Tag: Weekly round-up

Refugee News Round-up: First Week of April 2021

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

“Biden’s delay on welcoming refugees has been a huge disappointment for refugee advocates.”

(Boston Globe columnist, Marcela García)

The refugee news from the last week primarily revolves around two main themes—the ‘children’ surging across the US border and where to put them before releasing them into the country; and why Biden has yet to sign the document to start the flow of third world refugees from Asia, Africa and the Middle East to Anytown, USA.

The ‘children’ as we have been reporting in recent weeks are not refugees even as the open-borders-promoting mainstream media wants you to believe they are.

The mostly teenagers are illegal aliens hoping to claim asylum, or so they say. 

The vast majority will never achieve refugee status because most will never appear in any asylum adjudication process, and even if they did show up few could prove that they were persecuted in their home country.

Also, as I have been saying, the largest number of those getting in are older teens who will soon age-out of the system altogether.  In one story this week a weak attempt was made to answer the question—what happens when they age-out?

See that story here:

What happens to unaccompanied migrant children when they turn 18?

They must find a sponsor—-what a joke!

Moving on to the other major theme of the week, the mystery deepens—so why hasn’t Biden signed the annual determination document that would lift Trump’s low number from 15,000 refugees to 62,500 for the fiscal year?

Refugee contractors heads are exploding as their man Chairman Joe isn’t removing Trump’s refugee ceiling.

His State Department already told Congress that the Administration wants 62,500, an absolutely unattainable number as the fiscal year ends in a little over 5 and a half months.

But, no Biden signature yet!

What surprises me most is that the refugee contractors*** who have a pipeline into the State Department, a pipeline that was functioning during the Trump years, don’t appear to know what the hold-up is.

However, a theory is developing—Biden doesn’t want to look TOO PRO-IMMIGRANT! 

WTH! 

The crisis on the border alone tells us it is a little late for that! 

Everyone with eyes can see that the Biden/Harris administration is the most PRO-immigrant and most Americans-last administration of all time.

See the Boston Globe op-ed:

Is Biden afraid of appearing too soft on immigration?

The official name of the malady is xenophobia. Donald Trump did everything he could to spread the condition, and it still infects us. [LOL! They can’t resist whacking Trump!—ed]

Unlike Trump, President Biden doesn’t fear displaced foreigners who fled their homes due to civil conflict, natural disasters, persecution, or systemic violence. Nor does he blatantly use them as handy political props. Still, he may be afraid of appearing soft on immigration, just as some were labeled soft on crime a generation ago.

That could be one explanation for why Biden hasn’t reversed Trump’s historically low refugee admissions cap of 15,000 annually, leaving many in the resettlement world baffled. It could also be that the administration is consumed with managing the influx of migrant children at the US-Mexico border.

Regardless of the reason, Biden’s delay on welcoming refugees has been a huge disappointment for refugee advocates.

The Globe opinion piece directs us to an exchange that happened at a White House press briefing with Jen Psaki on Thursday.  The reporter is not identified:

Q    Gotcha.  And then, a quick follow-up.  Why haven’t refugee flights continued at this point?  Last month, the President did announce that he intended to raise the refugee cap before the typical, you know, end of the fiscal year —

MS. PSAKI:  Yeah.

Q    — where it traditionally happens.  That hasn’t seemed to happen yet.  Why haven’t those flights continued?

MS. PSAKI:  He remains committed, but I don’t have an update on the timing of the flights.

Q    Does it have anything to do with the fact that resources are going towards the border at this time?  Or —

MS. PSAKI:  No, no, it’s not related to that.  No.

Q    Thank you, Jen.  [Reporter meekly accepts Psaki’s non-answer–ed]

More at the Boston Globe, here.

Incidentally, the Biden team has put the Temporary Protected Status program on steroids demonstrating that their pro-immigration policies are moving full steam ahead, except (strangely) for the Refugee Admissions Program.

Here we see the not wanting to look too PRO-immigrant theme continued at the Buffalo News:

Refugee numbers drop in Buffalo – and Biden isn’t boosting them

Privately, some refugee advocates speculate that Biden is delaying opening up refugee resettlement so long as undocumented immigrants continue crossing the border with Mexico in record numbers, perhaps fearing political blowback from any move that might be seen as pro-immigrant.

Why is Buffalo so eager for more refugees?

Dear readers, this is a major reason why Democrats want refugees!

Democrat-run cities are dying and they see that moving the third world to their cities will be their ticket to saving them and their own political power. Nevermind that you pay for it both financially and culturally.

The Buffalo News continues….

Biden’s inaction has prompted a growing sense of frustration among those long have backed refugee resettlement as a key cog in stabilizing or even growing Buffalo’s population, such as Rep. Brian Higgins.

By the way, besides the fact that dying cities need bodies to keep Dems in power, it isn’t just the Democrats.  The globalists (including Republicans!) push for cheap labor, as outlined in a lengthy, but well worth reading treatise at the Last Refuge, explains more.

People Awakening to The Multinational Corporate Influence Over U.S. Politics – This is What the Professional UniParty, Including Republicans, Have Intentionally Kept Hidden From The American Voter

It explains why they hate Trump so much and why he had to go!

Okay, this is getting way too long!

Don’t miss my post at ‘Frauds and Crooks’ this week about the murder of a little refugee girl in Idaho.

Idaho: Guilty Plea in Horrific Murder of Refugee Child

 

There is a lot of talk about anti-Asian prejudice, but even Biden is in on it according to some in the Vietnamese community in America.

Still reeling from Trump-era policies, groups demand Biden address deportation, refugees

Although North Dakota lost its major refugee contractor, the state plans to pick up the slack.

North Dakota is not taking kids from U.S. southern border, but is hiring new refugee resettlement coordinator after LSS closure

 

It is a beautiful spring day on the farm, my garden calls, so that is enough for now!

 

***In case you are new to RRW, here are all of the contractors.

They worked to ‘elect’ Biden/Harris and as taxpayers you pay them millions annually to change America by changing the people.

Americans Last! is their motto!

Refugee News Round-up: Fourth Week of March 2021

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

The mystery deepens and frustrations grow as Biden still has not signed the all important Determination to begin the admission of the 62,500 FY2021 refugees his State Department consulted Congress about more than month ago.

As I reported a couple of weeks ago, refugees were ready to fly into America from throughout Africa, Asia and the Middle East when we learned that plane tickets were canceled because Biden had yet to sign a document that would begin this branch of the invasion.

Across Africa and the Middle East, Refugee Plane Tickets to America Canceled

There are only 6 months left in this fiscal year, so getting 62,500 resettled throughout the country would be a major undertaking as it represents a number not seen in decades.

Here The Hill on Thursday published an opinion piece by Mary Elizabeth Margolis  from a new political lobbying group that promotes refugee resettlement and the candidates who push for changing America by changing the people.

Voice for Refuge Action Fund got its start just in time to make this big endorsement last year:

This is their team and they endorse candidates at all levels claiming that they are the first legally approved group to do so. https://www.voiceforrefuge.org/endorsements/

Why is Biden stalling refugee resettlement?

There are fewer refugees being resettled to safety in the U.S. right now than there were during the last year of the Trump administration. Read that again.

Mary Elizabeth Margolis

For refugee protection advocates, hopes for a Biden administration have been high.

From the beginning of his campaign, President Biden promised he would quickly restore American leadership by rebuilding the historically bipartisan life-saving refugee resettlement program — which was decimated under the Trump administration. It’s the reason we at Voice for Refuge, the only refugee focused 501(c)4, heartily endorsed President Biden.

To his credit, after inauguration President Biden quickly signaled his intent to follow through on his commitment to support refugee resettlement. Through executive action, he rescinded the previous administration’s wrongful refugee bans and laid the foundation to strengthen refugee protections and increase refugee admissions.

President Biden also announced his plan to increase the refugee admissions goal, known as the presidential determination, for the remainder of this fiscal year to 62,500 — from the historic low of 15,000 — and then to 125,000 for Fiscal Year 2022. This change would also end the Trump-era guidelines harmfully restricting which refugees could be resettled, which had made even meeting the tiny existing goal nearly impossible. The harm caused by the overly restrictive refugee categories cannot be overstated.

As the administration met its legal obligations to consult Congress on the revised refugee admissions goal, it seemed as if it would only be a matter of days before families would be reunited and American communities would be able to start welcoming more refugees home. Flights were booked, apartments were prepared, and then nothing.

[….]

President Biden has not been forthright with why this delay is happening.

LOL! Not being “forthright!” Just imagine the language they would be using if this was Trump!

More here.  We also learned that Biden has not chosen an Assistant Secretary of State for PRM to oversee the program.

RCUSA gets up a letter….

Maryland US Senators Van Hollen and Cardin are making themselves the face of the refugee invasion caucus in the US Senate. https://www.cnn.com/2021/03/24/politics/democrats-biden-refugee-response/index.html

The Refugee Council USA is the long-standing consortium of groups that lobbies for refugees and includes the nine federal resettlement contractors*** and a whole host of open borders groups.

One of their favorite activities is to gin-up letters and here on Wednesday they did just that.

Over 200 groups sent Biden a letter demanding he get moving on opening up the flow from around the world, including from those terror producing countries that Trump had restricted.

We elected you so get moving buddy!

PRESS RELEASE: More than 200 local, state, and national organizations urge President Biden to sign a revised refugee admissions goal

Today, Refugee Council USA and 208 local, state, and national organizations sent a letter to President Biden, urging him to follow through on his promise to refugees around the world.

See the letter here to see who exactly is trying to flood America with third worlders.  In addition to national groups there are groups listed by state.

And, along with the usual contractors and ‘religious’ charities, CAIR is listed, as is Islamic Relief USA and even Codepink!

BTW, RCUSA tracks monthly admissions to the US, see here.

Dragging out Jimmy Carter…..

Jimmy Carter is the granddaddy of the US Refugee Admissions Program and Senator Joe Biden helped create it!

I missed this news last week, but it’s worth adding here.

This is Mark Hetfield of the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society using Jimmy Carter to chide Biden.

At the Dallas Morning News:

On the anniversary of the Refugee Act, Biden needs to act

Mark Hetfield of HIAS

On Feb. 12, the Biden administration made the case in a 15-page document to Congress that the White House intends to issue an “emergency presidential determination” to reset the U.S. refugee resettlement program because of “grave humanitarian concerns” and “the public interest.”

The Biden administration’s subsequent failure over the last five weeks to address what is, in its own words, an “emergency” is both perplexing and harmful.

[….]

The now deceased Senator Ted Kennedy was the chief sponsor of the Refugee Act of 1980, Biden helped get the bill passed and Jimmy Carter signed it into law on Saint Patrick’s Day 1980.

With the stroke of a pen, Biden can reverse the harm that Trump has caused the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program, raise the refugee ceiling from its current all-time low and, most importantly, end discriminatory policies barring refugees based on national origin.

Yet, in spite of the good intentions expressed on Feb. 12, Biden has merely continued all of the Trump administration’s refugee resettlement policies.

[….]

This past Wednesday was the 41st anniversary of President Jimmy Carter signing the Refugee Act of 1980. To mark the occasion, he issued the following statement reflecting on the importance of the Refugee Act…

And then here is Hetfield’s wrap:

As a nation of immigrants and refugees, we now wait for Biden, who as a young senator was a co-sponsor of the Refugee Act, to restore the promise of the act and the American tradition of being a welcoming country.

More here.

No one ever asks (except for me!), but it is interesting to note that Joe Biden’s Delaware hardly ever ‘welcomed’ refugees and here, in the 40 years this program has been changing America. Why is that?

I had more news for the week, but this is getting too long.  Maybe it will keep for next week.

***In case you are new to RRW, here are all of the contractors.

They worked to ‘elect’ Biden and as taxpayers you pay them millions annually to change America by changing the people.  Americans Last! is their motto!

See my category News Round-up for previous posts.  Round-ups have been sporadic over the years, but I am trying now to do them regularly.

 

Refugee News Round-up: Third Week of March 2021

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

I’ll begin this week with high praise for Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene who introduced legislation in the House of Representatives that calls for a moratorium on immigration.

One tough brave woman! https://vdare.com/posts/marjorie-taylor-greene-backs-full-immigration-moratorium

It will go nowhere, but she deserves much praise for doing something the Republicans rarely do—she went on the offense!   

The foolish GOP chickens, time and again,  simply react to what the Dems are pushing and virtually never stake out a position that forces the Socialists to counter them.

Trump did it brilliantly and they all hated him for it. And, that is why they want to get rid of Marjorie as well!

I heard Greene interviewed by Greg Kelly on Newsmax and Kelly seemed a bit nervous when he asked her if she meant a moratorium on all immigration and she said, no, just illegal immigration.

Kelly looked relieved.  Although it is simply a guess on my part, I figure that he has swallowed this line and has been repeating it everywhere:

ILLEGAL immigration is bad, but LEGAL is good!

When I hear someone say that, usually a politician, I know that they don’t know what the hell they are talking about (or they think you are too dumb and uninformed to counter them!).

Don’t they know how screwed-up the LEGAL US Refugee Admissions Program is (I have over 9,000 posts archived here to prove it)?

Don’t they know about all the LEGAL temporary refugees who stay here for decades under the ridiculously named Temporary Protected Status label?

Or, what about the LEGAL Diversity Visa Lottery (aka Green Card Lottery) where 50,000 migrants a year are admitted to the US after winning a lottery—a program that exists thanks to the now deceased Senator Ted Kennedy who created it because he claimed we don’t have enough diversity in the US.

Unaccompanied Alien Children (UAC)

And, that brings me to the news that you are all hearing, every day and all day, that the US border is being overrun by child refugees.

First, the “children” are mostly teenaged boys as I reported here recently.

Oops! Biden Administration Faces Immigration Crisis

 

Secondly, readers need to understand that these “children” are NOT refugees. 

Supposedly they plan to ask for asylum which if granted would make them refugees and give them all the rights of refugees we select and bring to America through the US Refugee Admissions Program (USRAP). However they are not refugees when they arrive.  They are illegal aliens.

Finally, most will never even fit the definition of a legitimate refugee who must prove that he or she is being persecuted, has left their country, and cannot safely return to his/her home country.  The UACs are largely economic migrants.

Seeking a better life and/or running from crime are not legal grounds for refugee status.

I think the Open Borders agitators knew that by pushing legislation two decades ago that put the (mostly) teens’ care under the umbrella of the Office of Refugee Resettlement it would (further) muddy media understanding and cement in the public mind that they are refugees.  They are not!

And, as you know, they are eventually coming to a town near you with the help of at least a couple of the nine refugee resettlement contractors.***

Two contractors that are paid to take care of the kids are the US Conference of Catholic Bishops and Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service.

From the Office of Refugee Resettlement:

View the number of unaccompanied children released to sponsors by state and by county.

The Hill reported yesterday that apparently, since Biden’s inauguration in January, the US border has been breached by 15,000 UACs:

Number of migrant children in US custody passed 15,000: report

The number of migrant children in U.S. custody has passed 15,000, CBS News reported Saturday.

Records reviewed by the network showed that the government has about 15,500 unaccompanied migrant minors in U.S. custody. Over 5,000 unaccompanied minors are currently held in a tent holding facility run by Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and other stations along the U.S.-Mexico Border as of Saturday morning.

More here.

And to put that in prospective here is data at the Office of Refugee Resettlement on past years.  See that in the entire FY20, that UACs were at 15,000.

However, there were many Trump years that saw very large numbers of mostly teenaged youths entering the US.

And, btw, I have finally begun hearing commentators on Newsmax say that the “children” are mostly teenagers.  It is about time!

Moving on to other refugee news….

It is a great mystery that as of a couple of days ago there was still no news about Biden signing a Presidential determination to admit 62,500 refugees into the US before September 30th. 

As I reported in the first week of March round-up, refugee plane tickets are being cancelled and the so-called banned Muslim refugees have not begun entering the US. 

Checking the (limited!) data just now at the Refugee Processing Center, I see that we have admitted only 1,779 refugees in the first 5 months of the fiscal year.  The 2020 fiscal year began on October 1, 2020.  That is a long way from 62,500 with only 6 and a half months to go.

It is interesting to note that the cabal at the Refugee Council USA, the Washington, DC based lobbying arm of the refugee industry, is silent about Biden’s (their man!) failure to sign the determination.

Biden is however, getting some negative media attention for his failure to agree to the 62,500 admissions proposal his State Department has already put forth.  See this headline:

Biden wants credit for reversing Trump’s refugee policies. So why has he left them in place?

 

In more round-up news LGBTQ refugees are in need of mentoring.

Vermont is looking for more refugees and so is Arkansas.

 

***  I wrote about one of the nine federal refugee contractors yesterday at Frauds and Crooks:

Refugee Agency Settles Fraud Case with US Department of Justice

In case you are new to RRW, here are all of the contractors.  They worked to ‘elect’ Biden and as taxpayers you pay them millions annually to change America by changing the people.  Americans Last! is their motto!

See my category News Round-up for previous posts.  Round-ups have been sporadic over the years, but I am trying now to do them regularly.

Refugee News Round-up: First week of March 2021

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

I thought that one of the most interesting articles this week was this one from Politico where the authors suggest that President Trump has permanently damaged the general publics’ view of refugees.

They suggest that, before Trump, the country loved and welcomed refugees in one big bipartisan lovefest, but now, not so much.

It was a myth that the vast majority of Americans welcomed refugees, what Trump did was to speak about it and make it okay for Americans who feel the same to discuss and debate the issue of whether moving the third world to America benefits Americans.

In other words he gave us all permission to speak (LOL! as he does on many topics.)

One Way Trump May Have Changed Immigration Forever

For decades, U.S. presidents have managed a delicate consensus on taking in refugees. Trump blew it up.

 

 

Another piece of information this week is that Biden has so far failed to sign the “emergency” order that would set the ceiling on refugee admissions at 62,500 to arrive in the US by September 30th.

That lack of action has the resettlement contractors*** panties in a wad as refugee flights have been suddenly canceled.

From the Wall Street Journal:

U.S. Refugee Flights Canceled as Record-Low Cap on Admissions Remains

Here we have one of the contractors, the International Rescue Committee, gently chiding their President to get moving to implement the emergency determination.

IRC calls on the Biden Administration to sign an emergency refugee admissions goal for FY21

Then there is the border crisis….

I suspect that the Biden administration is too overwhelmed with the crisis at the border as tens of thousands of migrants are making their way into the country.

Among them are thousands of so-called ‘Unaccompanied Alien Children,’ actually mostly teenagers who come under the care of the Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR).

They aren’t really legally defined refugees, but are illegal migrants hoping to prove an asylum case.

Having placed the illegal alien kids (mostly teens) under the care of ORR a number of years ago, the open borders agitators have managed to advance their propaganda about the kids being legit refugees.

Legitimate refugees must prove they are “persecuted” they can’t just be poor and shopping for a new country.

From CBS News:

Biden administration scrambles to expand housing space for migrant children amid sharp increase in border apprehensions

And, from the Daily Beast:

Immigrant Advocates Warn Biden: Don’t Repeat Trump’s ‘Unforgivable Crimes’

Firmly cementing the idea in the public mind that the illegals scrambling across our borders are legitimate refugees, we have a United Nations agency, IOM, helping the migrants enter the US.

From the Federalist:

United Nations Officials Shepherd Migrants Across Southern Border

 

Back to the US Refugee Admissions Program….

Now, just as I showed you in my round-up last week, fluffy refugee stories are being published in many locations where refugees will be distributed by the contractors.  See my earlier post on locations where refugees are likely to be placed, at least at first.

I’ve been posting some of those puff-pieces at my Refugee Resettlement page on Facebook and they have reached thousands; hundreds have weighed-in with spirited comments.

News from Colorado: https://www.dailycamera.com/2021/03/01/refugees-colorado-trump-biden/

Massachusetts: https://www.milforddailynews.com/story/news/state/2021/03/03/experts-say-outlook-brighter-refugee-resettlement-under-biden/6894383002/

Michigan: https://www.lansingstatejournal.com/story/news/2021/03/03/vaccine-priority-food-chain-workers-helps-some-refugees-migrants/6835641002/

Missouri: https://www.komu.com/news/midmissourinews/local-resources-a-valuable-friend-for-refugee-students-during-pandemic/article_0cf117a4-7a02-11eb-93ae-4b3b980e39c8.html

Minnesota:  Don’t miss my post at ‘Frauds and Crooks!’

Will Minnesota be the first Muslim State in America?

One last thing to watch for…

A libertarian think tank is promoting the idea of private sponsorship of refugees.  Now on the surface you might think that is a great idea because the numbers admitted would surely decline because frankly how many people or groups could pull together the enormous amounts of money needed to completely take care of refugee families WITHOUT THE TAXPAYERS.

But that isn’t what they propose.  This new group of privately sponsored refugees would be in addition to the ones that would be admitted through the regular US Refugee Admissions Program where the contractors are paid with your money to resettle refugees.

It is merely an effort to get MORE refugees into the United States.

***For New Readers these are the nine federal refugee contractors who worked to put Biden and Harris in the White House, are lobbying for millions of illegal aliens to be transformed into legal voting citizens, and they have succeeded in getting the new administration to promise to raise the ceiling for refugee admissions to 125,000 for next year FY2022—that is the highest it has been in 29 years.

The 62,500 number is for the remainder of FY21.  FY21 ends in less than 7 months.

They are largely paid by you, the taxpayer, for their work of changing America by changing the people, and in so doing, are putting struggling Americans last!

Friday round-up: July 2014 best month ever for RRW!

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Refugee Resettlement Watch was launched in July 2007 (see ‘about’ if you have never read it) and this July we recorded our best month in all of those seven years as the issue of phony refugees (unaccompanied alien children) has galvanized the public’s attention on the whole refugee program of the US government.

There is a silver lining in the recent border crisis!  Finally lots of researchers and writers (and a few real reporters!) are digging into the finances and the political goals of the “charitable organizations” driving the open borders movement.  More researchers and more bloggers are needed, however!

Our readership increased by almost 100% since May.

If you haven’t noticed our daily Top Posts in the right hand sidebar, the top three with the most readers, for this week, are:

Will the federal government resettle hundreds of Congolese refugees in Dover, NH?

Refugee Resettlement Fact Sheet

Senator Jeff Sessions: Melt Congressional phone lines on Monday!

Top ten countries this week, and apologies again to readers from around the world that we haven’t been writing enough about your ‘refugee’ problems and illegal alien invasions since so much is happening with ours.  Of course, most of our readers come from the US, but here (below) are the top ten countries from which we hosted readers (in descending order) this past week.

The top three are usually the same; new in the top ten this week are Malta, India and Sweden.  (See last week’s round-up here.)

UK

Canada

Australia

Germany (#6 last week)

Thailand (#7 last week)

Malta

South Africa (#5 last week)

France (#9 last week)

India

Sweden

If you are a new reader (we have a lot this week!), consider subscribing or follow us on twitter (@refugeewatcher) or facebook (RefugeeInfoResource).  ‘Like us’ on facebook!

And apologies to all who e-mail and comment, sorry if I don’t respond much, there are just not enough hours in my day!

It occurs to me that I do see everyone’s comments to posts because we do screen them (no foul language, no threats), so if you have something you want me to see, I don’t at all mind if you send the link as a comment to a post, even if it’s a little off-topic.

P.S. to critics:  This is a charitable enterprise on my part, let’s just call it an ‘act of love’ to spend hours every day informing average taxpaying American citizens about the migrant tide (much of it LEGAL) flooding our towns and cities through a morass of government programs dressed up to look like ‘religious charity.’

Bottom line! You have a right to know what they plan for your community!