As you have figured out by now, I am a one issue voter. What we do about immigration/refugees is all that matters for the future of this country, so I’m judging Donald Trump’s choices for high office based on that issue alone.
Needless to say I was shocked and disappointed to see that South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley was headed to New York today for consideration for the job of Secretary of State. See Townhall here.
First, correct me if I’m wrong, but does she have any foreign policy experience? I sure hope Trump isn’t looking to ethnicity and gender to balance his cabinet. If so, put her at the head of the Labor Department or something like that.
A couple of years ago when the refugee resettlement industry turned its eyes to South Carolina, a state which has not received very many refugees over the years, Haley didn’t do anything to slow its arrival.
See our huge archive on Spartanburg by clicking here. And, go here for everything we have said about Haley.
See here for my discussion of why NC is a purple state and SC is still (for now) a conservative red state.
Warmonger Senator Lindsey Graham would have his ally in a very high place. (See Graham on bringing in Syrians, here).
Readers will remember that Haley and SC Rep. Trey Gowdy*** were early supporters of Senator Marco (Gang of Eight) Rubio and that Graham (Gang of Eight) endorsed Jeb Bush. If Gov. Haley runs the US State Department she will be in charge of immigrant visa programs and refugee admissions to the US, and in the case of refugees, choosing where they go. It will be her budget that pays refugee resettlement contractors for the initial resettlement. Senator Lindsey Graham will never let her restrict the UN/US Refugee Admissions Program.
I urge my South Carolina readers to weigh-in and tell me if I am wrong about Haley. Has she done anything to indicate concern about massive numbers of refugees especially from countries that hate us entering the US?
***By the way, Gowdy is chairman of the House subcommittee responsible for the UN/US State Department Refugee Admissions Program and has done nothing to begin to examine the RAP with an eye to reforming it. He didn’t even hold the legally required hearing, as Senator Sessions did in his Senate subcommittee, on Obama’s determination to bring 110,000 refugees to the US in FY2017. So for all of my friends who think that Gowdy is God’s gift to America, think again!
Rumor has it that Lindsey Graham plays a large role in keeping Gowdy quiet on immigration issues.
Tag: US State Department
Ho-hum another Trump fear article reveals an interesting bit of information
Apparently some refugee advocates blame the US State Department’s decades old secrecy about the Refugee Admissions Program (RAP) for the backlash against it!
He (resettlement contractor Christopher George) places some of the blame on the State Department, which encourages resettlement programs to operate at a low profile (in secrecy!).
This is from NPR (no surprise), but buried in its many paragraphs of sad stories about poor Muslim refugees we found a point of agreement with a resettlement contractor (emphasis below is mine):
Donald Trump’s election has sent tremors through America’s refugee advocate community, and caused fear and uncertainty among the most recently resettled refugees, the Syrians. They listened with alarm as candidate Trump called them “terrorists” and blamed them, incorrectly, for violent attacks in America.
“That rhetoric has had an impact,” says Becca Heller, director of the International Refugee Assistance Project, a legal aid program. “Trump has been successful in politicizing refugee admissions in a way that they have not been politicized before.”
[….]
Advocates argue that backtracking on American commitments could encourage other countries to follow the U.S. example, deepening a humanitarian crisis for allies and giving talking points to Muslim militants who claim that the West is hostile to Islam. [Is our goal here to make Muslim militants happy and prove we are good anti-hostile people or to help legitimate refugees, I wonder—ed]
But bipartisan support for refugee resettlement unraveled after last November’s Paris terrorist attacks, when early reporting erroneously identified one of the attackers as a Syrian refugee. Support further declined following last December’s terrorist attack in San Bernardino, Calif., and a mass shooting in June at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando.
Remember this is about money (your money!)
These so-called charities can’t help refugees until they have wads of your tax dollars in their pockets! I say if the general public is supportive, people should contribute private money, not steal from tax payers!
NPR continued:
Now that Republicans control both chambers of Congress and the White House, refugee advocates fear there will be severe funding cuts for their work.
Note in the following paragraph from the NPR story, how an employee of a resettlement agency spins his rhetoric about fears of terrorism by saying there have been no arrests for domestic terrorism in the refugee community. He is completely discounting all of the arrests and convictions of refugees for planning terrorism abroad.
We gave you a few cases here the other day (including domestic jihadists like the Somali Christmas tree bomber, and don’t forget the St. Cloud knife attacker!), but here is news just this morning about another terrorism conviction of a Somali refugee.
You raised this Islamic jihadist wannabee with your tax dollars.
NPR (apparently reporter Deborah Amos is too lazy or too biased to get the facts about refugees and terrorism, so George spins unchallenged!):
Refugee advocate Chris George says the campaign rhetoric could undermine a program that has resettled 750,00 refugees since Sept. 11, 2001 — with not one arrest for a domestic terrorism charge.
However, here is the part of the story I found most useful:
“This all goes back to a fundamental lack of information about the refugee program and lack of contact,” he says.
George is the executive director of Integrated Refugee and Immigrant Services***, a nonprofit agency in New Haven, Conn. His organization has resettled more than 250 refugees this year in a distinctive program that partners with private groups to place refugee families in communities, “so people can meet them and have them live down the street and walk to school with their children.”
Most Americans have never met a refugee, says George, and that is part of the problem.
He places some of the blame on the State Department, which encourages resettlement programs to operate at a low profile.
And, why does the US Department of State operate in secrecy? I maintain it is because if the general taxpaying public knew the full story about the RAP it would be rejected almost everywhere!
*** IRIS is a Church World Service subcontractor. Go here to learn about CWS finances.
Donald Trump, please try to stop this now! We are about to take 1,800 failed asylum seekers that Australia has rejected
When I wrote about this the other day, I didn’t really think our Department of State could be serious, but obviously the Obama Administration is going to shove it down our throats! How many more outrages will we see regarding refugees before January 20th when Donald Trump will be setting US immigration policy?
Watch the 2013 news about the asylum seekers, angry with Australia and the slow processing of their claims, burn down the asylum center. Link here if this doesn’t open: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qoL6dASFh8M
German press (Deutsche Welle) is reporting that we are going to transform Australia’s failed asylum seekers, mostly Muslims, into legitimate refugees bound for Anytown, USA.
I would like to know, from the ‘brains’ at the US State Department, how these 1,800 boat people were vetted. And, most of all, why Australia turned them down!
Deutsche Welle:
The US has agreed to accept 1,800 refugees held at Australian-funded camps in Nauru and Papua New Guinea, according to media reports. Human rights groups have criticized the conditions in the camps. [What? And, that means because conditions are supposedly bad in an Australian camp, its inhabitants become our problem!—ed]
The Australian newspaper reported on Friday that the US and Australia were close to announcing an agreement for up to 1,800 mainly Muslim refugees from the Middle East, Africa and Asia on the island nations of Nauru and Papua New Guinea.
Prime Minster Malcolm Turnbull declined to comment on negotiations with the US. “There’s always speculation about these things” Turnbull said on Melbourne Radio. “And we never comment on them.”
[….]
An agreement struck with the administration of President Barack Obama could be opposed by his successor, Donald Trump who has called for tight restrictions on Muslim immigration into the US.
Human rights groups have condemned the conditions in the camps which they have condemned as an abrogation of Australia’s responsibilities as a signatory to the United Nations Refugee Convention. There have been street protests over the treatment of the refugees (photo).
Immigration Minister Peter Dutton said this week he was looking for countries that would accept all asylum seekers bound for Australia, including those who have had their refugee claims rejected, but who refuse to go home.
Donald Trump really can’t do anything yet, but your Washington reps can!
Call your US Senators and member of Congress!
I’ve been preaching for weeks/months that there is only one place right now (before January 20th) where you can have an impact if you choose to do the work! That is Congress. Call your representatives in Washington on Monday (they should be back to work on Tuesday, but their staffs should be working) and complain about this outrage. Use it as an example of how out of control the UN/US State Department Refugee Admissions Program is.
Tell your representatives to call the US State Department (the Asst. Secretary of State for Population, Refugees and Migration) to put a halt to this sheer insanity!
And, while you are at it, tell your members of Congress to DEFUND the RAP in the FY2017 budget that will be before them beginning on Tuesday.
The plot thickens in Poughkeepsie! Local elected officials not informed about refugee arrival
Uh! Oh! The resettlement contractors are getting awful cocky (and desperate for new sites). I assumed (when I first mentioned Poughkeepsie) that there were some local officials brought in on the plan to begin resettling Syrians in Poughkeepsie in a few short months, but the mayor and others are denying they were informed.
It appears, according to USA Today!, that Church World Service and the US State Department acted unilaterally (and against the law!) if they have already settled on this new site.
The Refugee Act of 1980 requires consultation with local elected officials. They often skirt this requirement by putting on a small briefing for someone in local government just to check the box, but wow, they didn’t even do that here (or so the mayor says!).
See our previous posts on Poughkeepsie here, and here.
From USA Today (headline: “Refugee resettlement planned for Poughkeepsie, but city officials unaware”):
POUGHKEEPSIE, N.Y. — The Church World Service network expects to settle 80 refugees in the City of Poughkeepsie in the next fiscal year in conjunction with opening a resettlement office in the city, network representative said. But area officials, including City Mayor Rob Rolison, do not have details on how the settlements will work, and the Dutchess County Executive’s Office says it did not have a hand in approving the plan.
The faith-based Church World Service network, or CWS, is set to open a resettlement office in the City of Poughkeepsie, according to Christina Levin, director for external relations at CWS.
[….]
The Poughkeepsie office, which would serve refugees from all countries, was approved by the state Bureau of Population, Refugees and Migration. The exact location of the office to still to be determined.
CWS’ presence in Poughkeepsie has ignited debate among the candidates for the 18th Congressional District seat in next week’s election, as well as area residents. At least one group of local organizations has banded together to support the resettlement efforts.
Levin said the CWS has been “working with a number of local partners, including the City of Poughkeepsie” in establishing the office.
[….]
But, Rolison said Wednesday he is still seeking answers regarding how the plan will work.
[….]
“We learned recently that they were considering Poughkeepsie for this, and now that is has been announced they’re going to establish one in the greater Poughkeepsie area, I’ve reached out and left a message (with CWS) about it. We’re trying to learn more details. At this point, I don’t have any,” Rolison said.
Much more here.
Tip for the mayor: Do not bother with CWS, just go right to the US Department of State in Washington,DC for answers. Find out from Barbara Day how all this has come about.
Concerned citizens better get registered for this meeting next week. I warn you this will be a controlled meeting which means they will probably not allow open questions from the floor. Learn a little about something called the Delphi Technique for controlling the outcome of a meeting. Here are all of our mentions of the technique, don’t let them herd you like cattle.
Church World Service will hold an information session about the new Poughkeepsie office Thursday, November 10. at the Adriance Memorial Library.
By the way CWS was the contractor where I live that was responsible for the creation of RRW in 2007 because straight answers were not forthcoming. I need to do a new dossier on their finances, but I am tired of researching today…tomorrow maybe!
First month of fiscal year 2017: 9,935 refugees admitted to the US
This is the largest October resettlement in more than a decade (maybe even longer).
See Michael Patrick Leahy at Breitbart with what the numbers mean, here.
This is the highest October number for at least 10 years (see chart below).
I maintain that the reason for this huge rush to place as many as possible in dozens of new towns and cities, for example, Wilmington, DE, and Poughkeepsie, NY , is to get them (and more offices) established before a possible Trump administration comes in in January and TRIES to put the brakes on the UN/US State Department Refugee Admissions Program.
Also, there is a good story at CNS news out yesterday which looks at numbers in a different way, reporter Patrick Goodenough gives an accounting for CALENDAR year 2016. It can get confusing, but we tend to use the FISCAL year because that is the start of the new year for the US State Department and its resettlement contractors.
We are now one month into FY2017, and here is where the 9,935 refugees have been seeded over the last four weeks. Map is from the Refugee Processing Center:
And then this (below) is a chart showing monthly admissions since 2006, note how low October normally is! We don’t have data going back further, but I will bet you would have to go back to the 1980s to find October resettlements this large. BTW, September is always huge because as the last month of the fiscal year, they want to try to reach their ceiling.
