Tag: US Committee for Refugees and Immigrants

USCRI Who? This Refugee Resettlement Agency is Laying Low, and Doing Well

~ Ann Corcoran ~ 3 Comments

I’ve been noticing the absence of the US Committee for Refugees and Immigrants (USCRI), one of the top nine federal contractors***, in all the anti-Trump media hubbub and wondered if they were shrinking financially and therefore laying low to stay out of Trump’s line of sight.

So I checked today, and guess what?

USCRI is approximately 96% federally funded, and…..

They are doing financially better under the Trump Administration than they ever did in the Obama years. 

But, before I give you the data, let me tell you how much controversy they stirred over the years.

Memory lane:

Former USCRI CEO Lavinia Limon with Chobani CEO at the Clinton Global Initiative (all you need to know!).

Longtime readers may remember the huge controversy in Twin Falls, Idaho that I wrote about extensively for months that involved USCRI’s subcontractor there.  It revolved around Chobani Yogurt’s hunger for refugee labor and came to a media explosion over the sexual abuse of a child by refugee boys.

Then there was USCRI’s effort to open a new office in Rutland, VT that ended in failure when citizens rose up, protested, and threw out the ‘welcoming’ mayor.

Earlier I reported on the mess USCRI was embroiled in in Bowling Green, KY when Burmese refugees were placed in substandard housing.

(Here I am going to urge readers to use the search window top right at RRW and enter key words to find out more about Twin Falls, Rutland, Bowling Green, Lavinia Limon, Eskinder Negash etc. and save me some work putting in a zillion links!)

One point on the issue of subcontractors: 

Someone knowledgeable about the big nine recently mentioned that local agencies don’t have the same name sometimes as their parent organization.  Exactly right! Whether they do that on purpose I don’t know, but for those of you wanting to better understand how secretive this program is, that is one important piece of evidence.

Hundreds of subcontractors work for the big nine and those nine move federal funding to their subcontractors usually referred to as affiliates.

They have been wailing and moaning about having to close offices in the Trump era, apparently Trump isn’t hurting USCRI.

Go here to see USCRI’s affiliates:

 

Revolving door!

Also, USCRI is notable as a prime example of the revolving door between government contractors and the agencies from which the organization gets most of its funding.

Both USCRI’s previous CEO Lavinia Limon (headed Clinton’s Office of Refugee Resettlement) and its present CEO Eskinder Negash (headed Obama’s ORR) revolved in and out of government.  Both have done very well themselves in the process as you will see below.

First, here is the stunning financial information at USA Spending.  (I told readers how to use the invaluable site in Knowledge is Power V.)

Remember that we are only 4 months into FY2020 and that is why that number is so low. So check back in September.

 

Looking at the most recently available IRS Form 990, we can say that USCRI is 96% federally funded—that is funded by you, the US taxpayer!

That means they are acting like a government agency but without any of the checks and balances of a federal agency. For example you can’t use the Freedom of Information Act to get information out of a ‘non-profit.’

Check out the 6-figure salaries you pay!  Some are higher than US Senators or Supreme Court Justices!

Ms. Limon is gone, but apparently not at the time this Form990 was filed. By the way the next page lists four additional employees making above six-figures. https://pdf.guidestar.org/PDF_Images/2018/131/878/2018-131878704-1108fd6f-9.pdf

 

See all of my Knowledge is Power series.

*** Here are the nine major federal refugee contractors.  I’ve analyzed five so far including USCRI today and only the US Conference of Catholic Bishops has taken a serious budgetary hit under the Trump Administration.  Congress and the Deep staters are making sure these fake non-profits are staying in the black.

So far only the US Conference of Catholic Bishops has seen a significant decline in its federal funding.  In fact the three who recently sued to stop the Trump refugee reform effort—Church World Service, Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service and HIAS—are doing very well.  Now we know that USCRI is doing exceedingly well.

I will work on the remaining four in the coming days and weeks.

I continue to argue that these nine contractors are the heart of America’s Open Borders movement and thus there can never be long-lasting reform of US immigration policy when these nine un-elected phony non-profits are paid by the taxpayers to work as community organizers pushing an open borders agenda.

 

Refugee contractors putting the squeeze on Potus, you need to squeeze back

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment
refugees welcome anti Trump
Protesters eager for more refugees demonstrate against President Trump

 

I know, I know, you are probably getting sick of hearing from me on the issue of the upcoming Presidential Determination on the number of refugees to be admitted to the US in Fiscal Year 2019 which begins on October first—less than 2 months from now.

But, I must keep talking about it because the Open Borders Left and especially the nine federal refugee resettlement contractors are lobbying day and night to pressure the Prez into going back to the levels they enjoyed during the Obama presidency.

They are in desperation mode!

Continue reading “Refugee contractors putting the squeeze on Potus, you need to squeeze back” →

Long time refugee advocate and refugee agency CEO is gone

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

This isn’t exactly breaking news!
Lavinia Limon stepped down as head of the US Committee for Refugees and Immigrants (USCRI) last October according to a statement by the head of its board of directors. However, it may not have been a voluntary retirement. Someone recently reported to me that she was “forced” out during a period of growing “panic” among the nine federal contractors who are seeing their budgets shrink as refugee arrivals slow.
USCRI is presently being led by her longtime sidekick, Eskinder Negash.
This is a portion of the statement (about her ‘retirement’) from Board Chairman attorney Gene DeFilice:

Message from the Chairman of the Board of USCRI

Dear USCRI staff and partner agencies,

Lavinia Limon, CEO and President of USCRI has decided to retire from USCRI effective October 13, 2017. The Board appreciates Ms. Limon’s over four decades of service to refugees and immigrants, and her contribution to USCRI, thanks her, and wishes her the best in her future endeavors.

lavinia-and-chobani
A picture worth a thousand words. Limon was Bill Clinton’s Director of ORR and here she is with Mr. Chobani Yogurt. USCRI is the agency bringing refugee labor to Twin Falls, Idaho which benefits globalist Chobani!

The Board of Directors has appointed Mr. Eskinder Negash as acting Chief Executive Officer. The Board is currently in the process of conducting a national search, which includes the consideration of Mr. Negash.

Mr. Negash, a refugee himself, has devoted his entire distinguished career to addressing the needs of refugees and immigrants. Mr. Negash brings nearly 40 years of experience working on behalf of refugees and immigrants and managing non-profit social service agencies. Prior to joining USCRI, Mr. Negash served as Director of the Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR), within the Administration of Children and Families, at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services from 2009-2015. With a budget of over 1.5 billion, the ORR is the largest government-funded refugee resettlement organization in the world. During Mr. Negash’s tenure, the ORR provided essential services to more than 850,000 vulnerable people through its Resettlement Program, Rescue & Restore anti-trafficking campaign, and the Unaccompanied Children’s Program.

Additionally, Mr. Negash served as Vice President and Chief Administrative Officer of the International Institute of Los Angeles for 15 years, and the Chief Operating Officer of USCRI from 2002-2009.

[….]

As we thank Lavinia for her service, say good-bye, and wish her well, please join me in congratulating and supporting Eskinder as he assumes the position of acting Chief Executive Officer of USCRI.

Sincerely,

Gene DeFelice

Chairman of the Board of Directors of USCRI

(There was no mention of retirement party or farewell gala.)
If you are a longtime reader of RRW, you know that both Lavinia Limon and Eskinder Negash have been gracing our pages for years.

Lavinia-Eskinder-Full-e1450277904628
Negash and Limon in happier days!

Click here for a huge archive on Limon and here for Negash.   I don’t have the time (or patience) for a rundown on their whole careers.
However, just a few key bits of information on Limon.
She was Bill Clinton’s Director of the Office of Refugee Resettlement and I believe a key player in promoting the idea of refugee labor for BIG MEAT (and eventually BIG YOGURT) that began with Clinton admitting large numbers of Bosnian Muslims for his friends in the Iowa beef industry during her leadership of the Office of Refugee Resettlement in HHS.
It is actually a clever scheme: Bring in cheap captive labor ($$$) for your industry pals and wear the white hat of humanitarianism as you do it!
Michael Leahy at Breitbart chronicled Limon’s career here (a must read!).
As for Negash, he left his post as Director of the ORR (note both of them revolved in and out of government) under strange, never explained, circumstances, see here.

Again, I have no idea why this shakeup at USCRI, but it is more evidence that Donald Trump’s refugee policies are breaking up old alliances and power structures in the swamp.

USCRI’s finances….

You can imagine that they are hurting.  They are one of the nine federal contractors*** that is almost completely federally funded.  See a discussion of their finances here from last March. I put them (at that time) at about 94% funded by the government (you).  Limon was making a largely federally funded salary/related income of over $300,000!
And then see here when I analyzed all nine contractors a few months later, I put them at 98% government funded.  I was using facts provided by Charity Navigator which told me that this agency could not be evaluated because:

This organization is not eligible to be rated by Charity Navigator because, as a service for individual givers, we only rate organizations that depend on support from individual contributors and foundations. Organizations such as this, that get most of their revenue from the government or from program services, are therefore not eligible to be rated.

Go here to find an USCRI subcontractor office near you.

And, this reminds me, speaking of CEOs leaving, I wonder what is happening over at Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service that was undergoing a shake-up at about the same time, see here. 
Did Hartke survive?
*** These are the nine federal contractors largely funded by you. In parenthesis, after each, is the percentage of their income funded by Congress out of the US Treasury.  They are paid by the head to resettle refugees, so as the Trump Administration slows the flow into the country, their budgets are being strained to the breaking point.

This federal refugee contracting agency is 97% taxpayer funded

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

I’m talking about the US Committee for Refugees and Immigrants (USCRI) which is the contractor responsible for refugees arriving in Twin Falls, Idaho. USCRI is also the agency embroiled in the controversy about bringing Syrian Muslims to Rutland, VT.

Screenshot (14)
This is Lavinia Limon, CEO of USCRI, sharing the stage with Mr. Chobani (Hamdi Ulukaya) at the same Clinton Global Initiative gathering where Bill Clinton and Ulukaya thought it was a great idea to repopulate Detroit with Syrian refugees. Chobani Yogurt actively seeks refugee employees for their yogurt plants in New York and Idaho. Ms. Limon supplies the town of Twin Falls with refugees. Cozy huh? Watch here: http://livestream.com/CGI/events/4386105/videos/100644641

This is the second in my series on the US State Department’s nine major resettlement contractors***.  I told you about Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service (LIRS) here a couple of days ago.  I’ve reported on the nine (really quasi-government agencies) many times over the years, but it’s been about 2 years since I examined each of their financial statements closely, and since we have so many new readers I figured it was time to do it again.
The information on USCRI is from its 2014 Form 990 to the IRS:

They had a total revenue that year of $51,524,570

Of that $46,560,452 is from government grants (that is you).

They had another $3.4 million from various fees and contracts.  $1.9 million of that was from those air fare loans I told you about in the post on LIRS. I expect that most of the $3.4 comes from government sources of funding.

Run those numbers and you will see this means that 97% of their funds are from federal, state and local tax payers.
Forget that warm and fuzzy spin about charity and “humanitarianism!”

They couldn’t exist without your money and without Congress shelling it out to them!

 
Here is page 11 of this 2014 Form 990:
 
Screenshot (13)
 
Go to page 10 and check out the salaries:
USCRI’s head honcho is Lavinia Limon (Breitbart told you about her recently). Formerly Bill Clinton’s director of the Office of Refugee Resettlement, she pulled down a salary and related income package of $302,519 in 2014.  Another Limon (family member?) collected $159,344.
Dear critics, if you find it outrageous that we report this information, remember this: If these were real charitable organizations raising private money I would not care how much they take in or how much they pay their employees, but these are in effect quasi-government agencies and therefore we are entitled to know where our money goes! By way of comparison, go here and see that federal elected officials and judges do not make nearly as much as Ms. Limon because they are accountable to you, she isn’t! Yikes! She makes more than Vice President Joe Biden!

Wow! I just went back to the accounting I did using the contractors 2012 Form 990s.  Go here and see how much their revenues have jumped in two years!
Is USCRI working in your town, go here and find out!
***These are the nine major resettlement contractors that monopolize all refugee resettlement in America, under them are 350 or so subcontractors:

Rutland Board of Aldermen to vote Tuesday on allowing refugee referendum on ballot

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

The citizens of Rutland, VT who have expressed anger at their mayor for secretly working with a federal refugee resettlement contractor to bring 100 Syrians to the small city, have been busy.  They garnered enough signatures on a petition to put the issue on the ballot, but the Mayor and Board of Alderman will have the final say (this Tuesday) on whether it can be put before the voters.
(Of course the feds can shove the refugees down their throats anyway, but that is besides the point!)

Matt Bloomer
Rutland City Alderman Matt Bloomer frets in an op-ed about the really tough decision he has to make on Tuesday. Oh well, isn’t that what leaders have to do—make tough decisions!

Not unlike the issue surrounding resettlement of refugees in Twin Falls, Idaho where the controversy has been swirling for years (by the way, it is the same federal contractor making $$$ on a per head basis in Vermont and Idaho—US Committee for Refugees and Immigrants), the citizens in both places are demanding full public debate on the “plans” for the new (Rutland) or continued (Twin Falls) resettlement of third worlders to their communities.
But, therein lies the rub, the feds and their contractors have no plans as such. In Athens, GA in 2014 the Democratic Mayor said give me a plan—-where will the refugees work, and live?  Does Athens have adequate subsidized housing, can our schools handle large numbers of illiterate children?  How about our health department, is it ready for communicable diseases and parasites not often seen in American cities?
In other words, she was asking for the feds and the contractor to essentially prepare an economic and social impact statement before giving a green light to the arrival of refugees.
I don’t know if things have changed since I learned this past April that Athens still has no resettlement office. Why? My guess is that the US State Department and the Office of Refugee Resettlement(in HHS) don’t want to set a precedent and prepare a plan (with public hearings etc.) because secrecy has worked so well for the last 30 plus years to slip refugees into unsuspecting towns, why change anything now!
Sorry to go on so long. To catch up on Rutland, go here  and here. Don’t forget our previous post on Tuberculosis in Vermont.  Our previous posts on Rutland are here.

A vote on refugees would screw-up the “positive narrative about our county.”

Then see where one Alderman (Matt Bloomer a Rutland Young Professional) says he plans to vote against placing a referendum on the ballot, here.  His biggest fear isn’t who might come into Rutland, what poverty or diseases they might bring in, whether the town could afford the costs necessary to educate the refugee children, whether there are security worries or increased crime, etc.
He is worried that, by simply voting, Rutland might get a bad reputation!

Bloomer:

People from around the state and country will be left with the perception that we are a closed and unfeeling community, rather than the welcoming and compassionate community that we actually are.

These misconceptions would be spread at a time when many dedicated people have worked hard to build positive momentum for our community. They would be spread at a time when we’ve recognized the need to proactively recruit people and businesses in order to sustain the size of our community and the quality of life we enjoy. Rutland County legislators from both sides of the aisle have told us that these misconceptions would set back their successful efforts in creating a positive narrative in Montpelier about our county.

Readers ask me all the time what can they do to stop this.  You can be sure Washington isn’t going to help you. Besides what you are already doing—demanding transparency and thoughtful deliberation—I’ve come to the conclusion that as much as you don’t want to do it, you will have to change your local elected officials, maybe run for public office yourself.  Even if you can’t win the first time, you will help raise the issue before voters.
Endnote: Has USCRI ever given the Mayor and Aldermen the R & P Abstract which they surely prepared for the US State Department?  Just wondering! (See the one they prepared for Reno, here. There is one for Rutland!).