Tag: USCRI

Who Are All the Afghans We Airlifted? Will We Ever be Told?

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

The Conservative Tree House (The Last Refuge) has a story yesterday, hat tip: Cathy, in which they question who are all the people we flew out of Afghanistan when few were Americans and few apparently were those with Special Immigrant Visas?

State Department Admits the majority of Afghans and SIVs who helped us did not evacuate, so who are these 116,000 Afghans we evacuated?

According to the data provided by the U.S. State Department in the last few days, the total number of people evacuated from the Kabul airport was 122,000.  Of those, 6,000 were American citizens (AmCits), and 116,000 were Afghan refugees.

Today the State Department admits the “majority” of the qualified Afghan people who assisted the U.S. during operations in Afghanistan, Afghan Special Immigrant Visa (SIV) applicants, did not get evacuated.  That admission begs the question: then who the heck are those 116,000 refugees?

Well, they mostly are not legitimate refugees (yet!).  They are just more bodies the left is using to change America by changing the people.

How do I know?  Because the federal resettlement contractors*** are anxious.

If they aren’t refugees, then they are likely being paroled into the US and that means there won’t be a large pot of payola for the contractors, nor will there be gobs of taxpayer money flowing to individual Afghans (well, at least not yet!) for a panoply of welfare programs.

It also means that they don’t automatically get permission to stay, but let me ask you:  Do you think there is a chance in hell that any will ever be sent back to Afghanistan?

Keep in mind that I have been on (LOL!) sabbatical for most of the last month, so I haven’t been doing my usual extensive reading on refugee industry politics nor have I been following the contractors closely.  Therefore this is not the definitive word on what the hell is going on as Biden’s White House team wings it!

However this bulletin from the US Committee for Refugees and Immigrants explaining the program that is likely being used to move so many foreign nationals into the US so quickly is informative.

If they aren’t legit refugees it is questionable whether the contractors will be in on the action.

It appears that Congress might have to change some laws to free up welfare for a large number of Afghans (and in order for the contractors to help them because the contractors, of course, do not work for free!).

Below are screen shots of the opening paragraphs and the closing paragraph of the USCRI document (photographed because I am afraid the pdf might disappear).

[….]

By the way, the refugee industry lobbying arm—Refugee Council USA––has created opportunities for you to get involved promoting and lobbying for the quick placement of Afghans (whoever they are!) into America.

*** These are the nine Leftwing federal resettlement contractors that are busy beavers right now as they juggle for position to be awarded their allotments of ‘refugees’ (refugee industry watchers refer to the process as bidding for bodies).

 

Will Refugee Resettlement Resume Tomorrow as Was Expected? News from Idaho

~ Ann Corcoran ~ 2 Comments

Tomorrow is the previously stated date for refugees to begin arriving again in large numbers.  They have been trickling in, probably a couple of hundred in the last two months since refugee travel was halted by the United Nations, but the US Refugee Program is largely shut down.

Special Immigrant Visas do continue to arrive from Afghanistan by the hundreds, but I’ll leave that discussion for another day.

Meanwhile the only news coming out of the mainstream media about refugees in America are sob stories about how they are struggling, out of work, fearful of being evicted, and trying to cope with COVID (like all of America!).

Some are working in essential services like meatpacking (Yogurt making?), others like those in the hospitality industry are out of work in large numbers.

Here is one such story from Twin Falls, Idaho where controversy over refugee resettlement has been muted after years of public protests about how the program was changing Idaho.

(I have a huge archive on Idaho, see it here.)

The third world moving to Twin Falls, Idaho. Map from the heyday of the Obama years. https://www.eastidahonews.com/2016/12/starting-over-a-young-african-father-of-six-seeks-a-new-life-refuge-in-idaho/

 

From MagicValley.com:

‘It’s like we’re living a half life’ — For refugees, COVID-19 impacts depend on where they live

The star of this story, a refugee from the DR Congo, says he is more worried about his brother in a refugee camp in Africa.

However, so far, the Chinese Virus has made no significant impact on refugee camps (although as I have reported it isn’t for the media’s lack of interest, they expect catastrophe momentarily).

The article mostly discusses how challenging it is for refugees to live here in America these days (especially as many can’t speak English) and how the refugee agencies are short of funding and also cannot help refugees in person. (Why not? Where are their masks?)

They really aren’t short of funding as I pointed out here.  The nine major contractors that send money down to subcontractors are getting nearly as much as they did during the Obama years (some are getting more!) when thousands upon thousands arrived every month!

The motherships must be holding on to the cash in order to pay salaries of their top execs.  Besides, letting the low level staffers go makes for a better media story anyway!

Here is one little snip from this publication (these Idaho papers are prickly, they once sent me a letter telling me I couldn’t snip their stories).

Director Zeze Rwasama College of Southern Idaho Refugee Center in Twin Falls, Idaho. CSI is a subcontractor of the US Committee for Refugees and Immigrants.

The federal government pushed the date resettlements would restart from May 1 to May 15, but resettlement centers anticipate it will be pushed again.

“For that to happen involves the coordination of many government agencies to allow a refugee to travel,” Rwasama said.

“Many of those agencies are working with limited staff. I don’t see how we can receive refugees during this time.”

Coping with reduced budgets:

Now that refugee resettlement is halted in the wake of COVID-19, federal funding coming to resettlement programs will be drastically reduced…

You can read it all here.

Then there is an AP story  circulating mostly about Arizona Afghans you can read yourself entitled:

New refugees struggle to find footing in US during pandemic

Coping with reduced budgets! Not!

The College of Southern Idaho Refugee Program is a subcontractor of the US Committee for Refugees and Immigrants which is almost 100% funded by taxpayers.  Its chief executive officer makes at least a quarter of a million a year in salary (last we checked) that YOU are paying.

Here is how they are doing financially from USA Spending….

The $90 million in the left hand corner is the amount of federal funding they have received in the last 12 months!

 

 

The International Rescue Committee, also mentioned in the Twin Falls sob story, has seen little change in its financial position from the Obama years.  Its CEO, David Miliband, is pulling down a salary approaching a million dollars annually.

How about if they pony-up some of their federal funding to directly feed and house refugees they have distributed around America for years.

Why should taxpayers first pay for the resettlement and now pay for refugee care during the virus crisis?

$215 Million in the last twelve months!

 

This is no time to resume admitting more poverty to America!

Iowa: Refugee Contractors Happy to Supply Foreign Laborers for Globalist Corporations

~ Ann Corcoran ~ 5 Comments

There was a time, a decade ago, when an article like this would not have been written.

The image of a refugee resettlement agency was that of a purely humanitarian organization working with little funding solely to save the globe’s downtrodden with the help of generous volunteers.

Now they are right out in the open making it clear that they are working to help globalist companies like the big meatpackers that are changing America by changing the character of the heartland through a greedy desire for cheap migrant labor.

Let me be clear, Americans previously did work in the meat and poultry industry and would do so again if wages reflected the difficult work, but once the meat giants discovered what amounts to captive slave labor that doesn’t dare complain, can’t go home, and is willing to work for far less than Americans, there was no going back.

https://refugees.org/find-a-location/

Here we see the US Committee for Refugees and Immigrants (USCRI) (see their finances here) shilling for Tyson Foods, for BIG MEAT!

Don’t miss: Bernie Sanders organized pork plant workers in Iowa for the recent presidential caucus as refugees and immigrants vote for Dems.

From The Perry News:

Pay attention!  If your town is getting a Tyson Foods plant, you WILL be getting third worlders of all stripes, changing the character of your town forever!

 

Trump’s latest immigration ban threatens Tyson labor pool

The latest anti-immigration proclamation by U.S. President Donald Trump could directly impact the ability of Tyson Fresh Meats in Perry to hire laborers.

Trump’s Jan. 31 executive order suspends immigrant visas for nationals of Eritrea, Kyrgyzstan, Myanmar and Nigeria starting Feb. 22. It will also restrict diversity visas for citizens of Sudan and Tanzania, according to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and U.S. State Department.

Refugees from Eritrea and Myanmar have been the most frequently hired workers at the Tyson’s Perry plant in recent years.

Alberto Olguin, human resources director at Tyson Fresh Meats, said he is unsure whether the latest immigration ban will have an effect in Perry.

“We do hire refugees,” Olguin said. “We hope this will not have any effect, but we will see. It’s hard to tell at this point. Maybe by March or April we will know more. It’s still early.”

Holy cow!  Look at these numbers!

Tyson is the largest employer of refugees in Dallas County. The company currently employs 1,368 workers at the Perry plant, and about 800 of the employees are refugees, with 400 each of Africans and Asians.

[….]

Annette Sheckler, director of communications for U.S. Committee for Refugees and Immigrants (USCRI), said the Trump administration’s immigration policies are “selectively discriminatory” because they are based on the religions and nationalities of immigrants and refugees.

Since I couldn’t find a pic of Ms. Sheckler, the next best thing was to post a picture of USCRI’s CEO Eskinder Negash here having a pleasant meeting with Michigan Rep. Rashida Tlaib. Do Lefties like Tlaib approve of refugees as cheap labor for giant Captialist corporations? Apparently so! https://www.facebook.com/USCRI/posts/eskinder-negash-presidentceo-of-uscri-met-with-newly-elected-us-congresswoman-ra/10157287961981385/

“USCRI strongly opposes the administration’s alarming efforts to drastically cut immigration to the U.S.,” Sheckler said. She said Trump’s anti-immigration policy is harming employers around the country, and the latest ban will aggravate the condition.

“Definitely, it’s going to have an impact,” she said. “In many smaller communities around the country, and especially in industries like meat packing, which is kind of rough and dirty, American workers are not applying for jobs there.

It’s our new Americans, the refugees and immigrants, who are taking these jobs. Tyson’s has a huge workforce made up of Somalis, Eritreans and people from Myanmar, disproportionate to the number of people they hire.”

Heck, here USCRI’s Sheckler sounds like she is shilling for the Chamber of Commerce.

“We settle refugees in communities that are likely to have employment,” she said, “and certainly the agro-industry is one of these industries where there’s job openings. The communities want the labor. And then you’ve got a whole new community with many coming into the family. They’re buying cars. They’re buying houses. They’re buying groceries. They’re opening up little businesses. So communities are actually contacting us and asking us to settle refugees.”

[….]

Trump’s latest round of exclusions partly frustrated Iowa’s recently expressed state and local willingness to accept refugees for resettlement.

The states and localities know they need the workers, Sheckler said, but Trump’s immigration czar, Stephen Miller, has other ideas for America.

More here.

See my previous posts on meatpackers, and Tyson Foods.

Someone could write a modern day version of Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle using the dozens and dozens of posts I have archived over the years.

A starring role could go to the phony refugee racketeers!

Endnote: Another blogger recently used the phrase the “Slaughterhouse Nine” to describe the nine federal refugee resettlement contractors. I like that!

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.

 

Idaho boo-hooing: Not enough refugee workers arriving

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

This story would not be worth posting except for the fact that it once again informs us that the refugees are here to supply cheap labor for industries that want to keep wages low. (Cheap for industry, but not for taxpayers who subsidize the refugee families with welfare!)

And, it is worth posting because the refugee agency head in Twin Falls is mistaken when he thinks the citizens of Idaho have been sufficiently ‘educated’ and now will be more welcoming of refugees.

chobani plant twin falls
Twin Falls has long been a city in turmoil about the refugee flow there partly due to the labor needs of the massive Chobani Yogurt plant there and the dairy industry that supplies it.

 

From the Idaho State Business Journal:

Lack of refugees has Idaho businesses scrambling for workers

(Be sure to click on the link and see the story which features a photo of a Muslim woman giving free Arabic lessons to Americans.  Gee, so why is that needed?)

TWIN FALLS — Idaho has welcomed far fewer refugees this year, which means resettlement agencies have more time to work with families, but South Idaho businesses are scrambling to find workers.

The College of Southern Idaho’s Refugee Center*** is on track to resettle 71 people this year, a fraction of the 300 people it typically serves each fiscal year. It’s received 64 refugees so far this year, with another family of seven expected soon. The fiscal year ends at the end of September.

“I think the decline in arrivals takes a toll, especially with our super low unemployment right now,” said Tara Wolfson, director of the Idaho Office for Refugees. “And I think there’s a loss to our ingenuity, to our workforce, to our bringing new ideas and creations to our state, that refugees tend to bring.” [This is such BS—refugees bring new ideas and creations to the state.—ed]

[….]

“It’s really a tough thing because we need workforce,” Roeser said. “We have so many Baby Boomers retiring. We have so many services that need warm bodies to work because of the aging workforce.”

I have said innumerable times that since the US Refugee Admissions Program is primarily to supply cheap labor for big global businesses (like Chobani), let’s have that debate, but shut up about it being a ‘humanitarian’ program.

Refugee resettlement across the state has declined dramatically since 2016 when 916 people resettled in Idaho. That number dropped to 611 the following year, and the Idaho Office for Refugees has resettled 341 people so far in the 2018 fiscal year.

[….]

Zeze Rwasama
Zeze Rwasama thinks people are not complaining about refugees now because they have been sufficiently re-educated. 

Wolfson said she expects that the low resettlement rate will continue into next year.

But Rwasama [Director of the Refugee Center at CSI] is hopeful that federal policies and practices “could change at any time.” He said these days he less frequently hears certain anti-refugee sentiments that he used to hear often, such as concerns about safety or complaints about refugees “taking jobs” from other workers.

“I think people have actually received correct information and that’s why I don’t hear it anymore,” Rwasama said.

“And I hope those answers are getting to the president as well, and soon he will allow more refugees to come.”

 

More here.

Things are only quiet because Donald Trump has taken the pressure off for now.

So, dear readers, the flood gates will open again if there is a new President elected in 2020 (there isn’t another Republican who would do what Trump is doing).  I can’t emphasize enough how important it is to reform the whole program while we have him in office. So get out and get involved in election year politics where you live!

Go here for my huge archive on Idaho.

***The Refugee Center at the College of Southern Idaho is a subcontractor of the US Committee for Refugees and Immigrants (one of the big nine federal resettlement contractors).