This morning I spent hours over atRefugee Resettlement Watch writing my weekly refugee news round-up. Here is how that post begins….
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.
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!).
Maybe I can entice you to the post by saying there is a link in it to data on where the Unaccompanied Alien Children (Teenagers!) have been placed—in which states and in which counties.
P.S. For all of you who have asked, see that I now have easy to use share buttons at the end of each post!
The International Rescue Committee “[engaged] in collusive behavior and misconduct….”
(US Department of Justice)
The International Rescue Committee(IRC for short), one of nine refugee resettlement contractors*** that do business with the US State Department, has agreed to repay US taxpayers nearly $7 million to settle a fraud case.
The fraud, which occurred during the Obama administration, was discovered in its USAID program to supposedly help Syrian refugees in Turkey.
Seven million is peanuts for the IRC!
If you follow my other blog Refugee Resettlement Watch you know that this contractor, a fake non-profit refugee agency, is financially the richest of the nine contractors having received $440 million in one recent year from American taxpayers. See 2018 IRS Form 990.
Note on that IRS Form 990 that (moneybags) Miliband pulls down an annual salary and benefits package of nearly $1 million.
And, the IRC is a politically active refugee agency (as are all of the nine) having worked against the Trump administration and advocated for the election of Joe Biden.
The International Rescue Committee (“IRC”) Agrees to Pay $6.9 Million To Settle Allegations That It Performed Procurement Fraud by Engaging in Collusive Behavior and Misconduct on Programs Funded by the United States Agency for International Development
WASHINGTON – The Justice Department announced today that the International Rescue Committee (“IRC”) has agreed to pay $6.9 million to settle allegations under the False Claims Act related to United States Agency for International Development (“USAID”)-funded programming for beneficiaries affected by the conflict in Syria.
The settlement announced on March 16, 2021, is part of a civil resolution involving the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia, USAID, and the USAID Office of Inspector General (OIG).
IRC is a global humanitarian aid, relief and development nongovernmental organization that provides emergency aid and long-term assistance to refugees. It is headquartered in New York, New York. In the early years of the conflict in Syria, IRC received USAID funding for humanitarian assistance programming, specifically to provide emergency cross-border humanitarian assistance to internally displaced persons located within Syria.
USAID’s OIG conducted investigations in Turkey into allegations that IRC staff participated in a collusion and kickback scheme with a Turkish supply ring, which included bid-rigging activities in the selection of goods and services contracts for cross-border humanitarian relief into Syria. USAID OIG and the USAO-DC Civil Division also investigated allegations that IRC staff received kickbacks, steered bid procurement tenders, and allowed conflicts of interest between staff and suspect vendors. The investigation revealed that conduct by IRC staff resulted in the procurement of goods at unreasonably high prices, which were subsequently invoiced to USAID from October 2012 to December 2015.
USAO-DC Civil Division and USAID OIG thoroughly examined all source documents including contracts, proposals, contract terms, and invoices, in the lead-up to IRC’s agreement to pay the United States $6,934,500 to settle the False Claims Act allegations.
We are happy to bring this case to resolution and will continue to work with Offices of Inspectors General to ensure that humanitarian aid dollars that are targeted for humanitarian assistance for displaced persons are not compromised by lax oversight controls but are used appropriately to help those in dire need,” said Acting United States Attorney Channing D. Phillips.
Acting USAID Inspector General Thomas J. Ullom stated, “This settlement sends a strong message that USAID-funded implementers must have systems in place to detect, deter, and prevent fraud in humanitarian assistance programming. Aid organizations that lack proper monitoring and oversight controls over their procurement processes put taxpayer dollars at risk and compromise the delivery of critical assistance to those in need. USAID OIG’s global investigative operations will continue to shine a light on and drive consequences for fraud affecting USAID programming.”
Fraud is not rare in the refugee resettlement industry as we noted here last month.
***For New Readersthese 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 cap in 29 years.
The 62,500 cap you may have been hearing about is for the remainder of FY21. FY21 ends in less than 7 months. So far Biden is dragging his feeton signing necessary documents to open the spigot.
The contractors are in my opinion fake charities because 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!
Even as refugee resettlement contractors*** say it isn’t so, and attempt to silence us by getting us listed as hate groups at the Southern Poverty Law Center (more to say on this later) for daring to raise the issue of national security breaches and fraudulent activity that surrounds refugee admissions from the Middle East, they can’t hide the truth.
The US Refugee Admissions program is filled with fraud! Here is more proof that you have no idea who your ‘new American’ neighbors are!
‘Sophisticated insider threat’ at DHS immigration agency forces pause to Iraqi refugee program
Ali had been anxiously eyeing the first days of the Biden administration, counting on the president’s promises of a new era in immigration to clear hurdles and help him get the visa he’s been seeking for years, as a reward for helping the U.S. war effort in Iraq.
But two days into the new administration, those hopes were dashed when the State Department announced an emergency pause on the special Iraqi refugee program.
Prosecutors had just revealed an almost unthinkable internal security breach: Two Homeland Security employees had been selling secret files from the Iraqi program for years, leaving security experts to figure out the damage, and the State Department to try to cauterize the wound.
The scam also left those like Ali — a pseudonym The Washington Times is using to protect his identity — worried about what bad guys might now know about him.
“I was literally counting the days of Trump’s presidency term and wishing Biden wins the election to resume the program so we can finally get our freedom and restore our normal life,” Ali told The Times in an email. “Now with this news I receive another shock to be added to my life’s tragedy.”
The criminal case has exposed staggering gaps in security at Homeland Security’s legal immigration agency, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.
The fraud is similar to asylum fraud we have reported in the past at RRWwhere lawyers create a ‘sob story’ that is used with variations to get an applicant through the process.
Sources told The Times the goal was not, as Ali feared, to glean information that could be used to exact retribution against those who helped the U.S. Instead, the scammers were trying to exploit America’s generosity to pave a path for undeserving people.
Having access to the case files from successful applications gave the fraudsters a template to help others craft their own applications, cutting out information that had sunk others and highlighting the factors that had worked in previous cases.
“These guys were seeing applications and write-ups of those who were successfully able to establish eligibility, and basically take those narratives and repurpose them for others,” said Rob Law, the past chief of policy at USCIS.
“People adopt similar stories, once someone is found to successfully navigate the system.”
Top Republicans on the House’s Homeland Security and Foreign Affairs committees have demanded secret briefings on what went wrong, calling it a “sophisticated insider threat.”
[….]
Mr. Law, now director of regulatory affairs and policy at the Center for Immigration Studies, said he expects more revelations about the extent of the fraud.
“What’s being currently reported as being uncovered is potentially just the beginning,” he said.
He also said the scam should be a caution to the Biden administration as it seeks to unwind former President Donald Trump’s strict vetting of refugees and other foreign arrivals.
I have an extensive archive at RRW on the special immigrant visa program for Iraq and Afghanistan (a Ted Kennedy gift to America). To learn morego here.
***For Readers unfamiliar with the US Refugee Admissions Program these are the nine federal refugee contractors who worked to put Biden and Harris in the White House and are lobbying for millions of illegal aliens to be transformed into legal voting citizens, as well as raising the refugee admissions ceiling from 15,000 this year to 125,000.
These nine contractors are largely responsible for choosing where to place special immigrant visa holders from Iraq and Afghanistan. During the Trump years regular refugee numbers were low, especially from Muslim countries. However, the SIVs coming in afforded the contractors paying work as their numbers did not decline at least in the early years of the Trump administration.
These nine fake charities (really quasi-government agencies) are paid by you, the taxpayer, for their work of changing America by changing the people, and in so doing, are putting Americans last!
And, to add insult to injury, the CONTRACTORS are jumping for joy because Biden has promised to get rid of Trump’s extreme vetting.
And, five of the seven least favorite involve immigration, proving once again that Trump was always on the right track when he attempted to slow immigration, but for some unexplained reason he steered clear of the issue in the 2020 race.
See my post yesterday at RRW where I explain that refugee numbers will be exploding in the coming year and it will depend on you and local organizing if you have any hope of saving your community from massive social, cultural and economic upheaval.
WASHINGTON – The Justice Department announced today that the International Rescue Committee (“IRC”) has agreed to pay $6.9 million to settle allegations under the False Claims Act related to United States Agency for International Development (“USAID”)-funded programming for beneficiaries affected by the conflict in Syria.
