Tag: USCRI

Rutland, VT citizens hear from James Simpson in advance of heated public meeting

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

This is not an exhaustive report on what happened in Rutland over the last two days.  I am sure we will have more later, but just wanted to let readers know that James Simpson was invited to speak in Rutland, VT this week (go here to see our previous posts). See also ‘Remaking Rutland’ at American Thinker, here.
Here is a news account from MyChamplainValley about Simpson’s presentation on Tuesday.

Vermont meeting
On the hotseat: Vermont Refugee Resettlement Program Director Amila Merdzanovic (left) and Stacie Blake, director of government and community relations at the U.S. Committee for Refugees and Immigrants, speak at a meeting in Rutland. Photo by Elizabeth Hewitt/VTDigger

Then here are two accounts of the meeting held last night (Wed) by the Board of Alderman to further educate the public about the plan to bring 100 Syrians to Rutland this coming fiscal year. (See here and here).
The second of those links, here, at VTdigger is worth reading in its entirety because the whole idea of the secrecy with which this plan was hatched is discussed in some detail.
Note that they are holding a public meeting AFTER the plan has been sent to Washington. I bet the mayor hasn’t even seen that plan (the R & P Abstract)!

RUTLAND — In a heated public meeting Wednesday, the members of the Rutland Board of Aldermen and community members scrutinized a plan to resettle refugees in this central Vermont city.

While some came in support of the proposal, the majority raised objections to the way the plan had been formulated.

The proposal, announced by Mayor Chris Louras last month, would bring 100 Syrian refugees to Rutland for resettlement over the course of a year beginning in October.

Last week, the Vermont Refugee Resettlement Program submitted the proposal to resettle Syrians in Rutland to the federal government. They anticipate they will hear a response in July.

Many residents bristled at Louras’ approval of the project because he didn’t consult with city aldermen and they raised concerns about the impact the resettlement will have on the community.

In a meeting that stretched longer than three hours, the aldermen and residents expressed frustration with Louras’ decision, which they said was carried out behind closed doors and without an appropriate level of community input.

Amila Merdzanovic, the director of the Vermont Refugee Resettlement Program, and Stacie Blake, director of government and community relations at the U.S. Committee for Refugees and Immigrants, answered questions from board and community members for hours Wednesday evening.

Continue reading here!
Be sure to see that USCRI rep Blake says refugees are not placed in unwelcoming communities…hmmmmm!
Also, just keep in mind that, at this very moment, plans for all of the old and new resettlement sites are being prepared and sent to Washington.  It is our contention that those plans (see the Reno plan here) should be released to the public in advance of going to Washington for approval for your money to be spent!
More later…..

Nevada: Ready or not refugees on the way to Reno

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Update May 16th:  Reno followup—incredibly important information (go here).
I’ve been reporting in recent weeks about the new sites being targeted for refugee seeding by the the UN/US State Department Refugee Admissions Program (most recently yesterday it was Rutland, VT***).

Carina-Black-main
Carina Black will be in charge of seeding Reno with refugees. Photo and bio here: http://www.unr.edu/nnic/about/staff/carina-black

It is my educated guess that the federal resettlement contractors are wearing out their welcome in the 190 or so places in the US where refugees are already being resettled (and in many cases have been resettled for decades) and that perhaps one of the limiting factors is government-funded housing (not to mention other important things like lack of jobs!) and are thus scouting fresh territory.
Also, remember that Obama has upped the refugee stream to America this year from the 70,000 number of recent years to 85,000 by September 30th.
Starting October 1, Obama says he will be recommending 100,000 for FY2017 (even though he will be out of the White House for most of it).
Digressing for a minute, Congress will have a huge role to play in September when Obama makes his final determination about the number of refugees coming for the fiscal year that begins Oct. 1 and we will be watching to see if the gutless Congress does anything about it!
So back to Reno (and other sites) which are being prepped for the even bigger wave of refugees expected to begin October 1. By the way, I’m wondering if the low-skilled refugees will compete with Nevada’s large Hispanic population for jobs.
From KUNR radio:

The U.S. State Department has greenlighted a Northern Nevada nonprofit to help resettle refugees escaping hotbeds of conflict around the globe beginning this fall.

Carina Black, executive director of the Reno-based Northern Nevada International Center, says their application to become an official resettlement agency was approved in February. They’ve since been laying the groundwork, and building a stakeholders’ network, before those first few families arrive.

“Those stakeholders include people from the health industry, from education, from ESL… people in the faith communities have been coming forward and showing a huge interest in helping us,” she says. “So we’re still basically conducting a lot of training…and getting ready for this new endeavor.”  [Remember readers that you are a stakeholder too! Maybe since you are paying for all of it, the biggest stakeholder of all!—ed]

Black says initially about two families — approximately 10 people — could arrive by September. For the federal fiscal year running Oct. 2016 through 2017, they’ve asked to resettle at most 75 refugees.

[….]

The full list of countries include: Cuba, Colombia, El Salvador, Guatemala, Eritrea, Sudan, Ethiopia, Somalia, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Syria, Afghanistan and Iraq.

El Salvador and Guatemala have never been refugee-sending countries, that is, until Obama magically turned the unaccompanied alien minors from Central America into refugees.  He was re-writing the Refugee Act of 1980 without Congress and Congress let him get away with it!
The mayor had concerns.  It is up to citizens of Reno to speak up NOW if you have similar concerns!

Mayor Hillary Schieve was quoted last November saying she would prefer a “pause” on the program, following the terrorist attacks in Paris, but Black says she’s since had productive meetings with Schieve and other city council members to assuage their concerns.

Recently we told you that sites are getting ready to open in Ithaca, NY, Missoula, MT, and Rutland, VT.  I’m betting there are at least 30 new sites in the works where plans are being made in secret to bring the joys of multiculturalism to your neighborhood.  The only way you or I will know if your town is next, is if it appears in a local news story like this one. And, you can bet you will not see any of this in the mainstream media or cable news!
You might want to visit ‘Ten things your town needs to know‘ by clicking here.
***The major refugee contractor for both Rutland and Reno is the US Committee for Refugees and Immigrants (more to come on this!).  Stay tuned!

Vermont: Rutland citizens say, let's take care of our own first!

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Update May 16th: For those concerned citizens of Vermont, please go to this post today about Reno.  The same federal contractor is involved in both cities. There will be a document just like the one I have posted on Reno for your city too! Ask your mayor if he has seen it!
That is the common refrain I hear from just about everywhere in America where refugees are being seeded into unsuspecting communities.  What about our own people, our own poor and disabled, they ask.

Vermont refugee office
The Vermont refugee program is run by the federal government through its contractor the US Committee for Refugees and Immigrants. As a Wilson-Fish state, elected state officials have no say over the program. USCRI and the feds call all the shots. USCRI is headed by Lavinia Limon who was Bill Clinton’s director of the federal Office of Refugee Resettlement. To learn more about Limon, go here: https://refugeeresettlementwatch.org/?s=Lavinia+Limon

For new readers we have been reporting on the controversy on-going in Rutland ever since the mayor told a surprised public that he had agreed that Rutland could take 100 Syrian (mostly Muslim) refugees.  See here and here.
Here, at MyChamplainValley.com, we learned that a group of citizens protested the mayor last night.
My suggestion to those of you with concerns in Rutland is to contact the mayor of Manchester, NH, Ted Gatsos, and ask that he come and speak to your group or maybe send a delegation to New Hampshire and ask him how it’s going there.  I am sure the Manchester mayor would advise Rutland to not open Pandora’s box because once the refugees begin coming there will be NO END TO IT.  There will be many more than 100 in the end!

Thursday night, the Rutland community got the opportunity to learn more behind the plan to bring 100 Syrian refugees to the city this fall.

It’s a meeting Mayor Chris Louras held amidst controversy for not initially including the public in the decision.

“We do not have a TD Garden anywhere in the County of Rutland, and if I were to engage in a public and answer dialogue and a broad forum with everyone in the county invited, I would have to plan for a 65,000 capacity.” Louras said.

Before the meeting, about 20 people gathered outside Rutland Free Library with signs, showing their concern for a plan they say was a surprise. Matt Howland and David O’Brien expressed their opinions.

“The city is not just gonna roll over and take this without asking the hard questions, without holding people accountable and making them put forth the answers and making a plan and let the community know what’s going on,” Howland said.

Be sure to visit the site to watch the video!
By the way, the Boston Globe tells us there are no mosques in Rutland (yet!).

Rutland, VT refugee controversy confirms what we have been saying for years!

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Federal refugee contractors, like the Vermont Refugee Resettlement Program operate in secrecy making every effort to get resettlement programs up and running in unsuspecting communities before the general public gets wind of it!
See our earlier post on Rutland, here.  There is also another story on the uproar, here, which I never got time to post.

Amila Merdzanovic
Former refugee Amila Merdzanovic came to Vermont as a refugee in 1995 and now runs the resettlement program there for USCRI (one of the nine big refugee contractors). She says, no public meeting because all the “anti-immigrants” will come out of the woodwork. Photo and information on a propaganda event coming up June 1: http://www.eventbrite.com/e/syria-and-refugee-resettlement-in-vermont-registration-20679143876

Now this!  Good for MyChamplainValley.com . They actually filed a public information request and got this incredible admission! (emphasis is mine)

New information on how the City of Rutland came to be the future home of 100 Syrian refugees. Mayor Chris Louras made the announcement a few weeks ago, and many were shocked at the speed of the process.

While the Vermont Refugee Resettlement Program (VRRP) held meetings as far back as January 14th, the general public was never informed. The initial meeting included members of the VRRP, Mayor Louras, President of the Rutland City Alderman William Notte, State Refugee Coordinators, and a member of the Rutland Area Farm and Food Link group.

Through a public records request filed with the City of Rutland, we learned a public meeting was considered, but didn’t happen.

“This is just the beginning, it’s a historic moment for us as the Refugee Program and I think it’s a historic moment in Vermont,” stated Amila Merdzanovic, Director of the Vermont Refugee Resettlement Program. She hopes Rutland is the first of many communities to consider welcoming refugees.

While the City’s Mayor and many others are excited about the process, other elected officials and members of the public say they felt blindsided. “My initial reaction was I wanted more information,” said City Alderman Ed Larson in an April 28th interview. He didn’t learn of the plan until a day before the Mayor’s announcement.

Of course they want no public meeting!

They know they must get the program in place before anyone knows what is happening! Readers, look for this happening where you live.  They are desperate for more cities and towns.  Obama has made promises and there aren’t enough locations to accommodate all of the refugees he wants.

According to records we obtained from the City of Rutland, a public discussion was considered, but never took place. In an April 14th email to Mayor Louras, Merdzanovic wrote “if we open it up to anybody and everybody, all sorts of people will come out of the woodwork, anti-immigrant… anti-anything.”

[….]

The email went on to suggest that if a meeting were to be held, it should be controlled, and include groups like the United Way and Area Churches. But both United way and Rutland area church leaders told us they welcome the refugees, but were not contacted to be part of a discussion during the planning process.

Too bad local citizens! the UN/US State Department is going to seed your towns whether you like it or not!

Merdzanovic points out that resettlement has been happening in Chittenden County for 30 years, and people are used to it. She understand it will take time in Rutland, and adds no matter what, things are moving forward, “Our government invites refugees to come into the United States and to come to Vermont. we don’t control it, we don’t vote on it luckily.”

Continue reading here and be sure to watch the news clip—watch and listen to Merdzanovic.  
BTW, Merdzanovic’s boss is Lavinia Limon who ran the Office of Refugee Resettlement for Bill Clinton.
Vermont is a Wilson-Fish state which means the contractor and the federal government run the program there with no input from elected state representatives.  There is zero chance that the present governor would ever stand up for States’ Rights.
Click here for all of our previous posts on, as one of our readers once called it, the Green Card State!  And, be sure to visit or revisit, Ten things your town needs to know! by clicking here.  See especially #10—demand a public meeting!
 

Florida: Refugee contractors squabble over government boodle

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

I have to admit this is some great reporting at the Huffington Post.
It adds considerable detail to a dispute we knew a little about, but more importantly it is a window into the ‘souls’ of the ‘humanitarian’ refugee contractors. We have been telling readers for years that resettling refugees, and in this case taking care of the so-called Unaccompanied Alien Children, is all about MONEY.  It is about competition between contractors and it is about the revolving door as contractors become political appointees then return to their former boss (the contractor) as recipients of lucrative government contracts.
This is a complicated story and I’m going to urge you to read it all, but here is what you need to know about a couple of the key players in this drama.

And, let me ask at the outset!  Where is Congress?

Lavinia and Negash
Eskinder Negash (left) and Lavinia Limon (second from right).

Some of the players (we have many posts here at RRW on these characters, search their names):
Lavinia Limon was Bill Clinton’s head of the federal Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) and now heads the US Committee for Refugees and Immigrants (USCRI).
Eskinder Negash was a Vice President at USCRI before he was chosen to head the Office of Refugee Resettlement in the Obama Administration. Negash resigned suddenly in December of 2014.  No one ever publicly explained his sudden departure.  And, then eventually he returned to USCRI.
Bob Carey is now the head of ORR (replacing Negash) and he comes to the government job from yet another contractor, the International Rescue Committee.  And, although not mentioned here, the person in charge of refugees at the US State Department, Anne Richard, came to her perch there from, you guessed it, the International Rescue Committee.
So, the IRC has two former employees heading the two major agencies involved with resettling refugees. But, that is a story for another day!
The arrival of tens of thousands of Unaccompanied Alien Children in the summer of 2014, and many thousands before and since, unleashed gobs of government grant and contract money to the same agencies (the nine big refugee contractors and two other newer contractors) not only for the care of the ‘children’ which they are pretending are legitimate refugees/asylum seekers, but also for their legal fees in their attempts to keep them here in America by transforming them into legal immigrants.
train children
The ‘children’ represent cold hard cash for non-government refugee contractors.

Which brings us to this incredible piece of reporting!
Of course, the spin here is that the children are suffering (and the legal system will be bogged down), but readers take note: this report raises questions about alleged corruption in the entire grants and contracts system run by the Office of Refugee Resettlement in the Dept. of Health and Human Services.

The tip-off that there is a problem comes when the Catholic Bishops get mad that USCRI is getting some boodle unfairly when they want the boodle!

 
Bizarre Contract Dispute Putting Thousands Of Migrant Children At Risk, by Ryan Grim, begins:

WASHINGTON — Thousands of unaccompanied minors who came across the U.S. border as part of the migrant crisis are at risk of being deported without due process, the archbishop of Miami has warned the Obama administration.

Although the law dictates that these children must be given legal services, recent moves by the Office of Refugee Resettlement have thrown that into doubt. ORR, which is an agency under the umbrella of Health and Human Services, awarded the U.S. Committee for Refugees and Immigrants a contract to represent the children. USCRI in turn planned to subcontract with a social services firm that employed zero attorneys at the time.

I want you to read it all.  It is complicated, but oh so juicy!
Did USCRI get the contract because Negash was the head of ORR? Is this why Negash resigned so suddenly back in December of 2014? Shouldn’t there be a law that contractors cannot move in and out of government positions where they are in a position to award grants and contracts to their former bosses?
Where is Trey Gowdy (chairman of the committee responsible for refugees in the House of Representatives)?  Does he know about this? Is his committee investigating?
If you are as outraged as I am by the allegations raised in the Huffington Post story, please send the article to your member of Congress and US Senators and demand they get to the bottom of this because after all it is YOUR money!