Time to take fraud in US Refugee Program more seriously; where is Congress?

05/30/2018 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

A former foreign service officer who worked in several capacities in the US Refugee Admissions Program around the world speaks from first hand experience when she says it is past time—way past time—for Congress to investigate the program.
After outlining examples of fraud that have been identified, Mary Doetsch says this at the Daily Caller:

It’s Time For Congress To Restore The Integrity Of The US Refugee Program

Perhaps even more disturbing than the actual fraud is the fact that this type of investigation is the exception rather than the norm. For decades, little heed has been paid to program’s extensive fraud.

unhcr sudan — Doetsch doesn’t say it, but I will. As a first step, let’s take the UN out of the process and if we are going to resettle refugees, let’s use American experts to make the decisions. Will save us a bundle of money too!

As a former refugee coordinator who served throughout the Middle East, Africa, Russia and Cuba, I saw first-hand the flagrant abuses and scams that permeate the refugee program. I witnessed widespread exploitation and misuse, from identity fraud to marriage and family relation scams, and from private individuals profiting from their involvement in USRAP to distortion of the actual refugee definition to ensure greater numbers of people who are really migrants are admitted as refugees.

During my own time working in this program, I watched USRAP continue to expand unchecked, seemingly without concern for whether it served the best interests of its own citizens or the country.

While refugee admissions have been declining under the Trump administration, there has been almost no focus on programmatic fraud. Midway into the 2018 fiscal year, just over a quarter of the 45,000 individuals proposed in the FY18 refugee ceiling had entered the country. This slow-down in admissions may reduce some fraud, but without structural reform, it cannot be eliminated.

Too many government officials, often under the guise of humanitarianism, have continued to disregard both the external “pay-to-play bribery schemes” of the UN along with the internal fraud within USRAP operations. The once admirable refugee program has lost its integrity and must be reformed. The USRAP is in need of a complete overhaul and it’s time for Congress to take the lead.

Read it all here.
Good luck trying to get Congress to do anything.
See what Ms. Doetsch said back in February 2017 in response to Trump’s announcement of restrictions to refugee resettlement from certain countries.
This morning as I see CNN crowing about how Trey Gowdy says the FBI did no wrong in planting someone in the Trump campaign, I am reminded of how the chicken! (yes Gowdy!) never lifted a finger to try to get to the bottom of the problems with the USRAP when he was chairman of the subcommittee responsible for overseeing the program.

UN closes refugee resettlement program in Sudan while corruption investigation proceeds

05/18/2018 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Two days ago I told you that the UN High Commissioner for Refugees office in Sudan is being investigated (by the UN) for possible fraud in the selection process for refugees heading to mostly the US.
There are allegations that bribes are being paid to influence the selection of certain refugees over others.
unhcr sudan
Now comes news that the program is being shuttered at least temporarily.
And, in case you are wondering, after lobbying from the UAE, Trump did drop Sudan from the travel restriction list, see here.
Where is Homeland Security, is it time to have a look at the 652 Sudanese who got in to the US in calendar year 2017 (Wrapsnet)?
Continue reading “UN closes refugee resettlement program in Sudan while corruption investigation proceeds” →

Corruption and bribery alleged in UN refugee office in Sudan

05/16/2018 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

And, the allegations are coming from a humanitarian publication under the UN umbrella.
Why do you care?
Because the UN High Commissioner for Refugees is the first stop for most refugees coming to your towns. (We took 53 from Sudan in the last 7 months).
This is just more evidence that the US State Department should be cutting the umbilical cord to the United Nations Refugee Program. If we are going to be taking refugees from third world hell holes we should be doing the choosing and the processing without UN ‘help.’
(Don’t miss the chart below showing the UN as the first step in the screening of refugees to be your new neighbors!)
You know this is going on everywhere!

Continue reading “Corruption and bribery alleged in UN refugee office in Sudan” →

Why is it our job to clean out UN refugee camps?

04/10/2018 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

And, why is the Trump Administration continuing refugee resettlement started for no other reason (by George Bush and Barack Obama) than to please the UN?

anne-richard-and-unhcr — Obama Secretary of State for PRM, Anne Richard with then UNHCR, now Secretary General of the UN Guterres, decided that the US should take 50,000 from the DR Congo.

Previous presidents jumped to the UN piper’s tune and said sure, the US will step up to take the Bhutanese and the DR Congolese because the UN asked us to.
These people were not our responsibility, no one could say we caused the problems that resulted in their care by the UN.
We have no strategic interest or reason other than to make the UN happy (and some big employers who want the cheap labor, the Dems who want voters and the contractors who want the payola!).
(By the way, there are other examples of cleaning out camps and of course the largest over the years have been the UN camps in Kenya, but the numbers have dramatically slowed in the last year, not so for the two I’m writing about now. And, of course the UN has no interest in cleaning out the Palestinian camps and sending those people to other Arab countries.)

DR Congo express to America….

map DR Congo
The largest ethnic group of refugees coming to the US right now are DR Congolese. In the first 6 months of this fiscal year (’18) we admitted 2,569.
In 2013 the Obama State Department told the UN High Commissioner for Refugees that we would take 50,000 from the DR Congo over five years.
Checking Wrapsnet just now, I see that we have taken 40,899 since that promise was made, however going back to FY10, I see we are now at 49,476.
Will the flow ever stop?
Based on the Bush Bhutanese deal, the answer is likely NO!

Nearly 100,000 Bhutanese scattered across America…

In 2006 we told the UN we would take 60,000 Bhutanese off their hands over five years.
These displaced people are really Nepali people that were kicked out of Bhutan and Nepal wouldn’t take them back.
map nepal and bhutan
Other western countries promised to take another 30,000.
Here in 2015 the UN reported on its “success” at that point in time:

A core group of eight countries came together in 2007 to create this opportunity for Bhutanese refugees to begin new lives: Australia (5,554), Canada (6,500), Denmark (874), New Zealand (1002), the Netherlands (327), Norway (566), the United Kingdom (358) and the United States of America (84,819).

Now 10 years after Bush Asst. Secretary of State Ellen Sauerbrey said we would take 60,000, we are at 95,841 (as of today).

In the last 6 months, an additional 1,925 ‘refugees’ of Nepali origin that we call Bhutanese were resettled across the country. I have to laugh because the total number in 2006 was 108,000 and between the US and other countries we have far surpassed that number now, so it begs the question—have more people arrived at the camps looking for resettlement in recent years? (See one of my many posts on fuzzy math!)
Here is where 95,481 have been place in the US in just 10 years!

Screenshot (372)

Screenshot (368) — The numbers are difficult to read even in the original. The top five ‘welcoming’ states are Pennsylvania, Ohio, Texas, New York and Georgia. And, can you believe it, Hawaii, the state that is hankering for more diversity got zip!

I don’t believe there is a law that says we must take refugees that the UN wants us to take!
And, thus, I think it is time that the Trump Administration distanced itself from the dictates of the United Nations. In fact, maybe it is time to do more than that! Let’s take the lead in rethinking the entire 1951 UN Refugee Convention.
Surely, if we are going to offer ‘welcome’ to legitimate refugees, we have smart people who would know how to pick the most worthy candidates and not just take in ethnic groups wholesale because the UN tells us we must!
See Nayla Rush writing at the Center for Immigration Studies about the haphazard choices being made (even under Donald Trump!).
See my archive on the Bhutanese by clicking here. The thing that has brought them to the media’s attention over the years is the fact that they have a high suicide rate in America. In fact, for years leading up to 2006, they steadfastly maintained that they did not want to be “scattered to the four winds.”
Contact the White House, tell the President: As your Administration prepares refugee plans for the coming fiscal year, stop asking how high, when the UN says jump! We will pick our own refugees, thank you very much!

Australian Home Minister: Time to rethink 1951 UN Refugee Convention

04/08/2018 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Whoa! Now that would shake up the No Borders International Left for sure!
Peter Dutton is talking about the 1951 Refugee Convention that is under the control of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees.

Trump at UN 2 — Yes! Let’s push for an end to the UN Convention. Each country should make its own immigration policy!

He has a point!
Resettlement is not possible for the millions of migrants moving around the world, so why not create a better system to care for them where they are!
In fact, President Donald Trump told the United Nations this very thing on September 19, 2017 (see here).
But, the time is now and that means we should be on the offense and question the very underpinning of a system that is dangerously flawed, erodes national sovereignty, and is costly!
From The Guardian:

The home affairs minister, Peter Dutton, says “like-minded” countries [like the US!—ed] should come together to review the relevance of the 1951 United Nations refugee convention, arguing the document is outdated and does not account for the modern movement of people.

peter-dutton1 — Peter Dutton: Is the 1951 Refugee Convention relevant today?

In a wide-ranging interview with Guardian Australia conducted on Tuesday, Dutton flagged a reluctance to allow the elderly family members of immigrants to come to Australia, and a desire to incentivise new arrivals to move to regional communities. He also reaffirmed the country’s commitment to a nondiscriminatory immigration policy.

Dutton said he agreed with statements made by the British prime minister, Theresa May, and others suggesting the UN convention relating to the status of refugees could be modernised “or at least an update of the way in which the convention works and what it provides for”.

He said countries’ efforts to resettle refugees were “token” given the numbers of displaced people, and argued offering support to refugee camps would be more effective than resettling a small portion of the refugee population.

Continue reading here. See that he backtracked on earlier remarks about saving white South Africans.
Contact the White House!

Tell the President to go on the offense and push for dumping the 1951 UN Refugee Convention.

If nothing else, a debate on the issue would be extremely useful and might even force our do-nothing Congress to reevaluate the Refugee Act of 1980—a law that has over time allowed the UN to call the shots on who comes to the US as refugees.
See my Australia category by clicking here.