First Syrians to Rutland, VT in direct challenge to Donald Trump

01/07/2017 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

The US Committee for Refugees and Immigrants (USCRI) said in a press release in recent days that they were going ahead with their plans to open an office in Rutland, VT for the purpose of placing 100 Syrians (the first 100!) in the city where those plans have drawn heated controversy since last spring.

screenshot-14 — Lavinia Limon with Chobani CEO Hamdi Ulukaya. Ms. Limon’s organization, USCRI, helps Chobani Yogurt by sending refugees to Twin Falls, Idaho. Limon headed Bill Clinton’s Office of Refugee Resettlement. Warning to Mr. Trump: These are not squishy do-gooder organizations and people who you can easily roll. They are sharp, experienced political fighters.

Throwing all caution to the wind (shelling out money they don’t know they will have) and gambling that they can back Trump down, the federal resettlement contractor headed by longtime Clinton ally Lavinia Limon is hiring staff for a proposed opening in a couple of weeks—timed, I surmise, to happen just about the time Donald Trump is inaugurated.
Setting up a showdown with Donald Trump…..
If Trump does what he said he would do and quickly pauses refugee resettlement at least from terror-producing regions of the world, USCRI will be in a position to scream bloody murder—how dare Trump stop these poor women and children who were headed to a ‘welcoming’ Vermont town.
By the way, the NYT puff piece on Rutland recently was likely part of the propaganda set up to nail a heartless Trump.
These resettlement contractors have been around for over 30 years! Lots of big salaries depend on the continuation of the industry (yes, it is an industry), not to mention cheap labor for global corporations. Goals also include increasing Democrat voter rolls and generally driving all of us to accept a multicultural borderless world.
They are not going to give up easily or quietly!
From Valley News:

Rutland —

The Vermont Refugee Resettlement Program’s Rutland office is expected to open and be fully staffed within a couple of weeks.

According to Stacie Blake, director of government and community relations with the U.S. Committee for Refugees and Immigrants, the office will have three full-time employees. Primary guidance will come from the Colchester, Vt., office and will be based on the organization’s 35 years of experience working with refugees in Vermont.

“The program expects to welcome the first refugee families to Rutland in January,” Blake said in a news release.

[….]

“Sites across the country are continuing to welcome new arrivals as their travel from overseas is booked,” Blake said in an email. “We have no information regarding changes to the resettlement program.”

I’ll bet you those travel bookings at IOM are going through the roof!
The article goes on to say how excited the volunteers are who are anticipating their very own Syrians (how cool is that!), and these local refugee advocates can be counted on to wail if Trump pauses the program (and they will have no clue that USCRI used them).
See our extensive archive on Rutland, here. And for more on Lavinia Limon, go here.

Message to new 'welcoming' towns: get out your wallets for your school system!

12/10/2016 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Ehtesham-Cating said… she cannot foresee the government penalizing Rutland schools if they cannot provide translation services right away.

This is yet another story from Rutland, VT where citizens and elected officials have been questioning a resettlement contractor (USCRI) and the federal government for months about the details of the US State Department’s decision to send the FIRST 100 Syrians there perhaps next month!
Board of Aldermen President William Notte wanted to know about school funding if the refugee children arrive in the middle of the school year.
As we point out in our 2015 post ‘Ten things your town needs to know‘ when ‘welcoming’ refugees, the impact of the resettled refugees will be felt first in your school system’s budget.
Here is what we learned at Vermont Watchdog:

Miriam Ehtesham-Cating, the English language program director for the Burlington School District, said the focus needs to be on elementary and high school kids, in keeping with the federal government’s requirements for English language learning.

vermont-refugee-agency-2 — In news dated December 2nd, USCRI says it is proceeding with plans for Rutland with a wait and see attitude toward the incoming Trump Administration. http://wamc.org/post/vermont-refugee-resettlement-opening-rutland-office

“Vermont and the federal government have a strict regulatory process for identifying English language learners, and providing language assistance,” Ehtesham-Cating said.

Ehtesham-Cating, who oversees English language instruction for 14 schools, said services for preschoolers would not likely be a priority. “It is more important for staff to receive coaching and to receive help in developing learning profiles for these children,” she said.

In addition, since schools are required to send materials home to students and parents in a language they can understand, Rutland schools will need to offer some sort of translation services.

Ehtesham-Cating said that in her opinion, she cannot foresee the government penalizing Rutland schools if they cannot provide translation services right away.

[….]

Winooski, another refugee resettlement community in Vermont, spends about $1 million dollars annually on language services. Rutland schools would have a much lower tab, said Ehtesham-Cating, since only two full-time liaisons would likely be needed to help an estimated 40 refugee school kids.

“(Language services) aren’t just a requirement, they’re good practice,” she said. “Some of these children have grown up their whole lives inside a camp. They don’t know how to even go to school. … Rutland has to decide how they are going to help these children transition.”

Continue reading here.
See our complete archive on the on-going tension in Rutland, VT by clicking here.
The federal contractor WRAPSnet previously maintained a list of a couple hundred resettlement offices, here. As of this writing they have removed that list and so after years of being able to see where refugee offices are located that information is no longer available to you.
Rutland is one of 47 new sites the US State Department and the Office of Refugee Resettlement have quietly targeted as new resettlement sites. One of the first things the Trump Administration must do is to make all of this information public information. Here are some of the sites we have identified so far:

Asheville, NC

Rutland, VT

Reno, NV

Ithaca, NY

Missoula, MT

Aberdeen, SD (may have been thwarted as a primary resettlement site!)

Charleston, WV

Fayetteville, AR

Blacksburg, VA

Pittsfield, MA

Northhampton, MA

Flint, MI

Bloomington, IN

Traverse City, MI

Poughkeepsie, NY

Wilmington, DE

Watertown, NY (maybe)

Youngstown, OH (maybe)

Storm Lake, Iowa

More on Rutland: Refugee resettlement is about (your) money

11/22/2016 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

It’s hundreds of thousands of dollars in grant money that goes towards transitioning the refugees.

In Rutland, VT the controversy about whether to bring mostly Syrian refugees to the city in the coming months continues to simmer. The brakes are on right now, as we told you here and here recently, because the federal contractors know they can’t get out too far ahead of their money (YOUR money, federal grants).
Frankly, the contractors have virtually no money of their own especially the contractor in Rutland (USCRI here). For new readers, USCRI*** is the contractor working in Twin Falls, Idaho too.

mayor-louras — Rutland Mayor Louras thinks small towns will be saved by bringing in mostly Muslim refugees from the Middle East. I don’t see him clamoring for the Congolese Christians. Photo: http://www.pewtrusts.org/en/research-and-analysis/blogs/stateline/2016/08/05/shrinking-small-towns-see-hope-in-refugees

There is nothing earth-shattering in this, another story on Rutland, but I was interested to see how overtly the promoters of resettlement are willing today to talk (they didn’t 9 years ago) about the need for federal bucks to make the resettlement work.
Those promoting bringing the Syrian Muslims (flavor of the year!) to Rutland aren’t shelling out their own money, neither is the state of Vermont (at least on the surface, they will, however, shell out plenty for ‘services’ and educating the kids as time goes on.).
On this flavor of the year comment (I can hear the rage!), I was struck by a thought when I wrote about the rally for Syrians in Charleston, WV and we see it here in Rutland too.
Would the resettlement advocates be so eager if they were going to be getting mostly impoverished and boring Christians from the DR Congo or Burma, or is this fervor for Syrians and Iraqis (mostly Muslims) fueled by a desire to be just kinda cool?
Here is the bit of the story at WCAX.com I want you to see:

An opportunity about 100 Syrian and Iraqi refugees hope to find in Rutland. “It’s frankly just a lot of unknowns,” said Rutland Mayor Chris Louras.

After Donald Trump’s win, Rutland officials are not sure whether their resettlement plan for the refugees will be affected. “There’s the potential that we may only see two families in before he’s inaugurated. We don’t know what happens at that point,” Louras said.

President-elect Trump campaigned with anti-immigrant rhetoric, saying he plans to cut refugee funding and put a temporary halt on accepting Muslims.

“Without that federal funding for the program, there’s no mechanism to resettlement to the United States,” Louras said. [If people really were driven by humanitarianism, they would be privately funding resettlement, one family, one church at a time!—ed]

Right now with all the uncertainty, USCRI isn’t going to go out on a financial limb and hire staff and open an office!

It’s hundreds of thousands of dollars in grant money that goes towards transitioning the refugees. The Vermont Refugee Resettlement Program Rutland plans to hire three full-time case workers and two part-time translators to work with the refugees on education and employment. “We’re still planning as if these people are coming — we have to,” Louras said.

So is Marsha Cassel, a Rutland High School teacher and active member of the group, Rutland Welcomes.

And, check out this next line. The good citizens of Rutland are bringing over their old furniture, but USCRI gets to give it a monetary value so they can tell the feds they have some skin in the game. The feds expect the contractors to show they have contributed something, and since they don’t have cash (especially USCRI 97% taxpayer funded) they get to use old furniture and volunteer hours (your volunteer hours are given a cash value!) to prove they are contributing.

In the Rutland Herald’s former printing press room, hundreds of pieces of donated furniture await new owners. “They’re coming with nothing but hope, so we are just hoping to get them started,” Cassel said.

The WCAX.com story continues with much discussion about screening terrorists, but I think the greater threat is what we are seeing in Minnesota where the generation of cute little kids we supported grows up to be jihadists.
To see our very large archive on Rutland, click here.
***Learn more about USCRI’s CEO Lavinia Limon here at Breitbart.

Strong reactions (fear too!) from federal refugee resettlement contractors/supporters in wake of Trump win

11/15/2016 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

“I do believe that future flows will be affected significantly!”

(Doris Meissner reacting to Trump win)

Michael Patrick Leahy at Breitbart has a good piece yesterday, a compendium of views from the refugee contractors and immigration industry activists. Check it out here.
I’ve got a couple more stories I want to mention this morning. The first is one focusing on Rutland, VT which has just recently been chosen by the US State Department as a new site for Syrian Muslim refugee resettlement after months of strong opposition that roiled the political waters in the town.

I Love Rutland keck vpr 2016 — Will Rutland get its 100 Syrians, or not? http://digital.vpr.net/post/how-will-trump-presidency-impact-us-refugee-resettlement#stream/0

The article at Vermont Public Radio features quotes from Doris Meissner, a woman who is the doyenne of the Washington DC refugee/asylum/immigration circles.
Meissner was around for the passage of the original Refugee Act of 1980 and I’ve heard her speak a couple of times over the years. (Her bio is here)
The first time was at the ‘celebration’ for the 30th anniversary of the Refugee Act at Georgetown University in 2010. I was struck by one thing Ms. Meissner said at a conference that seemed heavily weighted toward a discussion of the asylum portion of the Act and the opportunities it afforded to get more people in to the US.
She told the audience that the original discussions about asylum were geared toward the odd ballet dancer (referencing Russians I presume) who would ask for asylum when performing in the US. But, she and the audience seemed to be pleased that asylum was now a process that was getting tens of thousands in to the US each year as they feared the normal channel for refugee resettlement was constricting and not fast enough for their purposes.
In 2011, I wrote this post about asylum-seeking-Somalis at our southern border and suggested a Congressional investigation (where are you Trey Gowdy?) to determine if non-profit groups were actually aiding and abetting illegal aliens coming across the world and who miraculously (who pays for the travel?) got the the US southern border and knew to ask for asylum. Meissner is quoted as saying that they have to wait too long in our normal process so they come here illegally. Congress should call Meissner to testify.

The specter of Donald Trump was haunting them already on October 29, 2015:

Again at Georgetown University, this time in October 2015, Meissner was the moderator of a panel on the upcoming 2016 Presidential election. Trump was on their minds and here is what I said in my post:

The “Trump phenomenon” has them obviously shaken and they are trying to figure out how to cope with it. The phrase “Trump phenomenon” was practically the first words out of Ms. Meissner’s mouth when she opened the session. They expected immigration to be an important issue in 2016, but with a different tone to the discussion, not Trump’s outright “anti-immigrant tone.” The whole presentation that followed was based on the understanding that this audience was all pro-Democrat/pro-Hillary.

The refugee resettlement industry needs your money (less money=fewer refugees)!

Back to the article at Vermont Public Radio and what Ms. Meissner told them…

Doris Meissner is the former commissioner of the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service, and is currently a Senior Fellow at the Migration Policy Institute*** in Washington. She says given the strong language Trump used about refugees in the campaign, she expects big changes.

“It will not be business as usual where refugee resettlement is concerned once he’s in office, and that might in particular affect the Syrian program,” Meissner says.

[….]

Meissner says that while it’s possible Trump would send back refugees now living in the United States, she thinks that would be a very costly and difficult. And given the deplorable conditions in Syria, she believes it’s unlikely.

“But I do believe that future flows will be affected significantly,” she says.

[….]

Meissner says U.S. immigration law sets a benchmark of allowing 50,000 refugees a year into the country. But she says the president has the power to come to Congress on an annual basis to propose boosting or cutting that number, and she expects Trump to call for reductions.

Funds for the coming year’s refugee resettlement programs are currently included in the federal budget. But that budget is part of continuing resolution, which means it needs to be renewed by Congress on Dec. 9.

Meissner says she expects those funds will remain, but admits nothing is certain.

Meissner gets it, they can’t function without the money Congress appropriates so once again I am pleading with you to call your member of Congress and your two US Senators and tell them to DEFUND the RAP in the lame duck session that is now upon us!

And, beware!

Look for larger numbers of border crashers to be asking for asylum. I’ll bet a buck that massive numbers of immigration lawyers are on standby waiting to process asylum claims especially if the RAP is slowed or stopped.
*** See what I said about the Migration Policy Institute here in 2011.

US State Department shoving refugees down their throats in Rutland, VT

09/29/2016 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

After months and months of meetings and angry protests, the US State Department has decided to ignore the controversy and begin sending refugees to Rutland before the end of the year.
Just a reminder that the DOS told Senator Sessions subcommittee yesterday that they haven’t decided how many of the 110,000 refugees Obama wants admitted beginning Saturday will be in that number. We recently reported that a contractor spilled the beans in California and said it would be 20,000-30,000.

lavinia-limon — This is the woman who will now be deciding Rutland’s demographic and cultural future. She is the CEO of USCRI and Stacie Blake’s boss. And, she is responsible for the troubles in Twin Falls, Idaho. Limon formerly headed the federal Office of Refugee Resettlement under Bill Clinton. Learn more about her here: http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2016/08/05/twin-falls-refugee-crisis-clinton-appointee/

I predict there will be a wild orgy of resettlements across America in October, November and December and right up until inauguration day so that this administration can get as many ‘new Americans’ seeded before the start of a new presidency.
Of course, if Hillary wins we are done, and, with agreement from the Republican leadership (and the Chamber of Commerce), our gates will be thrown open.
Be sure to see our post yesterday where the embattled (now victorious) Rutland mayor was selling refugee resettlement to rural upstate New York. He called his local opponents on the issue “ignorant by design.”
Here is the news from Vermont Digger:

RUTLAND — Rutland has been selected as a resettlement site for 100 Syrian and Iraqi refugees, according to a State Department spokesperson. The announcement comes after five months of heated debate over whether this small city has the capacity to take in refugees fleeing violence in the Middle East.

“I’m delighted that the Department of State has the faith in our community to be a host city for refugee resettlement,” said Mayor Chris Louras after the announcement Wednesday. “We understand it’s not going to be easy, that there will be challenges, but this community is at its very best when it rises to the challenge.”

Stacie Blake, director of government and community relations for the U.S. Committee for Refugees and Immigrants, said she believes the first families will arrive in mid-December or early January. Blake said USCRI will open an office in Rutland and have two full-time staff members. Staff will undergo an intensive training process that includes working in the agency’s Colchester office, Blake said.

A State Department spokesperson said that although the proposal for 100 refugees has been approved, the number is subject to change. Once refugees arrive in the United States they are free to live wherever they choose.

This is what they will do to any town that thinks it will only be 50 or 100 refugees. Next year it will be 150-200 and pretty soon Rutland will be Lancaster, PA with 700 a year and many many problems!
By the way, does Rutland have a mosque yet? Just asking.
If I lived in Rutland, although too late as your governor and Obama are shoving the refugees down your throats, I would do everything in my power to get rid of this mayor.