Updating financial data on refugee contractors, big bucks for 'humanitarian' work!

07/11/2017 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Update: I realized tonight that if we cut off federal funding for refugee contractors we would have a significant down payment for The Wall!
I hadn’t checked the most recent data on how much of your money goes to the nine federal refugee resettlement contractors (aka VOLAGs) lately. So here is the latest information I could find. I had to use several sources mostly because some contractors do not file a Form 990 (LOL! they claim they are churches and are thus exempt).
Unfortunately I couldn’t find all income information for all nine for the same year, so it is a little hard to make a direct comparison, but you get the idea.
These are the nine major federal resettlement contractors. (Go here to see a data base with the hundreds of subcontractors working for them in a town near you.)

Church World Service (71% funded by taxpayers)

Church World Service as of June 2016 had a total revenue for the previous year of $88,455,527.
71.3% of their millions comes from you—the taxpayer—according to Charity Navigator, here. You are the source of government grants:

Their chief executive, Rev. John McCullough makes an annual salary of $251,224.

Ethiopian Community Development Council (93% funded by taxpayers)

ECDC is not rated at Charity Navigator so I had to use their most recent Form 990, see here.
(If you have trouble opening the Form 990, go here and then download the document.)
Their total revenue for the year ending September 30, 2014 was $17,448,992. You will see on page 9 that they received $16,290,580 in government grants making them 93% funded by you, the taxpayer.
ECDC’s President Tsehaye Teferra has income listed on page 7 in three columns. The first is direct compensation of $171,683 and the two other columns involve other income from this organization and from “related” organizations of $57,857 and $46,843 (don’t ask me what that is!).

Episcopal Migration Ministries (aka Domestic and Foreign Missionary Society of the Episcopal Church) (99.5% funded by taxpayers)

We know they are 99.5% funded by you because they admitted it here. But, because their federal funds flow in to a church ‘kitty’ and because churches don’t file Form 990’s (or most churches don’t), we have no idea how much they are getting or what the program leaders are being paid. Frankly, this is shameful!
If you are of the Episcopal faith, you need to start asking questions!

Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society (aka HIAS) (57% funded by taxpayers)

According to Charity Navigator for the year ending 12/2015, HIAS had a total revenue of $40,565,891.

Chief executive Mark Hetfield‘s annual salary in that report is $358,718.

International Rescue Committee (66.5% funded by taxpayers)

Be sure to focus on how much bigger the IRC is with an annual revenue of $688,920,920! From Charity Navigator:

66.5% is in the vicinity of $455 MILLION of your dollars annually!

Head honcho David Miliband hit the jackpot with this annual salary: $591,846!

US Committee for Refugees and Immigrants (USCRI) (98% funded with taxpayer dollars)

USCRI is a little harder to figure out. Charity Navigator does not rate them for this reason:

This organization is not eligible to be rated by Charity Navigator because, as a service for individual givers, we only rate organizations that depend on support from individual contributors and foundations. Organizations such as this, that get most of their revenue from the government or from program services, are therefore not eligible to be rated.

You could say that USCRI is a quasi-government organization masquerading as a non-profit!

We have a lot on Lavinia Limon here at RRW. She was Bill Clinton’s director of the ORR! https://refugeeresettlementwatch.org/?s=Lavinia+Limon

So we go to the most recent Form 990 available for year ending September 30, 2015. (Or download pdf at ProPublica, here)
On page 9 you can see that they only take in less than $1 million of their $51,524,570 from private gifts and contributions. All of their “program income” is likely through taxpayer dollars as well.
President and CEO Lavinia Limon makes $260,258 in annual compensation plus pulls down another $42,231 from this and related organizations (whatever that is!).

Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service (LIRS) is 96-97% funded by taxpayers

Like USCRI it’s a little hard to figure out, from their recent Form 990 here where their total income is $55,983,615, exactly which of the fees in their income column actually are taxpayer dollars too.
We can assume there isn’t much private charity going to LIRS because Charity Navigator says the same thing they did for USCRI which is:

Hartke (blue jacket front row) with refugee lobbyists last month. https://refugeeresettlementwatch.org/2017/06/26/refugee-contractors-brought-refugee-lobbyists-to-washington-again-last-week/

Just a reminder that USCRI and LIRS are really quasi-government agencies yet they are busy lobbying Congress and otherwise community organizing in order to influence the media and Congress to support more refugees (aka paying clients!) coming to America.
LIRS President and CEO Linda Hartke makes an annual salary of $274,632 and an additional $33,401 from this and related organizations (page 8).

US Conference of Catholic Bishops Migration Fund (97% taxpayer funded)

Now it gets even trickier! The Bishops don’t file a Form 990 and their operations are so vast, I could spend the whole day and still not sort it out. Also, maybe you can find one, but I have not found an annual report for their refugee program since I found this one for 2014.
So we will have to rely on it (again). Keep in mind these funds for their refugee resettlement program do not include millions that go directly from the feds to some individual Catholic Charities and Dioceses around the US. (If you are researching your local CC or Dioceses, you can often find good numbers at USASpending.gov)

“Federal grants” is your money, so is the Travel Loan Collection Fees, so that puts the Bishops’ refugee resettlement program at 97% taxpayer funded. (I am not sure if the Unaccompanied Alien Children fall in to yet another fund!).
I would like to get a more up-to-date accounting for the Bishops, but they must be hiding those reports really well! I suspect they are pulling down even more payola in more recent years.
Obviously we don’t know what salaries are being paid for their Washington, DC lobbying shop. Their previous head lobbyist was Kevin Appleby.

World Relief (Corp. National Association of Evangelicals) is 72.8% funded by taxpayer dollars

That is according to Charity Navigator, here. Total revenue is $62,583,313 for the year ending September 30, 2015. But, I did find a more recent Form 990, here, with a huge jump in income in one year to $71,022,032. I thought World Relief was broke and closing offices??? (Gives me an idea for another post and that is to report on some of the contractors increases in funding over several years).
That Form 990 shows something I hadn’t seen in other Form 990’s and that is that the Prez/CEO doesn’t make a whole lot, but some financial officer (Barry Howard) is making over $250,000 big ones (see pages 7 & 8).
Here is Charity Navigator’s “contributions” breakdown. Ha! Ha! your tax dollars for government grants are contributions!

Whew! What a job searching for all that financial information! Hope you made it this far!

Can you see now why I say there will be no reform of the UN/US Refugee Admissions Program as long as these nine contractors, masquerading as charities, are sucking on the federal teat and bidding for bodies (aka refugee ‘clients’)?

And, adding insult to injury, they lobby, kiss up to the media, and community organize against you who are paying for the whole refugee racket!
None of these organizations would survive very long if Congress and the President cut them loose (or stated more kindly and so as not to mix metaphors!—weaned them!).

Your daily assignment! Write to the White House, here.

Supreme Court is giving permission for the refugee ceiling to be surpassed for first time

07/09/2017 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

I know, I am a broken record on this issue and that it is more interesting to read about the rich kids at Harvard wanting refugees and about Muslim refugees facing trial skipping out on bail, but we have to address the boring numbers stuff too.
Here is what we know:
~The President sets the CEILING for refugee admissions each year (the ceiling is a cap!).

~President Obama set the ceiling for FY17 at 110,000 in his final months in office (he never set a ceiling that high in his previous 7 years).
~Donald Trump’s EO reset it at 50,000.
~As of today we are at 49,803 according to Wrapsnet.
~The Supreme Court confirmed the 50,000 with a caveat. Anyone who could prove a “bona fide relationship” with a relative in the US or to an “entity” could come in above the 50,000 cap.
~I contend that with that stipulation, the Supreme Court has taken it upon itself to rewrite refugee law because there is a mechanism in the Refugee Act to go above the cap, but it sure doesn’t involve the courts. The President must determine that there is an emergency and he must consult with Congress—not the courts—to go above the ceiling.

Tomorrow or the next day, we will cross the 50,000 mark.

Have we ever surpassed a refugee ceiling?

I wanted to know if we have ever gone above the ceiling and so I did some research and this is what I learned:

Since 1983 (over 30 years!), no President has exceeded the ceiling, but many of them came in way below the ceiling previously set.

From the 2007 ORR Annual Report to Congress a chart (p.4) showing CEILINGS and numbers actually admitted going back to 1983.

Do you see how far below the ceiling they were in a number of years. And, note the text at the top. There is no mention of any court having any role in determining the ceiling.

Now pick it up from 2007 to right now, end of June 2017 from Wrapsnet. Have they ever surpassed the ceiling in more recent years? NO!
But, I want you take note of the fact that the US State Department (Trump’s DOS!) cannot even bring itself to put the 50,000 in the CEILING column. I explained here about when it was removed. In fact the chart last month (for the end of May) left out the whole ceiling column!

Note that the ceiling column is blank for FY17 although the Supreme Court confirmed it is 50,000.

By the way, ignore all the wailing and moaning by the contractors. If you check the average admissions number for 20 years up to Obama’s huge FY16, the average admissions come in at just over 62,000. If the Supremes get their way, you can bet Trump will be forced past that number. (Congress has appropriated enough money for 75,000 by September 30th!)
If the President is serious, he can ask Congress for a rescission of those funds!
We will be watching every day! Any refugees over 50,000 are the responsibility of the Supreme Court having taken over the President’s constitutional authority to protect us!

Whatever happened to indicted Uzbek refugee alleged terrorist Jamshid Muhtorov?

07/05/2017 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Recently when I told you about another Uzbek refugee already in prison on terror charges after a guilty verdict in an Idaho trial, here, I wondered what happened to Jamshid Muhtorov who I wrote about in 2012, here. By the way, the Idaho Uzbek refugee, Fazliddin Kurbanov, made news again when he attempted to kill the prison warden, see here.

When he goes to trial will we learn more about how and why he was resettled in Colorado in the first place?

Before I give you the latest on Muhtorov, the big question remains:
Why were we bringing in this group of known Uzbek troublemakers anyway? Some didn’t even want to be here!
As one of my knowledgeable readers suggests, maybe the reason Muhtorov has not gone to trial yet is that the government might have to reveal why the Bush Administration was taking in Uzbek dissidents as legitimate refugees in the first place!
Here is what we learned last week. The short article says there was supposed to have been a hearing on Monday, July 3, but we don’t see any news yet on that.
From the Associated Press (hat tip: Joanne):

DENVER — A court has barred the release of a man detained for 5½ years for allegedly providing material support to an Uzbek terror organization.

Uzbekistan is a mostly Muslim country, so why are we taking Muslim refugees from there and placing them in towns and cities across America?

The Denver Post reports the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals issued its temporary stay at the request of the U.S. Attorney’s Office, which appealed a federal judge’s order to release Jamshid Muhtorov. The appeals court will hold a hearing Monday.

Muhtorov argues his right to a speedy trial has been violated, and on June 23, a federal judge ordered his release before trial.

Muhtorov, whose trial is expected to begin early next year, is accused of supporting the Islamic Jihad Union and communicating with its website administrator. He denied the allegations after his January 2012 arrest, saying he was going to visit family in Uzbekistan.

Memory lane: I first testified here in 2012 to the US State Department that the refugee program should be for legitimate refugees and should not be used for extracurricular foreign policy objectives like currying favor with other governments by taking troublemakers off their hands. (Ten reasons for a moratorium, #7)

I believe that happened with the Uzbeks, Bosnians, with the Meshketian Turks/Russia and it is happening again with the Trump Administration plan to admit Australian rejected (mostly Muslim) asylum seekers.

Where are you Congress?

And so it begins—the battle of the bona fides

06/28/2017 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

“Anyone who has an existing relationship with a nonprofit, frankly tens of thousands of refugees, should be seen as having bona fide ties.”

Becca Heller

The US Supreme Court has taken it upon itself to re-write Refugee law by creating a new requirement (even if it is just for a few months) that refugees may enter the country ABOVE TRUMP’S CEILING OF 50,000 ADMISSIONS by September 30th if they can show a “bona fide relationship” to someone already here or to an “entity” in the US.
In Washington, DC, the scrambling to define those words—“bona fide relationship”—is underway!
The Refugee Act of 1980 has no provisions for going over the President’s CEILING except in an emergency and in such a case, the President (wishing to increase the ceiling) must “consult” with Congress.

The Supremes have thus gone beyond their Constitutional role and are crafting a new requirement that effectively nullifies Trump’s 50,000 admissions ceiling and strips the President and Congress of their authority under the Refugee Act of 1980.

Before I give you the NY Times on the battle of the bona fides, you might want to read Andy McCarthy here (not much of a victory) on the decision as he raises an important point about giving powerful legal rights to some random immigrant who just happened to get here earlier who can now, with a demand to bring in the family members, have a legal right to supersede the President’s power to keep us safe.

International Refugee Assistance Project is one of the original litigants.

Here is the NY Times (other news outlets are signalling as well in which direction the refugee industry is going on this) which begins with the usual get-your-minds-right sob story with a couple of refugee ‘stars’ of the article telling their sad tale.
Skipping to the important part ……

About four out of 10 refugees who come to the United States have no family ties in the country, according to independent estimates. In some cities known for taking in refugees — like Boise, Idaho; New Haven; and Fayetteville, Ark. — those with no family ties are a majority.

On Monday, the Supreme Court threw into question whether such refugees, who are among the most vulnerable people seeking a haven after fleeing persecution or conflict, will be approved for resettlement in the United States.

In agreeing to hear two cases on President Trump’s travel ban, the court introduced a new phrase to the fraught discussion of refugees and Muslim immigrants: “bona fide relationship.”

Those who can show a “bona fide relationship” with a “person or entity” in the United States will not be affected by Mr. Trump’s 120-day halt to refugee admissions or his 90-day ban on travel from six majority-Muslim countries, according to the court’s order. Those refugees or travelers must be admitted, at least for now.

However, those who have no family, business or other ties can be prohibited, the court said.
The justices gave some examples of a bona fide relationship: visiting relatives in the United States, attending a university or taking a job offer.

Here we go! No family ties? So, they are setting the stage for demanding that anyone already connected, even tangentially, to a US refugee resettlement contractor*** should be admitted in addition to the relatives!

On a conference call Monday, lawyers who have fought the Trump administration argued that other refugees and travelers should also be allowed in because, like Mr. Dagoum, they often have ties to a nonprofit organization that has been helping them even before they land in the United States.

“Anyone who has an existing relationship with a nonprofit, frankly tens of thousands of refugees,” should be seen as having bona fide ties, said Becca Heller, director of the International Refugee Assistance Project.

Representatives of some resettlement agencies said they were awaiting guidance from the State Department. Heather Nauert, a State Department spokeswoman, said on Tuesday that the department would consult with the Justice Department on how to define “bona fide relationship,” a process she expected to take two more days. Meanwhile, anyone already approved for travel to the United States by July 6 would be allowed in, she said.

Continue reading here.
Just checking the numbers at Wrapsnet and see that as of this morning we are at 48,920 refugees admitted this fiscal year (began Oct. 1, 2016). We are thus 1,080 away from Trump’s 50,000 CEILING—a ceiling now rendered meaningless by the Supreme Court with this assertion.
With this below from the Court’s opinion, Trump (and America!) loses big time (where are you Congress?):

My previous posts on the Supreme Court debacle are here and here.
*** These are the nine major US resettlement contractors and working under them (using your tax dollars) are hundreds of local subcontractors.

Random thoughts on the Supreme Court decision yesterday….

06/27/2017 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

See my post yesterday immediately following the surprising announcement by the Supreme Court on the Trump ‘travel ban’ from six terror-producing countries and the ceiling/moratorium on refugee resettlement across all countries and ethnic groups.
This morning I thought I might find an article or two that sounded reasonably informed about what is going to happen in the coming days and weeks. I didn’t find anything (yet) that looks very useful. Everyone seems confused.
There is an LA Times story with a juicy nugget where they say 50,500 refugees (yikes!) are waiting in the wings from the six targeted ‘travel ban’ countries. And, a Buffalo News story is representative of the myriad stories from across the country where refugee contractors are scratching their heads about what it all means for them. Those that get mostly refugees with “family ties” believe they will be getting their full quotas of paying clients.

Random thoughts!

So, as much as I would like to give readers guidance on what is going to happen, I can’t. But, here are some thoughts I have in random order. Some are comments, others are questions.

Some of the articles I read this morning suggest we have more of this coming….

~The issue of bona fide relationships is going to be a huge mess. Already the contractors and subcontractors are thinking that if they have some refugees on the way from any country, they, the contractor, will be a bona fide “entity” and therefore their refugees will get in.
~Apparently a 120-day MORATORIUM on refugee resettlement (90 days for those 6 countries is a separate part of the EO) will go into effect, except for those who can claim a relationship of some sort. If it begins on Thursday (as most are predicting), 120 days ends on or about October 26th which is 26 days in to FY18. It then makes me wonder what Donald Trump will do with his ‘determination’ for that fiscal year which by law he will present to Congress in September.
~After wandering in the weeds about numbers, will the Trump Administration have any will to reform the whole US Refugee Admissions Program? It is now or never!
~Even if the Supreme Court hears the case in October, it could be months later for a decision (well in to election year 2018).
~BTW, as several news articles yesterday pointed out, there was and probably still is, a huge amount of fraud in the Refugee Admissions Program as it relates to who is, and who isn’t, a family member. Long time readers may remember the discovery in 2008 that literally as many as 20,000 Somalis entered the US fraudulently as part of the P-3 Family Reunification program. The Dept. of State shut down the P-3 for parts of Africa for years. The Supreme Court has now further increased the incentive for fraudulent claims of family connections.
~The Supreme Court ruling is troubling to me, actually on many levels, but they suggest that refugees with family ties get priority, while perhaps more persecuted people are left behind. Heck, every Somali probably has a family tie to someone in the US (since way over 100,000 are here already), while a truly persecuted Syrian Christian may have no ties because so few Syrian Christians have been admitted to the US. How did the Supremes let themselves get into this quagmire?
~The Dept. of State, with the likes of Brian Hook working with Sec. of State Tillerson, will be making critical decisions about how choices will be made about who gets in here between now and October 26th. They will be forced to depend on career bureaucrats (because Trump has moved too slowly to get people loyal to him placed in agencies across Washington) who have long-time personal relationships with the contractors.
~Although, as I said yesterday, I’m glad the Supreme Court put to rest the issue of whether Trump had the authority to reduce the refugee CEILING that he inherited from Obama (from 110,000 to 50,000), I am extremely troubled by the Supreme Court writing refugee law. The Refugee Act of 1980 is very specific about what steps must be taken for a President to go above the CEILING. The steps involve the President consulting with Congress in the case of an emergency. The court here is saying they have now stepped in to allow an increase over 50,000 (for relatives!). What is Congress going to do—continue to hide on the subject of refugees—and give up their Constitutional power to the courts?

~Congress actually appropriated enough money for 75,000 refugees to be admitted by September 30th, so what happens to that money as the number surely won’t come in anywhere near the 75,000 level (how on earth did Tillerson/Hook get out on that limb back in May telling contractors 1,500 would be admitted every week?).
~Representatives of the nine federal contractors*** are in a tizzy (as I read many news stories this morning), some trying to put a positive spin on what the Court has done. I wondered if they wouldn’t have been better off just letting Trump’s EO go in to effect months ago and get the review over with. It would have been done by now and some normalcy returned. Instead we are all looking to many more months of chaos, confusion and lawsuits. So maybe we can say, that the contractors are responsible for those “vulnerable” refugees left in limbo now.
~On that point about being in a tizzy, the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society (HIAS) is organizing a briefing call on Thursday so you can find out what they think of the decision and what they will do going forward.
From an e-mail:

To learn more about the implications of the Supreme Court’s decision for refugees and non-citizens, join HIAS for a briefing call on Thursday, June 27 at 4:30pm EST. Click here to RSVP and receive a call-in number.

[Update! A reader has pointed out that Thursday is the 29th! So, I expect there will be an e-mail correction coming from HIAS—ed]
I’m sure I’ve forgotten some things, and if I find some great legal mind who can predict what is going to happen beginning on Thursday, I’ll send it your way. In the meantime, send story links that you think add to the discussion to the comments here at RRW.
More later…..
***Federal contractors in a tizzy. Since the vast majority of their annual income is from the US Treasury based on the number of refugees admitted each year, their budgets have again gone to hell. Not that I am sympathetic about their financial mess, but this is why Congress has to get the middlemen contractors out of the refugee business!