process, but now (yippee!) large numbers of migrants are using it!

They were downright giddy that so many migrants were now showing up at our borders seeking asylum. In fact, they seemed to be conscious of the fact that there were limits to the numbers they could get in to the US in the normal refugee admissions process even before Trump ever appeared on their radar screens.

In 2011, after seeing more stories about asylum seekers arriving at our borders from far flung places like Somalia, I wrote this post:

Is there a conspiracy by NGO’s to bring asylum seekers to US borders?

I said this at the time about the Georgetown shindig after calling for a Congressional investigation.

I was also struck at the conference by how much emphasis the pro-refugee, pro-open borders activists and speakers were placing on our asylum program. They wanted to educate more asylum lawyers and hire more asylum judges (apparently the refugee program itself wasn’t bringing immigrants in fast enough!). One speaker even said that the original idea behind the program was to rescue the odd ballet dancer seeking asylum from some repressive regime, but had now expanded to thousands every year.

You can read the whole post here, but the gist of it was that I believe the international open borders Leftists are actively involved in pushing migrants to first world countries’ borders (maybe even paying their way!) where, having been previously coached, they know how to ask for asylum. Of course that is exactly what we are seeing now here and in Europe.

By the way, check out the whole NYT story. The reporter says that Secretary of State Pompeo wanted to keep the CAP where it was at 45,000, but Stephen Miller in the White House pushed for an even lower ceiling.

See my post yesterday where I say it should have been ZERO!

Are the refugee contractors and their friends in Congress preparing to end-run the President on refugee cap?

09/18/2018 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

I reported this morning that the Refugee Council USA (RCUSA), the lobbying arm of the refugee industry, was sounding pretty cocky about going for their 75,000 refugee cap for Fiscal Year 2019 which begins less than two weeks from now in spite of the President’s proposed 30,000 cap.

Intelligence Chiefs Testify To Senate Committee On World Wide Threats — Will Secretary of State Pompeo’s legal team find and extract a sleeper amendment in the State Department Appropriations Act?

It is abundantly clear that the President has the power to set the cap (aka ceiling) under the Refugee Act of 1980.

(Indeed, it is also the case that there is no requirement in the law to admit any refugees.)

So what might make the contractors and their lobbyists make what sounds like a threatening statement:

We still have the desire, capacity, and resources to welcome at least 75,000 refugees to the United States in the coming year. And we will spend every waking moment looking for ways to do just that…

Admittedly they are desperate because they stand to lose millions of federal dollars if fewer refugees are admitted.

Yikes! Appropriations???

Could they be planning to get a friendly Senator or Congressman to use the upcoming Appropriations process and plant language in the State Department funding bill that would direct the President to bring in 75,000 refugees?

The strategy may be to use that upcoming State Department Appropriations Act to override the President’s determination under the Refugee Act. For this to occur properly, Congress would likely have to include in the Appropriations Act a specific line item of funding for 75,000 refugees accompanied by a statement that the funding was being provided despite the provisions of the Refugee Act. In other words, the Appropriations language would supersede existing law!

For more on the legal principles involved, take a look at page 2-67 of Principles of Federal Appropriations Law published by the Government Accountability Office.

When you have a look at the legal principles, based on a Supreme Court decision, note that if they think they can do it with simple report language they are mistaken. It must be actually language in the bill itself.

Hopefully, Mike Pompeo’s legal team will be on the look-out for any attempt by the contractors and their lobbyists to use the appropriations process to usurp the President’s authority!

(But can we trust a legal team that might be comprised of Obama leftovers to find the sleeper provision in time?)

We will be watching!

If the contractors, who have millions of dollars at stake, and their Democrat pals pull off a dirty trick like this, it is just one more example of why American citizens are so sick of Washington and why we elected Donald Trump.

Where are you Stephen Miller?

Secretary of State announces refugee cap for fiscal year 2019—30,000!

09/17/2018 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Update September 23rd: 30,000 may not be final number, here.

Update September 19th: One more reason the Trump Administration could have gone with a ZERO cap this year—320,000 migrants already in US looking to get refugee status, here.

Update September 18th: See why I think a cap of 30,000 was a bad decision, here.

So, I guess Church World Service can get off its “pins and needles!”

trump and pompeo 2 — The President with Secretary of State Pompeo

It was only this morning that we reported that a Church World Service employee announced that there would be no CEILING (aka CAP) announced until December. They sure seem to have gotten their facts wrong, or did they?

There will be much wailing from the usual contractor gang (they wanted the number to be 75,000!), but remember readers that we are under 30,000 this year—we should come in at less than 25,000. (Update: as of today we have admitted 20,919 refugees with only 2 weeks to go in the fiscal year.)

Here is the brief news posted a little over an hour ago at Politico:

Trump administration intends to slash refugee cap

The Trump administration will admit no more than 30,000 refugees to the U.S. in the coming year, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said, down from the current cap of 45,000.

Pompeo announced the lowered ceiling during a press conference Monday at the Department of State headquarters in Foggy Bottom.

Pompeo said the 30,000 cap “must be considered in the context of the many other forms of protection and assistance offered by the United States” and should not be “sole barometer” to measure the country’s humanitarian efforts.

The hawkish turn demonstrates President Donald Trump’s willingness to push hard-line immigration policies in the run-up to the November midterm elections ….

When Trump took office, the refugee cap stood at 110,000. He lowered that to 50,000, and subsequently to 45,000.

It is my opinion that the program won’t be reformed as it should be until the number is ZERO with the understanding that Congress and the Administration must reform the entire program during a moratorium.

Without real reform, as the Lancaster, PA Church World Service employee said: they will just wait out this president and claim they need huge numbers in 2021 or 2025 to make up for Trump’s lost years.

Will the Administration and Congress follow the law in the next few weeks?

The Refugee Act of 1980 requires the US State Department, in conjunction with the President, to present a detailed Report to Congress explaining how many refugees they would like to admit and from where they will come.

The report should arrive in Congress weeks before the end of the fiscal year (September 30th) and BEFORE refugees begin arriving in the new year. The House and Senate Judiciary Committees are supposed to hold PUBLIC hearings and “consult” with the Administration on that report.

Where is the report? Has it been made public? How can they go forward with resettlement on October first with no guide as to which refugees will get priority?

After consultation with Congress about The Report, the President then is supposed to make his final determination.

Of course they haven’t been following the law for years, so it remains to be seen if they will this year or not.

We will be waiting with great anticipation to see if the first of the new batch of 30,000 begins arriving on October first (2 weeks from today!).