Update: This group of Syrians will NOT now be placed in Hudson because the Dept. of State says they need more medical care than Hudson has to offer. They are going somewhere else. This case is all very strange from start to finish and it strikes me that Obama’s outgoing resettlement team is in disarray. Read about it here. See what the Catholic Church says, here.
I told you about a proposed (strange) arrangement to resettle 5 Syrian refugee families in the small town of Hudson, Wisconsin, here last month. A Catholic Church was being asked by the US Conference of Catholic Bishops (a federal refugee contractor) to take full responsibility for the Syrian families. I wondered if that church would get the full per head amount of federal resettlement contract money.
A large meeting is (was?) scheduled in Hudson in early January to take the pulse of the community.
Local readers (who have formed a citizens’ group in opposition) tell me that that plan was suddenly scrapped and Lutheran Social Services out of Milwaukee came to town this week and condescendingly told residents, no, they (LSS), were going to bring the Syrians to Hudson and it was going to be a whole lot more than 21 (believed to be included in the five families).
Then, when I looked around this morning, I see that 7th District Congressman Sean Duffy sent a letter yesterday to the CEO of Lutheran Social Services in Wisconsin asking questions that every careful and concerned Member of Congress should be asking if he/she is being told ‘out of the blue’ that Syrian refugees (or any refugees!) were being chosen for the district.
Here is Duffy’s letter:
I think most of you are surprised to see a reference to any assessment!
Where is the assessment for any of the 47 new sites we are told the US Department of State is considering in the closing days of the Obama Administration? If Rep. Duffy and others want to do a service to America they could reform the Refugee Admissions Program legislatively and require PUBLIC assessments of the suitability of communities to absorb large numbers of third world refugees!
Endnote: When I checked my archives, I see I wrote about Hudson, Wisconsin in January 2014 when rival Somali gangs came over from Minnesota and got into a fight in Hudson, see here.
Our Wisconsin archive is here.
***Update*** Wimpy Walker weighs in on refugees to Wisconsin here. It isn’t clear that he understands the present process. If he wants to see things change he better get in touch with pal Paul (Ryan) to change the law in Congress!
Tag: Where is Congress
Senate voted (and Obama signed) the Continuing Budget Resolution overnight, refugee program comes up short
The federal government will continue to be funded mostly at the Fiscal Year 2016 level until late April. The budget extension had passed the House earlier in the week and the Senate voted last night to send the bill to Obama’s desk.
Many Dems were unhappy because instead of funding the government for the year—until September 30th—the whole issue will be revisited in the spring. The election of Donald Trump was pretty much the deciding factor and this short term fix gives the Trump team time to get in place and put their funding priorities in the mix.
You can read about the final vote here at The Hill.
For our purposes (we have been writing about the issue of funding for the Refugee program for months), the results are good news.
Last week we reported that the Obama Administration was looking for billions in additional funding for the Office of Refugee Resettlement claiming that if they didn’t get their big tranche of money, ORR would go broke in February.
Well they didn’t get most of it which should make it even easier for Trump to stop or significantly slow the flow of refugees after January 20th since clearly the Congress is signalling that there is not much support for the high level of refugees that Obama wanted and surely Hillary would have enthusiastically supported had she won the election in November.
Obama’s 110,000 refugee goal for this year will now (in my opinion) be out of reach.
Here is what Numbers USA is reporting:
The House overwhelmingly approved, with bipartisan support, a short-term spending bill yesterday without any significant changes to the refugee program and without expanding the H-2B guest-worker program.
[…..]
The short-term spending bill would fund the government through late-April, so there will likely be another battle then. But negotiations will be with a different administration that’s more focused on eliminating fraud within the refugee program and protecting the jobs and wages of American workers.
We faced two threats with this week’s fight. First, back in September, Pres. Obama demanded an increase in funding for the refugee program to accommodate an additional 25,000 refugees over last year’s already inflated numbers. The White House more recently requested a doubling of refugee funding through the short-term spending bill. The money not only would pay for the additional refugees, but would house and resettle across the U.S. the thousands of border surgers who have illegally entered the U.S. in recent months.
Congress added a small increase in refugee funding, but none of the additional funds can be used to resettle new refugees in the United States nor can they be used by the Obama Administration to house and resettle the border surgers.
The budget battle will now resume in the spring—a battle which could be significantly less important for us if Trump acts on his campaign promise to halt refugee admissions from terror-producing countries—which is about half of the flow coming in right now.
This is strange…..
I searched around this morning to see if the VOLAGs (refugee contractors) or their lobbyists were wailing, but am not seeing anything. Delayed reaction? Maybe they had some leftover funds sloshing around? But, they have already said they don’t!
Keep me posted if you see anything.
What you might see before I do is some local news reports that say that the opening of a new resettlement site is being ‘delayed.’
This post and all posts on the budget process are tagged ‘Where is Congress.’
Rep. Brian Babin to Congress: Don't fund Obama refugee slush fund!
As I have been saying, Congress is going to be deciding on the so-called Continuing Budget Resolution this week because they are all eager to get out of Dodge (DC).
The Obama Administration is asking for a huge special funding addition because they claim the Office of Refugee Resettlement is going to run out of cash in February (the CR would, if as predicted, extend 2016 funding levels through March). ORR has (surprise!) a huge number of Unaccompanied Alien Children to take care of as the border is being assaulted by all those wanting in before Trump takes office.
I told you all about it here last week.
Now, Rep. Brian Babin of Texas pleads in an opinion piece at the Daily Caller for the REPUBLICAN led Congress to not fall for it because once appropriated it will literally be a slush fund available to ORR which they could distribute to the refugee contractors through all sorts of means even if Trump cuts off the flow of refugees on January 21st (which he can do!).
I’ll let you read Babin’s op-ed yourself because I have one more important warning for you and I have to get out of here shortly.
Warning!
Even if the House of Representatives does not capitulate to the Administration’s plea for BILLIONS more of your tax dollars, the Senate Appropriations Committee might very well be happy to accommodate Obama and add in the money. [For Marylanders remember Babs Mikulski is on this committee!!! Swan song? Money for more Muslims for Maryland?—ed]
If the Senate adds the money, when the House and Senate conference committee meets to iron-out differences between their respective versions of the funding bill, the House leadership (Paul Ryan!) could waffle and not fight for the House version on this important point.
We know their tricks and it goes like this: ‘Gosh we tried, but the Senate put the money in and there was nothing we could do about it! We sure don’t want to shut down the government over this.’ (Of course it would be Obama shutting down the government for not signing the CR!)
You need to put pressure on your House members to not add in the money and then to stick to their guns in conference committee—tall order I know!
And, tell the Trump transition team what could go down here! This is a test for Speaker Ryan and whether he will work with Trump on Trump’s promises about the refugee program.
All of our posts, on the all important funding issue, are tagged ‘Where is Congress.’
What are the major Muslim ethnic groups entering the US right now through the RAP?
![rpcLogoSmall [Converted]](https://refugeeresettlementwatch.files.wordpress.com/2016/12/rpclogosmaller.jpg)
Can Trump stop the flow this coming year, maybe, maybe not!
I was doing research at Wrapsnet (Refugee Processing Center) recently for another purpose and did a search on the major Muslim ethnic groups entering the US from Oct. 1, 2016 to Nov. 15, 2016 (approximately the first 6 weeks of FY2017).
The numbers below are only for Muslims in the top ten sending countries (all Muslim sects) that entered in that time frame (about 6 weeks) and only those who entered the US through the Refugee Admissions Program (RAP):
Somalia: 1,894
Syria: 1,867
Iraq: 1,388
Afghanistan: 298
Burma: 289
Sudan: 147
DR Congo: 141
Ethiopia: 118
Eritrea: 58
Iran: 56
This is the highest number of Somalis we have brought in since we began taking Somalis 30 years ago.
At this rate (315 weekly) we could have over 16,000 placed in a large number of states by September 30th. Go here to see my summary of how many Somalis we resettled through the RAP since the early 1980’s. The highest previous year (2004) was 12,814 during the Bush Administration.
It is also 1,000 more in the first six weeks this year than it was last year at this time! Holy cow! See here.
I maintain that the Somalis and many other Muslim ethnic groups cannot be screened any better than Syrians, especially the Somalis and the Burmese!
By the way, most of the Iranians we bring in are Christians or other religious minorities, but clearly we are bringing in Muslim Iranians. Why?
These numbers indicate that the feds and their contractors are pouring refugees in at an unsustainable rate!
We have admitted 14,568 total refugees of all persuasions in those approximately first 6 weeks. That is a rate of about 2,428 a week. And at this rate we would admit 126,256 by September 30th when Obama’s wish for the year was (only, LOL!) 110,000. (During Obama’s 8 years he admitted an average of about 70,000 a year, here.)
Just as we predicted, they are front-loading refugee admissions in advance of Trump’s Inauguration in January.
It is imperative that Congress NOT give the Office of Refugee Resettlement (HHS) the over $1 BILLION extra in funding it wants right now. (See ‘Running out of money’) The Obama Administration encouraged the ‘kids’ (with its policies) to come to the US and, if the budget must be re-prioritized for them, so be it. That means only one thing: cutting the resettled refugee numbers.
If Continuing Budget Resolution (as is) extends to late March, ORR will run out of money
“HHS anticipates that it would run out of funding under the CR for these activities in February 2017“
(Leaked document)
That is what the Administration is telling House and Senate Appropriations Committees according to language leaked from an Administration request to Congress.
It is no surprise as we have been reporting this morning here, that the Unaccompanied Alien Children are literally depleting the budget by the day.
We reported this too many times to repeat: since Congress never finished the budget for FY2017 (that began on October 1, 2016) and extended last year’s budget to December 9th, they need to either complete a whole year budget next week, or they can pass another Continuing Resolution (at the 2016 level) to March which gives the incoming Trump Administration some say over what the government will spend in the second six months of the fiscal year.
They can’t run this program without a lot of money….
And, if they don’t get more of it, if they have a budget shortfall, there is no way the Obama Administration can keep pouring refugees in to the US at the rate it has for the last 2 months. Therefore, they also won’t be able to open all of those new offices they are trying to get open in 47 new locations. (Unless Congress appropriates the money in the Continuing Resolution expected on the floor by December 8th!)
We know for sure that the Obama Dept. of Health and Human Services is begging for bucks from Congress right now in the Continuing Resolution.
Here is some language that has apparently ‘gotten loose’ in Washington. The big question is whether the House and the Senate Appropriations Committees will be inclined to do Obama’s bidding! Why should they?
Language is needed to provide a rate for operations of $3,874 million for the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), Refugee and Entrant Assistance account and to authorize additional transfers of funding from other HHS accounts to the Refugee and Entrant Assistance account, in the event caseloads are higher than anticipated. To support the Administration’s refugee admissions target as well as high projected flows of other humanitarian entrants, an annualized rate of $1,051 million is needed to cover cash and medical expenses and social services for these populations. In addition, HHS is experiencing the highest number of unaccompanied children in care and the largest footprint of funded capacity in the program’s history, and flows of unaccompanied children have continued to grow over the last months; an annualized rate of $2,823 million is needed for HHS to meet its legal obligations to shelter and care for unaccompanied children referred to HHS. Given current shelter needs and flows of unaccompanied children, without this anomaly, HHS anticipates that it would run out of funding under the CR for these activities in February 2017. At a minimum, HHS anticipates needing an additional $500 million above the current CR rate during the period of the CR through March 31, 2017, $430 million for the unaccompanied children program and $70 million for refugee and humanitarian entrant programs, as well as additional transfer authority to protect against higher than expected costs.
Consider this:
First, this administration is making sure (at this very minute) that “caseloads are higher than anticipated.”
Second, the Obama Administration has encouraged the great flow of “unaccompanied children” and now they whine they don’t have the money to care for them.
And, third, Congress holds the purse strings. Will they starve the beast now, or feed it through March. What will Rep. Tom Price (as Trump’s pick for HHS) signal to his House colleagues in the coming days.
Does Trump understand that he might not be able to turn the spigot off completely on January 21, if Congress has appropriated the money? I bet Speaker Paul Ryan and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell know! Will they roll him on this?
You need to let your members of Congress and your Senators know they must disapprove this request!
So far, we don’t know of any move to completely defund the program on the CR, but will keep you posted if we hear.
Endnote: All of our posts on this topic are tagged ‘Where is Congress.’