Obama State Department approves 100 Syrian Muslims for West Virginia state capitol

12/22/2016 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Where were you WV Republican Senator Shelley Moore Capito and Republican Rep. Alex Mooney? Only two choices!—either asleep-at-the-switch or in support of this move by a local ‘interfaith’ group to be named a federal subcontracting agency for the purpose of beginning a new refugee resettlement site in the state. (Charleston previously received a few refugees through Catholic Charities, but no where near this scale).
If Capito and Mooney had put up significant opposition, we would have heard about it and this decision might have turned out differently.
Does Obama think he can stick it to West Virginia (Trump territory) voters in his final weeks in office? And, where is Joe [Manchin]? He must be all for it too!

Just this morning we reported that in Wisconsin, Republican Rep. Sean Duffy sent a strongly worded letter about plans to begin placing Syrians in his district and here a few days ago we learned that the plan for Bloomington, Indiana was shelved because opposition had grown there and because it is expected that Trump will make some move after January 20th to slow (or stop) the flow of refugees to America (money for resettlement is drying up as well).
So why go ahead with this new site at the West Virginia state capitol?
For new readers we have followed the growing controversy in Charleston extensively for months, see here.
From the West Virginia Gazette-Mail (emphasis is mine):

The U.S. Department of State has approved an application to establish a refugee resettlement program in Charleston, officials announced Wednesday. But that decision could be reversed by the incoming administration, according to an expert on refugee resettlement law.

The West Virginia Interfaith Refugee Ministry, which also is the name local organizers have been informally using to describe their humanitarian effort, will begin as a program of the Episcopal Diocese of West Virginia.

In a statement issued Wednesday, the Rev. Canon E. Mark Stevenson, director at Episcopal Migration Ministries, announced that the West Virginia Interfaith Refugee Ministry had been approved to join its network of 30 refugee resettlement sites throughout the country.

[….]

In October, they submitted an application for a resettlement agency to place 100 refugees in Charleston in the first year.

David Ramkey, chief financial officer for the Episcopal Diocese of West Virginia, said the refugees should be a “welcome addition” and “very productive part” of the community.

[….]

Neil Grungras, executive director of the nonprofit Organization for Refuge, Asylum and Migration, said the Donald Trump administration could reverse the decision.

“The State Department is never obligated to allow even an approved refugee into the U.S.,” Grungras said. “The answer, with regard to the 100 approved, is that it probably depends where they are in their processing. [I will bet a buck that the Obama Administration is packing as many as they can into that pipeline right now!—ed]

[….]

Lynn Clarke, a local organizer, said the group had been told that, if they were approved, the refugees would likely begin arriving this summer. She said the group anticipates refugees fleeing from Syria, Afghanistan and Iraq, but she said they also could be from other countries. –

As I said in a previous post, I don’t know why this ‘interfaith’ group was so hot for Syrian Muslims (apparently Iraqis and Afghans too), they usually don’t get to pick their favorite ethnic groups, but actually get a little bit of everything.

Refugee controversy hot in Hudson, Wisconsin; Congressman wants answers

12/22/2016 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Update: This group of Syrians will NOT now be placed in Hudson because the Dept. of State says they need more medical care than Hudson has to offer. They are going somewhere else. This case is all very strange from start to finish and it strikes me that Obama’s outgoing resettlement team is in disarray. Read about it here. See what the Catholic Church says, here.
I told you about a proposed (strange) arrangement to resettle 5 Syrian refugee families in the small town of Hudson, Wisconsin, here last month. A Catholic Church was being asked by the US Conference of Catholic Bishops (a federal refugee contractor) to take full responsibility for the Syrian families. I wondered if that church would get the full per head amount of federal resettlement contract money.
A large meeting is (was?) scheduled in Hudson in early January to take the pulse of the community.
Local readers (who have formed a citizens’ group in opposition) tell me that that plan was suddenly scrapped and Lutheran Social Services out of Milwaukee came to town this week and condescendingly told residents, no, they (LSS), were going to bring the Syrians to Hudson and it was going to be a whole lot more than 21 (believed to be included in the five families).
Then, when I looked around this morning, I see that 7th District Congressman Sean Duffy sent a letter yesterday to the CEO of Lutheran Social Services in Wisconsin asking questions that every careful and concerned Member of Congress should be asking if he/she is being told ‘out of the blue’ that Syrian refugees (or any refugees!) were being chosen for the district.
Here is Duffy’s letter:
screenshot-100
I think most of you are surprised to see a reference to any assessment!
Where is the assessment for any of the 47 new sites we are told the US Department of State is considering in the closing days of the Obama Administration? If Rep. Duffy and others want to do a service to America they could reform the Refugee Admissions Program legislatively and require PUBLIC assessments of the suitability of communities to absorb large numbers of third world refugees!
Endnote: When I checked my archives, I see I wrote about Hudson, Wisconsin in January 2014 when rival Somali gangs came over from Minnesota and got into a fight in Hudson, see here.
Our Wisconsin archive is here.
***Update*** Wimpy Walker weighs in on refugees to Wisconsin here. It isn’t clear that he understands the present process. If he wants to see things change he better get in touch with pal Paul (Ryan) to change the law in Congress!

23 years after Black Hawk Down we admit Somali 'refugees' to US at highest rates ever

12/21/2016 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

“Somali refugees are probably an even bigger risk than Syrians, as Somalis have committed several terrorist attacks on U.S. soil recently.” (Leo Hohmann)

We gave you some numbers yesterday for Somali resettlement in the waning weeks of the Obama Administration and the numbers are astronomical.

black-hawk-down — Two decades have passed since the deadly Black Hawk Down incident at the end of the G.H.W Bush Administration and what do we get, over 100,000 Somalis*** seeded throughout America (with no end in sight!) because they are incapable of governing their own ____ country! At what point does our responsibility end? In fact, when did it start?

Why is Somalia our problem more than 25 years since the civil war there and 23 years since, as part of a United Nations mission, we lost 18 of our finest men in the infamous Battle of Mogadishu ‘Black Hawk Down’ attack.
Why must American cities and towns be roiled decades later because the Somali people can’t govern their own country?
And, once the Syrian flow has begun in earnest, what makes you think it will ever stop?
Yesterday, World Net Daily reporter Paul Bremmer asks the same question. And, frankly, as we ramp up the Syrian resettlement, if Donald Trump doesn’t come through for those millions of voters who want to see the program curtailed especially from terror producing regions of the world, then we are in for another quarter of a century admitting Syrians along with the Somalis!
Here is WND:

While many Americans worry about the influx of Syrians, the U.S. has taken in even more refugees from Somalia this year. Through the first 11 weeks of FY 2017, the U.S. resettled 3,269 Somali refugees. At this rate, the country would absorb more than 15,550 by fiscal year’s end. At this point in FY 2016, the U.S. had only admitted 1,721 Somali refugees on its way to taking in 9,020 for the year.

More than 99.9 percent of the Somalis admitted this fiscal year are Muslims, as was the case in FY 2016 as well.

Hohmann noted Somali refugees are probably an even bigger risk than Syrians, as Somalis have committed several terrorist attacks on U.S. soil recently.

“There’s been no debate in Congress or the media asking the obvious questions: Why is America still taking thousands of refugees every year from Somalia more than 25 years after that country’s civil war broke out?” Hohmann asked. “How many is too many, and why aren’t the Somalis doing a better job of assimilating? Dozens have gone off to fight for overseas terror organizations while even more have been charged, tried and convicted here at home of providing material support to overseas terrorists.”

At the end of this informative article is a slight change of subject worth highlighting. New low income housing in your town=you will get refugees!

Hohmann said while he can’t prove the State Department and the federal contractors have targeted red states over blue ones, it wouldn’t surprise him. But he warned that the availability of housing is the biggest factor in determining the placement of refugees.

“They are bringing the refugees in so fast right now that it’s difficult to find places to house them,” he revealed. “I’ve been hearing stories from my sources that some are being secretly housed in Muslim-owned hotels and being held there until openings can be found in local apartment complexes. Housing is always the key for this program. That’s why I often tell people to be wary of government-subsidized housing projects being built in your city because this is often a precursor to refugee resettlement, especially if you have a liberal mayor at the helm of your city.”

If you have been a loyal follower of Ben Carson and want to help fight this fight, you should try to reach him and tell him to scrap Obama’s ‘Affirmatively furthering fair housing’ initiative which funds housing projects in largely white communities where politicians promise diversity will be injected into the community.
Be sure to get Leo Hohmann’s new book: Stealth Invasion. It is the first full-length book on the US Refugee Admissions Program and where it has gone wrong.
***See my accounting that began in 2008 of the Somali resettlement each year and note two things: The big influx began with Bill Clinton’s first year in office (1994), but up until this year (FY17), the greatest rates of admission of Somalis came in the George W. Bush Administration.

At present rate, almost 14,000 Syrians would enter US this fiscal year, 98% Muslim

12/18/2016 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Donald Trump arrives at the Miss USA 2013 pageant, Sunday, June 16, 2013, in Las Vegas. (AP Photo/Jeff Bottari) — Will Donald Trump follow through beginning on day 1?

Two days ago, I reported on the total number of refugees being rushed in to the US right now presumably to beat an expected cut-off of resettlement from at least some countries (terror-producing) of the world after Donald Trump becomes President on January 20th.
And, although we reported new proposed sites have been placed on hold (see Bloomington, IN), there are still plenty of existing sites where refugees are being placed at the highest rate in recent memory.
Here is a map from Wrapsnet.org showing the numbers and placement of Syrians admitted to the US in the first ten weeks of this fiscal year (Oct. 1, 2016 to Dec. 10, 2016).
2,671 have been placed, and at this rate we would expect 13,889 by September 30th, 2017, if Donald Trump doesn’t do what he promised.

screenshot-92 — This map is for the first 10 weeks of FY17. Florida is 132 (couldn’t fit whole map in shot) and Alaska and Hawaii are zero.

Here are the top ten states so far in FY2017 receiving Syrians.

Data from Wrapsnet puts the percentage of Muslims at 98% and the vast majority of those are Sunnis (remember it is the UN choosing our refugees!).

screenshot-93
Just a reminder, this is only data for resettled refugees and does not take in to account Syrians getting in to the US through other means.

Save the Children act introduced in Congress would bring 25,000 Syrian children to US TEMPORARILY

12/18/2016 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

We have a lot of experience with the word “temporary” and how it doesn’t mean what it means when it comes to immigration programs! Therefore when we saw what initially looked like a news report at The Hill alarm bells began to ring.
However, note that this story about a newly introduced bill is actually an opinion piece written by the college professor whose idea this is.

And, before you go crazy, know that any bill introduced now is dead in the water and its sponsor is only doing it for brownie points. Congress has adjourned and all bills die with the Congress and must be reintroduced in the new Congress in January.
So here is the op-ed by Dr. Amitai Etzioni at The Hill:

Rep. Mike Honda (D-Calif.) added to his long list of credits when, in the dying hours of the 114th Congress, he introduced a bill that should cheered everyone’s holidays—HR 6510: The Save the Children Act of 2016.

The act authorizes granting temporary visas to 25,000 Syrian refugee children, ages three to 10, to live in the U.S. until the civil war in their country ends. These children, to be chosen by their families or orphaned, will be able to live in the homes of American families who will volunteer to host them. The costs of their care will be covered by the host families themselves or by charitable organizations.

These visas will expire six months after our government determines that hostilities have ceased and a durable peace process has begun. [So what if it is decades before peace returns to Syria?—ed] The grace period will allow time for the families of the children to re-establish their households in Syria before the children return.

The Department of State, together with Citizenship and Immigration Services, the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Health and Human Services will coordinate the inflow and return of these children.

[….]

The bill grew out of a policy proposal formulated by Dr. Amitai Etzioni of The George Washington University. It was drafted by Layth Elhassani at Covington and Burling LLP as part of his pro bono work.

[….]

Amitai Etzioni is a University Professor and Professor of International Affairs at The George Washington University.

Continue reading here.