Trump Effect: More Central American migrants want asylum in Mexico, not moving on to US

And, that is how asylum is supposed to work.
Anyone who meets the legal definition of a refugee*** is supposed to seek asylum in the first safe country they reach—not go asylum-shopping throughout the continent as we saw in yesterday’s report on the rush to the Canadian border by many migrants illegally in the US.

More Central American young men are staying in Mexico and applying for asylum. UN sending more workers to process them.

For probably a couple of decades the open borders left has been trying to expand the definition of ‘refugee’ (fleeing violence or looking for better economic conditions does not make one a refugee!) and to condone the practice of asylum-shopping (seeking the best deal!).
The Left wants you to believe that anyone on the move, anywhere in the world, is a legitimate refugee!
Here is a sob-story about how Mexico is being increasingly saddled with Central Americans who would normally be simply passing through to a better deal in the US.
From Buzzfeed News (hat tip: Joanne):

Fleeing violence in their home countries, more Central Americans are seeking asylum in Mexico instead of making the trip north to the US, according to the United Nations.

More Central Americans are seeking asylum upon reaching Mexico, rather than attempt to make it into the US, where the Trump administration has been clamping down on immigration.

The number of Central Americans applying for refugee status in Mexico has been steadily increasing since 2011, but applications surged in 2016 by 156% compared to the year prior, according to Mark Manly, a representative in Mexico for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.

Mark Manly (UNHCR)

“What we have seen is more people arrive in Mexico, not because they’re in transit for a better future in the United States, but they are fleeing for their lives and see in Mexico a country that can offer protection and asylum,” Manly said in an interview released by the UN.

As in previous years, many Central Americans continue to flee violence in Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador, but instead of passing through on their way to the US, many of them are looking to make a new home in Mexico, Manly said. [That is how asylum is supposed to work!—ed]

From November 2016 to March, Mexico’s commission for refugee assistance, known as COMAR, received 5,421 asylum applications. During the same five-month period in 2015, the agency received 2,148 applications, Reuters reported.

As applications for refugee status mount, the Mexico government and United Nations have had to beef up border resources to handle the strain on resources.  [Good! Not our problem!—ed]

More here.
Endnote:
Obama began processing Central Americans to the US as ‘refugees’ directly from El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala last year.  The practice continues under Trump.  We have admitted (directly from their home country) over a thousand (1,106 as of today) mostly fake ‘refugees’ from El Salvador to the US in FY2016 and 2017.
*** Refugee definition (do you see anything in here about violence or economic need?)

(42) The term “refugee” means:

(A) any person who is outside any country of such person’s nationality or, in the case of a person having no nationality, is outside any country in which such person last habitually resided, and who is unable or unwilling to return to, and is unable or unwilling to avail himself or herself of the protection of, that country because of persecution or a well-founded fear of persecution on account of race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group, or political opinion….

For the zillionth time, a legitimate refugee is supposed to be able to prove he or she will be PERSECUTED!  Anyone looking for economic well-being is an “economic migrant.”  Fleeing gangs and violence does not make one a refugee! Notice that war isn’t mentioned either!

Flow chart for refugee admissions shows where Trump team could downsize program with funding cuts

Editor: This is a post (updated for today) that I wrote nearly two years ago, but yesterday when a reader needed some information, I was reminded of it.  I think it is very useful for our thousands of new readers.
I found this flow chart (below) this morning (April 11, 2015) while researching my earlier Texas post and thought it might be useful for all of you asking what the steps are for refugees to enter the US.

President Trump and Sec. of State Tillerson have several ways to ‘skin the cat’ on refugees through funding cuts!

Pay attention to the fact that the ORR chart lists war as a reason one could be a refugee, but in fact war itself is not a trigger for the internationally understood definition of “refugee” which says one must be PERSECUTED (and prove it!).   Here (below) is the definition of refugee (the word “war” is not mentioned).

Obama bastardizing the refugee definition!

It should be noted that ‘economic migrants,’ or people fearing crime in their home country, are also NOT refugees, but Obama is further bastardizing the definition to include the “children” from Central America!  ***Update*** we have admitted over a thousand phony ‘refugees’ from Central American countries in only the first 5 months of FY2017.
From Geneva Academy:
The Definition of a Refugee

International legal protection of refugees centres on a person meeting the criteria for refugee status as laid down in the 1951 Refugee Convention. Under Article 1(A)2, the term “refugee” shall apply to any person who:

“…owing to well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion, is outside the country of his nationality and is unable or, owing to such fear, is unwilling to avail himself of the protection of that country; or who, not having a nationality and being outside the country of his former habitual residence as a result of such events, is unable or, owing to such fear, is unwilling to return to it.”

Thus, according to this provision, refugees are defined by three basic characteristics:

* they are outside their country of origin or outside the country of their former habitual residence;

* they are unable or unwilling to avail themselves of the protection of that country owing to a well-founded fear of being persecuted; and

* the persecution feared is based on at least one of five grounds: race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group, or political opinion.

It is important to stress that the term “asylum seekers” refers to persons, who have applied for asylum, but whose refugee status has not yet been determined.

See that the UN High Commissioner for Refugees controls the intake! By cutting funding for the UNHCR, President Trump can moderate that intake.
Besides the UNHCR, the federal contractors (VOLAGs), which monopolize the program, also control one of the steps. By cutting their many ridiculous grants—like hundreds of thousands of dollars for refugees to plant gardens—the Trump Admin. can also shrink the program. The VOLAGs simply can’t raise enough private money to function well—to function at all! Why is that? Because the public isn’t interested enough to open their private wallets!
They could also limit the number of USCIS officers sent out around the world to do the in-processing.
The bottomline is that I don’t know why on earth Trump had to flag the Refugee Admissions Program in the travel pause Executive Order. So much more could have been done behind-the-scenes. (See also my discussion yesterday on the ‘ceiling’ here)
From the Office of Refugee Resettlement:
(Be sure to see that mention in last step about timing, “varies by circumstance”!  No mention of 18-24 months!)

One report: Trump Dept. of State to cut funding to UN by 50%

That is the news from The Hill two days ago!
Finally an elusive number I’ve wondered about for years is mentioned here:

The US pays $1.5 billion of the $4 billion annual budget of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees.

UN High Commissioner for Refugees glass-fronted building in Geneva. Imagine what this costs to staff and run in Switzerland! American taxpayers pay 37% of it! ($1.5 billion of an annual $4 billion budget).

That is the agency of the UN choosing our refugees for your towns and cities!
The Hill:

President Trump’s administration has told the State Department to cut more than 50 percent of U.S. funding to United Nations programs, Foreign Policy reported.

The push for the drastic reductions comes as the White House is scheduled to release its 2018 topline budget proposal Thursday, which is expected to include a 37 percent cut to the State Department and U.S. Agency for International Development budgets.***

It’s not clear if Trump’s budget plan, from the Office of Management and Budget, would reflect the full extent of Trump’s proposed cuts to the U.N.

[….]

The U.S. spends roughly $10 billion annually on the U.N., and the cuts could have the greatest impact on peacekeeping, the U.N. development program and UNICEF, which are funded by State’s Bureau of International Organization Affairs.

The fate of other popular [?—ed] programs, like the World Food Programme and U.N. refugee operations, are less clear. The World Food Programme’s funding comes from the Department of Agriculture.

Let the wailing begin….

Richard Gowan, a U.N. expert at the European Council on Foreign Relations, said the alterations would spark “chaos” if true.

Richard Gowan, European Council on Foreign Relations, said cuts would bring “chaos.” Photo: http://www.ecfr.eu/experts

“[It would] leave a gaping hole that other big donors would struggle to fill,” he told FP, pointing to how the U.S. provided $1.5 billion of the U.N. refugee agency’s $4 billion budget last year.

“Multiply that across other humanitarian agencies like the World Food Programme and you are basically talking about the breakdown of the international humanitarian system as we know it.”

More here, and then yesterday The Washington Post reported the news as well, but does not mention the UNHCR.
The Post quotes Trump’s UN ambassdor Nikki Haley as saying the following in her confirmation hearing in January. (Just a reminder dear readers that Haley works for Trump, so let’s hope she is now on the same page as the President!)

  “I do not think we need to pull money from the U.N. We don’t believe in slash-and-burn.”

***Let’s talk about USAID for a minute!

We haven’t written much over the years about the Agency for  International Development which also gives gobs and gobs of (your) money to some federal refugee contractors.
I knew the International Rescue Committee couldn’t be pulling in millions from solely seeding refugees in places like Missoula, Montana, so I checked USA Spending just now to see what they were getting from USAID. Yikes!  Here is a screen shot of one tiny portion of one page. (These are grants from 2008 to 2016).

The IRC received nearly $1 billion from US taxpayers during the Obama years!

No wonder they have money to community-organize against citizens in small city America!
 

Six transactions of 971!

 
For our complete archive on the IRC, click here.

Cut Donald, cut!

US Catholic Bishops assail Trump refugee slowdown, never mention the millions they are paid!

Actually it is over a half billion the US Conference of Catholic Bishops received from US taxpayers since 2008!

(By the way, I just heard Raymond Arroyo on Fox and Friends say that the USCCB gets millions of tax dollars annually from the federal treasury, but I couldn’t find the clip.  Yeh! Finally that information is getting in to the mainstream media!)
***Update*** Reader Robin has found the clip.  Be sure to watch (click here) at about 50 seconds in when Brian Kilmeade asks why Lutherans and Catholics oppose the Trump refugee slowdown.  Clearly Arroyo has done some homework!
Here is the latest from Catholic News Agency (CNA):

Washington D.C., Mar 6, 2017 / 03:50 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- With people fleeing humanitarian crises around the world, President Donald Trump’s new executive order halting refugee admissions is wrong, Catholic bishop and aid groups maintain.

Bishop Vasquez chairs the U.S. bishops’ committee on migration. Last time we looked we reported that 97% of the Bishop’s Migration funds money comes from you—the taxpayers! https://refugeeresettlementwatch.org/2017/01/11/and-we-almost-missed-it-us-conference-of-catholic-bishops-celebrates-its-national-migration-week/

“We remain deeply troubled by the human consequences of the revised executive order on refugee admissions and the travel ban. While we note the Administration’s efforts to modify the Executive Order in light of various legal concerns, the revised Order still leaves many innocent lives at risk,” Bishop Joe Vasquez of Austin stated March 6. Bishop Vasquez chairs the U.S. bishops’ committee on migration.

“The U.S. Catholic Bishops have long recognized the importance of ensuring public safety and would welcome reasonable and necessary steps to accomplish that goal,” he said.

“However, based on the knowledge that refugees are already subjected to the most vigorous vetting process of anyone who enters the United States, there is no merit to pausing the refugee resettlement program while considering further improvement to that vetting process.”

Here comes the big lie that Trump is reducing the number  of refugees dramatically!  Contractors, like the US Bishops, did just fine on less than 50,000 refugees during 4 of Bush’s years.
But, for only one year did Obama propose the astronomical number of 110,000 (for most of the year he would not be in office!) and that becomes the standard that the ignorant, gullible media goes with!  For the many new readers we get every day, the resettlement contractors, including the USCCB, gets paid by the head to place refugees in your towns. More refugees=more money!

“Resettling only 50,000 refugees a year, down from 110,000, does not reflect the need, our compassion, and our capacity as a nation,” Bishop Vasquez stated. “We have the ability to continue to assist the most vulnerable among us without sacrificing our values as Americans or the safety and security of our nation.”

He goes on to oppose any religious test (like the prioritization of Christians in the first EO) for admission to the US.
Now, here comes a major truth! And, this is why Christians are not prioritized from Muslim countries!

Refugees must first register with the UNHCR to be eligible for resettlement.

Trump should immediately sever our ties with the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, save us millions of dollars, and put in place a program where we, the US, chooses our refugees without the UNHCR middle men!
CNA continues……

“The Obama administration policy was to prioritize these groups, but despite this they remain severely underrepresented in U.S. refugee admissions, so it’s clear that a fair outcome is even more important than a stated priority,” he said. [Andrew Walther, vice president of communications and strategic planning at the Knights of Columbus.]

Syriac Patriarch Ignatius Joseph III Younan of Antioch has warned that Christians hoping to be resettled in the U.S. or Canada have never even had the chance.

“I personally heard on several occasions from many of our Christian refugees in Lebanon and Jordan, that their applications for refugee visas, either to the USA or Canada, are without any response, if not refused by the consulates of the USA and Canada,” he stated.

Never mentioned at CNA News is the financial reason the USCCB does not want to slow the flow for even a short period of time—$$$$$!
Here (below) is just one page of the income the USCCB is getting from you (from 2008-2016).  This does not include the millions and millions of tax payer dollars received separately by individual Catholic Charities around the country.
My screenshot from USASpending.gov captures only 7 of 227 transactions.

For those of you interested in the USAID funding be sure to scroll through the pages and see how much of that money the USCCB gets!

By the way, since the Bishops are exempt from filing Form 990’s we can’t get at their salaries.

Magic March 3rd was yesterday, refugee flow should now be shutting down

I checked the numbers at Wrapsnet this morning and see that since I reported last on Wednesday (March 1) we had admitted 296 additional refugees.
 

congolese-refugees
The UN asked the US to help clear out their camps for the DR Congolese and as of today we admitted 37,913 in just over 3 years. 50 arrived since Wednesday.

 
Readers will recall that the US State Department notified its refugee resettlement contractors to expect the flow to stop on about March 3rd.  Clearly it hasn’t stopped yet.
Of the 296 admitted since Wednesday, 105 were from four of the seven countries identified in the so-called “travel ban.”
None came in the last few days from Libya, Syria or Yemen (but readers should know that in the last few years only tiny numbers, if any, came from Libya or Yemen).  But, it was a surprise to see that Syria was down to zero in the last couple of days.

The big winner in the gang of seven countries was Somalia which sent us a whopping 77 refugees since Wednesday.

Other big winners, among the usual sending countries, were Burma (97, 12 of those were Muslims) and 50 came from the DR Congo. 

DR Congo! The UN said take 50,000 and we said yes, master!

Long time readers will remember that we promised the United Nations, here in 2013, to admit 50,000 from the DR Congo over 5 years. Only a small number of those are Muslims, but they represent some very traumatized women (with lots of children) who will require expensive mental health treatment, here. Their contribution to the US economy will surely be a negative one as we are clearly importing extreme poverty in this case.

I see that as of this morning we have admitted 37,913 from DR Congo since FY2013!

This is a prime example of a key reform we expect the Trump Administration to make. If we are going to admit some refugees….

We should decide which ‘refugees’ we take, not simply jump when the United Nations tells us to!

Did your state get Congolese?  Here is a map from Wrapsnet showing where the DR Congolese were distributed since FY13:
 
screenshot-389

screenshot-390
If you can’t read Florida, it is 1,329. Alaska is 72 and Hawaii 0. A reminder: Wyoming is the only state that never started a refugee resettlement program.

 
The top three receiving states are Texas, Arizona, and North Carolina.

Tell President Trump to stop jumping when the UN tells us to help them clean out their refugee camps!

Endnote:  I suspect the delay in the new travel ban announcement is that the State Department is waiting to clear the last refugees through airports world wide.
This post is filed in our Trump Watch! category as well as ‘refugee statistics’ and ‘where to find information.’
My DR Congo archive is here.