“It’s a bargaining tool: We’ll take a certain number of refugees. These are the things you will do for us.”
(Melanie Nezer, Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society)
This is just a quick post as I am researching WTH Secretary of State Pompeo was doing when he had a little chit-chat about refugees with the now under- fire Tennessee Governor Bill Lee in October.
U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo
Before I get to the little nugget I discovered in a 2018 Politicoarticle about Pompeo, I want to remind long time readers, and inform new readers, that way back seven years ago (and long before that) the US State Department annually invited comment on the coming years refugee plans.
However, when those so-called scoping meetings began to be dominated by those of us who want the refugee program dumped or reformed, they stopped having the annual (albeit phony) ‘hearings.’
The Trump State Department has had no such opportunity for public input.
I regularly sent in testimony demanding a moratorium on the program and listed ten reasons, most are still applicable today. See them here.
Here is my Number 7:
7) Congress needs to specifically disallow the use of the refugee program for other purposes of the US Government,especially using certain refugee populations to address unrelated foreign policy objectives—Uzbeks, Kosovars, Meshketians and Bhutanese (Nepalese) people come to mind.
“Pompeo is the critical stakeholder,” one refugee advocate said.
Melanie Nezer of the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society. (One of nine federal refugee resettlement contractors.)
Now that he’s served both as CIA director and secretary of state, activists hope that Pompeo has earned an appreciation for the diplomatic leverage having a robust refugee program can give the U.S. in negotiations with other countries.
“It’s a bargaining tool: We’ll take a certain number of refugees. These are the things you will do for us,” explained Melanie Nezer, a top official with HIAS, one of several organizations that helps refugees.
It is time to shut up about the humanitarian BS! A refugee should be someone who is in legitimate need of protection, not a chip in a foreign policy poker game.
Think about that! Your community will be changed forever (while you pay for it with your tax dollars) because refugees being admitted to the US are pawns in US foreign policy wheeling and dealing!
“‘If I sign to let refugees in, is that going against the President?’ ”
(Refugee lobbyist Jen Smyers said elected officials want to know!)
The Answer: Yes!
When the White House designed their September Executive Order to give governors and county commissions the ultimate say on whether refugees would be placed in their states, they miscalculated on (at least) two fronts.
First they had apparently no idea of how networked and politically savvy the resettlement contractors*** are as their very survival is dependent on their federal funding. (Just for the record, no one in the administration asked those of us who know the operational structure of the contractor network for any advice.)
And, America Firsters! have no national grassroots network to begin to compare with the nine contractors and their friends.
But, most importantly, the supposed reformers working for the President apparently did not have a firm understanding of how weak most Republican governors are on immigration issues of any sort.
Open Borders Inc. has so thoroughly trained most elected officials to get in line with their agenda, or be called racists and xenophobes, and God forbid, nationalists, that most governors were shocked when they heard they were being forced to go on record on whether they would be ‘welcoming’ poverty and cultural diversity to their states or not.
One positive that might come from this exercise is that Americans, who have had enough of supporting migrants of all stripes, are going to have a list of those who are going against America First!
Yesterday New Yorker reporter Jonathan Blitzer provided detailson how the governors are falling one-by-one in line against the President on a key 2016 campaign promise. Of course we don’t know if Blitzer has all of his facts straight, but he sure sounds like someone with an inside track—a track that we don’t have!
How the White House Is Trying—and Failing—to Keep States from Resettling Refugees
One of the chief priorities of the Trump White House has been to dismantle the refugee system, which has existed, with broad bipartisan support, since 1980. Within the first week of Trump’s Presidency, his Muslim ban temporarily froze the resettlement of refugees in the U.S. and cut the over-all number of people whom the federal government would allow into the country. Every year since, the White House has lowered the annual refugee “ceiling,” which now stands at eighteen thousand, down from more than a hundred and ten thousand, at the start of 2017. But the President hasn’t limited his attacks on the system to Washington. A provision of the Muslim ban, for instance, specified that individual states and localities should be allowed to refuse to accept refugees. At the time, it wasn’t clear how states could do so, but the premise was obvious: if the White House could turn refugee resettlement into a partisan wedge issue, Republican-controlled states might abandon the program and side with the President.
Jen Smyers works for Church World Service. CWS is suing the Administration to stop the Executive Order. They have for decades decided where refugees will be placed in America and they don’t want any governor or local government messing with their power to change your community by changing the people.
On September 26th, Trump issued an executive order requiring that every local and state jurisdiction sign a consent letter in order to resettle refugees. If a governor or county commission failed to produce a letter, the U.S. State Department, which oversees the process, would effectively consider that jurisdiction ineligible for resettlement. The order was designed to put additional pressure on local officials, by forcing them to opt in to the resettlement program rather than opt out. “A lot of governors and state officials don’t want to make this decision,” Jen Smyers, of Church World Service, a resettlement agency, told me. “Immigration has always been the jurisdiction of the federal government, and they don’t believe it’s their role. At first, some officials would also say, ‘If I sign to let refugees in, is that going against the President?’ ”
Yes, of course it is going against the President! The President made it clear at a Minnesota rally that he wanted to curtail refugee resettlement in America.
These questions intensified after Trump, at a campaign rally in Minnesota, in October, complained about the number of Somali refugees who have settled in the state in recent years. “Leaders in Washington brought large numbers” of them, he said. The crowd booed, on cue, then cheered when the President announced that he would give states and cities an opportunity to prevent more refugees from coming. “No other President would be doing that,” he said.
Each year, nine refugee-resettlement agencies across the country bid for contracts with the government [LOL! bid for bodies!—ed] This time, at the behest of the White House, the State Department added a caveat to the application: the federal government would not resettle refugees in a particular place unless consent was provided in accordance with the executive order. Meanwhile, a few weeks after Trump signed the order, officials at the State Department told resettlement groups that they planned to contact mayors and governors to request consent letters from them. But the department never did; a month later, the resettlement groups had to start conducting outreach on their own. “The best way to get someone not to write a letter is to not tell them they need to do it,” Smyers said.
Lo and behold, the contractors went to work in October with a massive lobbying campaign in key states and counties and began racking up consent letters. The best prizes of all are the Republican Governors!
The Trump Administration was caught off guard by the positions taken by Republican-controlled states. Just before Thanksgiving, after the governor of North Dakota submitted his consent letter, the White House organized a phone call with governors’ offices to “enhance state and local involvement” in resettlement. Those invited to participate were given only a few days notice.
Blitzer reported also that the lawsuit the contractors have filed against the Executive Order will be heard by a friendly to them federal judge on January 8th.
Not mentioned by Blitzer, because he likely has no clue, is that big globalist corporations and Chambers of Commerce are lobbying the governors for more refugees to enhance the low wage labor pool especially in the heartland riddled with BIG MEAT slaughterhouses.
But that doesn’t fit the narrative that the likes of the New Yorker want to portray which is humble humanitarians vs. the menace in the White House.
We are seeing numerous news accounts of which governors are going against the President. Early next week we will post on which Republican governors have gotten their consent letters to the US State Department.
Before Monday, I might post on South Dakota’s Republican Governor Kristi Noem’s welcome announcement because of who is cheering her consent.
If you have opened RRWfor the first time with this post, please see my category ‘Where to find information’for all the news on the President’s Executive Order.
***For new readers these (below) are the nine federally-funded refugee contractors that monopolize all refugee placement in America. For decades they have decidedin secrecy where to place refugees and they don’t want to lose that power because even as they pontificate about their religious convictions and humanitarian zeal, they are Leftwing political activist groups working to change America by changing the people and using your money to do it!
And, they do not limit their advocacy toward only legal immigration programs, but are heavily involved in supporting the lawlessness at our borders.
The question isn’t as much about refugees per se, but about who is running federal immigration policy now and into the future?
I continue to argue that these nine contractors are the heart of Americas 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 taxpayersto work as community organizers pushing an open borders agenda.
The federally-funded refugee resettlement contractors*** are working overtime (and LOL! probably receiving overtime pay!) to get governors and county elected officials to send their consent to ‘welcome’ refugees to your state and county by Christmas.
Pennsylvania’s Governor Tom Wolf was the first governor to send a letter to say his state would be thrilled with more refugees. His letter arrived in mid-October, weeks before the official funding guidance was released by the State Department. Clearly the contractors had a jump on soliciting elected officials.
The consents will be good only for a portion of this fiscal year (2020) beginning in June.
News accounts are too numerous for me to write about, except I will find time to write about any counties in America that join Appomattox, County, Virginia! Or, where any patriots put up a fight!
And, if the contractors fail in court—yes, of course, they have filed a lawsuitto stop the President’s reform initiative—the process is expected to be repeated for the 2021 fiscal year which begins October 1, 2020.
However, although news accounts are plentiful, actual approval letters on file at the US State Department are sparse as of this morning.
Click hereto see which governors and which counties have signed up.
Note that cities have sent approvals, but according to the funding guidance, here, it is the county government that must opt-in or opt-out.
If you have opened RRWfor the first time with this post, please see my category ‘Where to find information’for all the news on the President’s Executive Order.
The contractors are working to acquire as many consents by Christmas so that they then know how to craft their grant proposals which are due in to the State Department by January 21st. This whole initiative is built around federal money (your money) for the contractors.
***For new readers these (below) are the nine federally-funded refugee contractors that monopolize all refugee placement in America. For decades they have decided in secrecy where to place refugees and they don’t want to lose that power because even as they pontificate about their religious convictions and humanitarian zeal, they are Leftwing political activist groups working to change America by changing the people and using your money to do it!
By our count twelve governors have told the US State Department (or at least told the media) that they want more refugees. (See my right hand sidebar.)
The contractors*** have been claiming that 16 or 17 have agreed.
(The contractors are pressing governors to agree by Christmas so they, the contractors, will have time to get their grant applications in—this is all about them getting their $$$.)
However, get this, the US State Department websitewent up today and only 9 governors have so far sent in their paperwork.
Only a tiny number of local jurisdictions have sent in the required consent, and it looks like there is some confusion because it is our understanding that it is county governments that must agree.
Below is what the DOS has at this time (not terribly impressive!).
***For new readers these (below) are the nine federally-funded refugee contractors that monopolize all refugee placement in America. For decades they have decided in secrecy where to place refugees and they don’t want to lose that power because even as they pontificate about their religious convictions and humanitarian zeal, they are Leftwing political groups working to change America by changing the people and using your money to do it!
Just so you know—most of the country ‘welcomed’ some refugees in the first group of arrivals for FY2020.
Resettlement will continue as it always has until June 2020 when supposedly the Trump EO will be in effect.
As Open Borders Inc. continues on its quest to turn Texas blue, Texas is again numero uno in ‘welcoming’ Africans, Asians and Middle Eastern impoverished refugees to its towns and cities.
If (when!) the contractors convince Texas Governor Abbott to send a permission letter to the US State Department, the contractors will achieve a great victory. So, I sure hope you Texans are working hard!
(See previous post Kansas has thrown in the towel! Taxpayers will pay the price just so some meatpackers will get cheap labor!).
Below is where the US State Department and its nine contractors*** placed 1,488 refugees in the last month.
Nothing I can do about the tiny type. Itold you all herehow to use the Refugee Processing Center data.
The top ten ‘welcoming’ states have a few additions. I haven’t seen Indiana or Minnesota in the top ten in recent times, and Kentucky is climbing up the ladder.
Texas, California, New York, Kentucky, Arizona, Washington, Indiana, Illinois, Minnesota and Florida are the top ten in that order.
Here is the map where 1,488 refugees were placed between November 1 and December 1, 2019:
Below are the top sending countries (in parenthesis after each is the number of Muslims in the group). Take note of the fact that we are only bringing in a tiny number of Middle Eastern Christians from Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria.
There is no Muslim ban.
DR Congo 509 (M: 17) It is maddening when you consider that Obama said more than six years ago that we wouldlimit our intake of DR Congolese to 50,000 and we are now at or near 60,000!
Burma 337 (M:37)
Moldova 94 (M: 0)
Afghanistan 91 (M:82)
Ukraine 78 (M: 0)
Iraq 50 (M: 35)
Syria 37 (M:32) So much for saving the Syrian Christians!
Somalia 31 (M: 31) Sixteen of these went to Minnesota over the last 4 weeks.
*** These are the nine federally funded contractors, all political Leftwing organizations, that at present are deciding where the UN-chosen refugees are being placed in America.
If you didn’t know, I have a category entitled, ‘where to find information.‘ You might find it useful to follow some of my recent posts on the President’s Executive Order.
By our count twelve governors have told the US State Department (or at least told the media) that they want more refugees. (See my right hand sidebar.)
