Tag: Where is Congress

Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society: Tell Congress we need more $$$ for refugees

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

As I said yesterday, although Trump’s proposed FY18 Budget contains (we are told) enough money for as many as 50,000 refugees for FY18, the refugee resettlement contractors are pushing Congress for more.
The President has the power to set the refugee admissions ceiling for the upcoming year (in “consultation” with Congress), and that is normally done in September.

But, it appears to me that the contractors think they have a chance to move the Republican Congress to appropriate enough money for 75,000 refugees in FY18 and by doing that essentially steal the power the President has under the Refugee Act of 1980 to set the ceiling for the upcoming year.  (Always remember RINOs want cheap immigrant laborers for their business donors!)
Here is an alert I received yesterday. Of course their language is unnecessarily alarmist as we are no longer debating Trump’s original moratorium vs. some number of refugees, the debate is now simply over how many!
 

 
That second link directs readers to this page which begins (under this banner):

 
HIAS:

In the midst of the largest refugee crisis in recorded history, with over 65 million people displaced around the world, the U.S. government must do more—not less—to help refugees.

Please take a minute to urge your elected officials to fund a humanitarian response that demonstrates America’s global leadership and honors our values. We need to make sure Congress provides adequate funding for refugees and allows organizations like HIAS to continue the important work of helping refugees here and abroad.

Then HIAS supplies their supporters with a ready-made letter to Congress.
I cannot overemphasize the fact that the refugee contractors understand the appropriations process in Washington (their financial lives depend on it!), but that citizens concerned with the secret placement of third worlders in to your towns and cities don’t understand it.  And, we definitely don’t have lobbyists (as HIAS does) in Washington to help get your message to your representatives.
As I have said repeatedly, the entire UN/US Refugee Admissions Program should be scrapped and if it is in our interest to take some refugees, a new law should be written. Sadly, after encouraging us with MORATORIUM language, there is no sign that the Trump team will lead any major reform.  The battle is being framed simply around numbers (in a range of 50,000-75,000).

Congress seeks to fund US Refugee Admissions Program as if Trump didn't exist

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

The so-called budget deal being ironed-out to fund the government to the end of the fiscal year commits billions to the refugee program.  You might think that Obama was  back in the White House and that Donald Trump never campaigned on slowing the flow of refugees from countries that produce terrorists.

President who? This budget “deal” makes me wonder if Obama is still in the Oval Office!

I can’t make heads or tails out of the budget bill language, but here Alex Pfeiffer at the Daily Caller tells us it is full steam ahead with refugees because if they have your money, you can bet it will be spent.
It isn’t too late….

Trump could flex his muscles this week and say to Congress, go back to the drawing boards.

He could say: we will do another continuing resolution for a couple of weeks until you get it right.  (After all, it isn’t just with the refugee program that Congress is dissing the Prez).
You may have seen the Dems gloating about their apparent budget victory yesterday.
And, the RINOs are pretty slick too! 
Look at it this way, the Dems and the RINOs join forces to make sure almost none of Trump’s campaign promises are fulfilled, voters blame it on Trump and Trump becomes a one-term President.  The only question is, does Trump get that and will he show some muscle and fight back right now!
Here is what the Daily Caller says about refugees:

The budget deal to keep the government funded through September agreed upon by congressional leaders would continue funding the refugee resettlement program.

An agreement on the omnibus budget was reached by leaders from both parties Sunday, as a government shutdown looms on Friday. The proposed spending agreement includes no money to construct the president’s border wall, and continues funding Planned Parenthood.

[….]

The bill would include a total of $3 billion towards migration and refugee assistance, which is roughly the same that was spent in Fiscal Year 2016. It would also include $50 million towards the emergency refugee and migration assistance fund, which is also the same amount spent in the previous fiscal year.

With President Trump’s executive orders temporarily blocking refugee resettlement held up in court, 12,397 refugees have been resettled during his presidency.***

Pay close attention to the last line here, and below.
This is why I have been saying that Trump did not have to include changing the ceiling or language about a moratorium in the Executive Order.  He has the power to stay anywhere under the ceiling! The Refugee Act of 1980 tells the President to set the ceiling in advance of the fiscal year, before October 1, and if he wants to raise the ceiling during the year he must inform Congress, but he does not have to reach the ceiling—few Presidents in recent times have reached the ceiling—or even inform Congress that he will be coming in under it!

The Obama administration set a goal in September of 110,000 refugees admitted in Fiscal Year 2017. A State Department official told The Daily Caller in early April that “this language represents a ceiling on refugee admissions – it is not a mandatory target.”

It isn’t too late for Trump to quietly institute the 120-day moratorium, as he originally planned, to assess whether our security screening is adequate. It gets much harder if the agencies are awash in money that they want to send out to government contractors!
***See my post here from a couple of days ago about Trump’s refugee admissions.

Huffington Post: State Department says it will up refugee arrivals to 900 a WEEK!

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

We have increased the current pace of refugee arrivals to approximately 900 individuals per week.

(State Department spokesperson)

 
Oh geez! What the heck is the Trump Administration doing?
As we have said repeatedly, Trump’s refugee admissions are not at the mercy of two rogue judges. He can bring in any number under the CEILING set either by Obama (110,000) or his reduced ceiling (50,000).

As far as we know, Sec. of State Rex Tillerson has not chosen a political appointment to head up the Population, Refugees and Migration department that runs the USRAP, thus the program is run by long-time federal employees with close ties to the contractors and to media like the HuffPo!

After resettlement contractors reduced their staffs (their federal funding depends on a per head payment for each refugee they resettle), now, if the Huffington Post is right, their numbers will go up from a previously predicted 400 per week to 900 per week and are complaining about being understaffed!

If you calculate 900 a week for the remaining (approx. 26 weeks in this fiscal year) and add that number to the number of refugees as of today (38,789) the result is approximately 62,189.

To put that number in perspective, the Bush Administration was BELOW that number in 2002, 2003, 2006, 2007 and 2008.
Even Obama was below that number in 2011 and 2012! (see here).

(We told you here that as of yesterday they have not ticked-up to 900 a week, yet!)
Here is what HuffPo is reporting:

The number of refugees being resettled in the U.S. has shot up ever since a federal court struck down portions of President Donald Trump’s second executive order on immigration earlier this month.

While this has allowed many to breathe a sigh of relief, it’s placing serious strain on the organizations responsible for bringing refugees to America and helping them resettle.

“In accordance with the Court Order, and consistent with both our operational capacity and our capacity under available funding, we have increased the current pace of refugee arrivals to approximately 900 individuals per week,” a State Department spokesperson told The Huffington Post in a statement on Tuesday. “New refugee pre-screening interviews will continue to be scheduled and conducted at Resettlement Support Centers around the world.”

Trump has signed two executive orders attempting to prevent refugees from finding safe haven in the United States since entering office. Both were legally challenged amid mass protests.

His first order, signed on Jan. 27, halted the refugee resettlement program for 120 days, among other things, and slashed the number of people who could be resettled in the U.S. from 110,000 in the 2017 fiscal year to 50,000.

As a result, the number of refugees entering the country weekly had been limited to 400 people, in an effort to avoid reaching the 50,000 quota too soon (the 2017 fiscal year ends on Sept. 30). Fewer refugees means less money allocated to the agencies that resettle refugees, since they receive federal funding contingent on the number of people they take care of.

Parts of this order were struck down in federal court in February, but the quota remained unchanged. So the 400 per week figure was in effect until Trump’s revised ban was struck down in a Hawaii federal court on March 15, only hours before it was supposed to be implemented.

Continue reading here.
This is further evidence to explain why the Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service is “cautiously hopeful.”
Next, I need to find out what role Congress is playing—have the RINOs increased funding for the USRAP (US Refugee Admissions Program)?

Trump may increase funding for refugees in FY18 budget…..

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

….but before you panic, as I did when I read Breitbart’s headline (‘Trump Budget Includes ‘Significant Funding of . . . Refugee Program’), some of the funding proposal likely involves humanitarian help abroad and development of the ‘safe zones’ (abroad!) concept.

President Donald Trump salutes after laying a wreath at the Hermitage, the home of President Andrew Jackson, to commemorate Jackson’s 250th birthday, Wednesday, March 15, 2017, in Nashville, Tenn. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

Here is Michael Patrick Leahy with an inside look at Trump Administration funding plans:

The blueprint for the Trump administration’s FY 2018 budget released on Thursday “allows for significant funding of humanitarian assistance, including food aid, disaster, and refugee program funding” in the State Department.

“This would focus funding on the highest priority areas while asking the rest of the world to pay their fair share,” the blueprint states.

“Taken together with the executive order, it looks like the president will keep the refugee program with a lower annual number, like the 50,000 limit specified in Executive Order 13780, and when the annual determination is released, identify countries of concern in a way that excludes Somalia, and other countries of concern that are known to harbor terrorists,” a source familiar with the federal refugee resettlement program tells Breitbart News.

[….]

“As long as he keeps the refugee program going, we are going to get more people from countries related to real security issues and regardless, the program needs to be legislatively reformed and regulations that have caused Constitutional violations repealed before restarting in FY 2018,” the source adds.

So, the Trump team is aware and is aiming to “legislatively” reform the program which we have been insisting is the only way to permanently fix (if possible!) the UN/US Refugee Admissions Program.

Otherwise, if there is no legislative fix, then in 4, or 8, years the whole huge, uncontrolled, flow could begin again with a new president. (See ‘Where is Congress?’ here)
Reform of “regulations” is the Administration’s job!
Regulations do not need “repeal” (implying Congress gets involved), they need only be trashed or re-written by Trump’s people. (Could they trash the “regulations” that were written for the Wilson-Fish amendments? As I understand it, those regulations wrongly authorized a non-profit group to run a refugee program in a state that had withdrawn from the program.)
Leahy continues….

The language of the blueprint, however, could be interpreted to suggest that the Trump administration’s “significant funding of . . . [the] refugee program” defines the program broadly to include safe zones in other parts of the world in addition to the federal refugee resettlement program. As such, a further reduction of refugees resettled in the United States in FY 2018 could be entirely possible.

Leahy goes on to discuss the recent court decisions in Hawaii and in Maryland, noting that the judge in Hawaii did place a restraining order (we believe completely illegally) on Trump’s reduction of the Obama PROPOSED CEILING (see ceiling discussion here).
Then at the end of his informative piece, we get a laugh!  Leahy wraps up with this….

As to the number refugees who will be resettled in the United States during the balance of FY 2017, President Trump may take a page from President Andrew Jackson, whose tomb he honored during his visit to Nashville on Wednesday.

“John Marshall has made his decision; now let him enforce it,” President Jackson said of an 1832 Supreme Court decision unfavorable to his policies issued by the Marshall Court.

President Trump’s attitude to the unfavorable decision issued by Judge Watson regarding a president’s Constitutional and statutory authority to limit the number of refugees arriving in the United States, a decision Judge Chuang [in Maryland case—ed] may agree with on March 28, may well be something like this:

“Judge Watson has made his decision; now let him pay for it.”

To read more and follow links, continue here.
See my FY17 and FY18 timeline here.  See my proposed areas to cut funding, here, yesterday because FUNDING IS POLICY.
All of my posts relating to the USRAP and President Trump’s efforts to restrain and reform it, are posted in my Trump Watch! category.
And, don’t miss Tennessee sues the feds! over Wilson-Fish program.

Horowitz: Where is Congress? Why are they not helping Trump on immigration?

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

That’s been my question too!

Here at Conservative Review, Daniel Horowitz asks why Congress is not backing the President’s right to control immigration to America and determine how many refugees we admit and from where they originate.
Instead Congress is entangled in one major mess over Obamacare.  And, frankly, although important, repeal of Obamacare did not motivate voters to support Trump in the way immigration restriction did.
Here is Horowitz (emphasis mine):

Where is Congress?

Look at the House GOP’s agenda since January. It has been devoid of any substance. What other majority party with control of the White House has failed to act on a single significant issue in its first 100 days? Why are they not passing bills defending Trump’s executive order, and why are they not stripping the courts of jurisdiction over immigration?

While you are at Conservative Review, be sure to check out their very useful ‘scorecard.’ I think you will be surprised at the low scores of many members of Congress and Senators you might have once thought were conservative. https://www.conservativereview.com/scorecard

Trump’s only major accomplishment thus far was the refugee moratorium and that is hanging by a thread thanks to the erroneous outsourcing of legislative and executive authority to the courts. It’s time for Trump to work with House conservatives to bolster his immigration agenda against the courts, instead of fighting conservatives to enshrine Obamacare into law.

Trump must demand that Congress back his immigration order in the April budget bill by defunding the refugee resettlement program and the issuance of any visas from the six countries on his list. House conservatives should also work with Trump to defund Obama’s executive amnesty.

Instead of threatening conservatives with primary challenges if they fail to betray Trump’s own election mandate, why not threaten to primary the RINOs for not backing his immigration agenda? Or is it easier to go after conservatives because they are politically expendable?

Read the whole column here and see how “rogue” judges are taking control of the immigration issue in America.
For more on Congress, see my tag ‘Where is Congress‘ especially on the appropriations issue!