Oklahoma Senator Lankford Leads Bipartisan Push to Increase Refugee Admissions

08/06/201909/21/2019 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ 4 Comments

lankford-rubio — Senators Lankford and Rubio: Two of nine Republicans pressing Trump to “increase” number of refugees to be admitted to the US. 18 Senators in total signed the letter.

Responding to the fear that the Trump Administration might really cut the number of refugees to be admitted to the US in FY2020 (which begins on October 1, 2019) to zero, Senator James Lankford (R-OK) and Chris Coons (D-DE) spear-headed a letter to the Secretary of State saying they want the President to “increase” the number of refugees to be admitted.
However, they aren’t willing to say what that number should be! I suspect that is because once a number was discussed their ‘bipartisan’ effort threatened to fall apart.
We assume they want more than the 30,000, the number the President set as the ceiling for the present year.
The resettlement contractors want 95,000!
Note the usual Leftwing Open Borders Dems are joined by nine Republicans.
See if your Senator is among them.
This is Lankford’s press release yesterday:

Senators Lankford, Coons Lead Letter on Concerns to Eliminate Refugee Cap

OKLAHOMA CITY, OK – Senators James Lankford (R-OK) and Chris Coons (D-DE) led a bipartisan letter with Senators John Thune (R-SD), Patrick Leahy (D-VT), Lisa Murkowski (R-AK), Tina Smith (D-MN), Mike Rounds (R-SD), Thomas R. Carper (D-DE), Rob Portman (R-OH), Kristen Gillibrand (D-NY), Susan Collins (R-ME), Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH), Roy Blunt (R-MO), Tammy Baldwin (D-WI), Marco Rubio (R-FL), Chris Van Hollen (D-MD), Cory Gardner (R-CO), and Ed Markey (D-MA) to the administration to express concern about reports of a proposed elimination of refugee resettlements for FY2020.
The Senators wrote, “While some Members of Congress have already expressed their displeasure with the FY2019 resettlement cap, and the lower-than-normal admittance numbers for FY2017 and FY2018, eliminating refugee admittance altogether is even more alarming. At a time when we are facing the ‘highest levels of displacement on record,’ according to the United Nations Refugee Agency, we urge you to increase the refugee resettlement cap and to admit as many refugees as possible within that cap.
America has a responsibility to promote compassion and democracy around the world through assistance to vulnerable and displaced people.”

Continue reading here. There is a link to the letter there as well.
See that the Catholic News Agency is on the story. Of course!
I don’t need to tell you what to do, right! If your Senator is one of the Republicans in this gang of nine, let him or her know what you think!
Some of the Rs on this list might think this is a freebie for them, make sure they know you are watching!

A Trip Down Memory Lane: Baltimore Welcomes Diversity

07/30/201909/21/2019 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ 8 Comments

Editor: This week the President challenged local Democrat elected officials to fix their decaying cities with special attention to Baltimore. But, I am seeing no mention of the unsuccessful push there for more than a decade to rebuild Baltimore with immigrants.
This is a post I wrote in May of 2015 at Refugee Resettlement Watch as Baltimore was in flames.
Changing American cities by changing the people (pushing out African Americans!)? Is it possible that diversity doesn’t build economic strength, but in fact further destroys African American communities?

Baltimore: Thousands of impoverished refugees poured into city in last ten years; fuel for the fire?

Is Baltimore a failed social experiment in the government’s (and big business’s) push for more diversity in your towns and cities?
Can we call it a first spectacular failure for Obama’s Task Force on New Americans plan to seed communities with third-worlders?

Screenshot (1049) — The Lutheran Center in Baltimore is home to Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service, one of the Top Nine refugee resettlement contractors in the country, and it is headquartered in one of Baltimore’s better neighborhoods. This is what we said in 2014: Gotta keep up their real estate holdings! The Lutheran Center is a six-story structure constructed in 1999 on property owned by Baltimore’s historic Christ Lutheran Church. The building is located near Baltimore’s Inner Harbor in the historic Federal Hill neighborhood, a charming area rich with history and an eclectic array of eateries and shopping venues.

In fact, Baltimore is a preferred refugee resettlement site according to the Office of Refugee Resettlement!
Baltimore, a majority African American (63%) city where we hear jobs are scarce and poverty is profound, with by several accounts amounting to 25% of the population living below the poverty level, the US State Department and its refugee resettlement contractors have nevertheless been pouring more diversity and consequently more poverty into the city for at least a decade.

Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake fell for the feds ‘progressive’ scheme here in 2012 when she said that bringing more refugees and immigrants to the city would boost the economy completely failing to understand that, just because African Americans are black, they wouldn’t simply ‘welcome’ the rainbow colors of the world to compete with them for jobs, housing and scarce social services.

The hard truth was revealed in the New York Times of all places. African Americans don’t take kindly to diversity!

Here is one shocking little fact that was buried in a New York Times story about the recent riots:
Black gang leaders directed angry rioters to Asian and Arab shops while protecting stores owned and run by fellow African Americans.

Then he described how he and some Bloods had stood in front of black-owned stores to protect them from looting or vandalism. He said they had made sure no black children, or reporters, were hit by rioters. They pointed them toward Chinese- and Arab-owned stores. Charles said Mr. Gray had brought gangs together.

So much for the diversity-is-beautiful myth!

How much diversity has been brought to Baltimore to compete with poor African Americans?

This morning [in May 2015—ed] I went to the data base and checked out the numbers of refugees deposited in Baltimore since 2005. I’m listing only countries of origin if there were more than 10 refugees resettled there. There were many other countries represented by smaller numbers.
Baltimore’s new diversity (these are newly resettled from abroad since 2005 [to May of 2015.—ed], not secondary migrants from elsewhere in the US):
Azerbaijan (10)
Bhutan (1,352)
Burma (1,109)
Burundi (11)
Cent. African Republic (16)
Congo (26)
DR Congo (253)
Eritrea (374)
Iran (136)
Iraq (404)
Liberia (99)
Nepal (10)
Pakistan (13)
Palestine (19)
Russia (196)
Somalia (217)
Sudan (225)
Syria (26)
Uzbekistan (36)
Vietnam (15)
All are in direct competition with African Americans for jobs, education, housing and social services. And, these numbers do not include the thousands of illegal aliens welcomed to Baltimore in the last decade!
(End of 2015 post.)
Afterthought: Can we conclude that pouring ‘new Americans’ into impoverished and decaying US cities is not the panacea the Progressive social engineers want you to believe?
If it works then we should see Baltimore as a shining city on the bay by now, right?
You might want to revisit Robert Putnam’s work about how diversity in fact destroys community cohesiveness.

"Religious" Groups Push Pompeo to Admit 95,000 Refugees in 2020

07/27/201909/21/2019 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ 9 Comments

Refugee Resettlement Watch might be down for awhile, but that doesn’t mean you won’t get refugee news!

For new readers that 95,000 number is for refugees chosen abroad and flown here on your dime and then resettled by the State Department’s nine paid resettlement contractors. (The Trump team never got rid of any of the nine as they once promised to do!)
Of course that 95,000 number is in addition to the hundreds of thousands of asylum seekers who illegally entered the US and asked to be declared refugees. Refugees are eligible for most forms of welfare once designated.

The lobbying arm of the refugee industry, the Refugee Council USA, confirms that 95,000 is their target number for FY2020 which begins October 1, 2019.
They announce their pie-in-the-sky number early and often so then when Trump suggests something less than that they can scream bloody murder.
BTW, as of June 30th of FY19, the Trump Administration had admitted just over 21,000, thus the State Department will have to speed things up to even make the 30,000 ceiling for this year.
The lobbying group Refugee Council USA wants its followers to….

Hold the administration accountable to meeting this year’s 30,000 refugee admissions goal and urge them to commit to resettling at least 95,000 refugees in Fiscal Year 2020, rebuilding the program and returning it to historic norms.

That made me laugh because not even Barack Obama came near their “historic norms.”
“Rebuilding the program” means pouring more taxpayer dollars into the “religious” groups’ coffers.
The story that caught my eye today is this one from Deseret News.
There is no mention made that some of those signing a letter to the Secretary of State have a vested financial interest in increasing the number of refugees being admitted.

Religious groups react to rumors the U.S. will stop admitting refugees. What would it mean for U.S. values?

You can read it yourself.
In addition to Walter Mondale, Deseret News wants you to know that Islamic Relief USA is also pounding Pompeo with a lecture about our “foundational values.”
Mentioned in the story is a letter sent by what the Deseret News calls 40 “faith groups” to Secretary of State Pompeo in June demanding a “robust” program for the coming fiscal year.
You can read the letter here.
Here is a screenshot of the last paragraph:
Screenshot (1043)

And now here (below) are the forty plus “faith” groups which signed the letter.
If you are a supporter of any of the hodge podge of groups below and disapprove of their support for this effort, be sure to let them know!
Screenshot (1044)

Of the nine paid resettlement contractors, five groups whose budgets depend on your tax dollars for refugee clients signed the letter: Church World Service, HIAS (Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society), Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service, the Episcopal Church and World Relief.
Although several Catholic-affiliated groups are mentioned neither of the giants resettling the largest number of refugees in the US—Catholic Charities or the US Conference of Catholic Bishops—are mentioned.

This is the time to let the President know what your number is for FY2020! He needs a robust response from you!

This post is filed in my ‘Charity fraud’ category.
Endnote: You might have noticed I’m back to putting the whole post up without using the “continue reading” break because at least this way I know you are getting my full post in your phones etc. as I continue the process of moving away from WordPress.

Catholic Bishops Bemoan Possible Further Slowdown of Refugee Admissions

07/23/201909/21/2019 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ 5 Comments

Of course they do! If the President reduces the number of refugees permitted to enter the US through the US Refugee Admissions Program they will take a huge hit to their pocketbook.

pope welcoming migrants — Fine and dandy, but do it with private charity, not taxpayer dollars!

(Except of course that they will still receive millions of dollars annually for ‘caring’ for the Unaccompanied Alien Children swarming across our border.)
I told you a few days ago that rumors were being spread among the federal refugee contractors that the President in his annual determination due for submission in September is contemplating a big fat goose egg for the number of refugees to be welcomed to your towns and cities in FY2020.
This story at Catholic News Network is meant to gin-up Leftwing Catholics to complain to the White House and Congress about Trump.

US bishops say reported shutdown of refugee program is ‘disturbing’

Washington D.C., Jul 22, 2019 / 01:01 pm (CNA).- If reports of major cuts to the U.S. refugee resettlement and asylum programs are true they are alarming, the chair of the US bishops’ migration committee said Friday.

Bishop Vasquez of Austin: We want 95,000 paying clients in 2020!

Politico has reported that officials in the Trump administration were considering cutting the annual refugee cap next year to zero, or to greatly reduced numbers such as 10,000 or 3,000. This represents the total number of refugees that would be allowed into the United States in the next fiscal year.
“This recent report, if true, is disturbing and against the principles we have as a nation and a people, and has the potential to end the refugee resettlement program entirely,” Bishop Joe S. Vásquez of Austin said July 19..
The reports were leaked to Politico from three individuals close to recent meetings of security officials.

[….]

“As Pope Francis has said we must work for ‘globalization of solidarity’ with refugees, not a globalization of indifference. Rather than ending the program, we should work instead to restore the program to its historic norms of an annual resettlement goal of 95,000,” Vasquez concluded.

More here. And, go here for Vasquez’s full statement as chair of the Migration Committee for the USCCB.

The Bishops will lose MILLIONS of dollars in income!

Conspicuously absent from either of those reports is any mention of the USCCB’s boodle from the feds (well, from you the US taxpayers).
So I went to see what I could find about how much the Bishop’s Migration Fund is being paid to place refugees in your towns and found this report about their funding in 2017.
Previously the Bishops had a very slick annual report (here in 2014) on their Migration Fund, but now they have their federal bucks buried in a larger financial statement. See it here.
This is a screenshot showing the millions you gave (involuntarily) to their refugee business income. Again, this is just their refugee pile of money, and does not include millions more in federal funding this ‘Christian charity’ gets from the government.

Screenshot (1038)_LI — 95% of the Bishops’ refugee resettlement program is funded by you (involuntarily)!

Tell the President to cut refugee numbers and get rid of the contractors who spend much of their time badmouthing the Prez while sucking off the federal teat!

This post is filed in my Charity fraud category.

Did Rep. Ilhan Omar Benefit from Massive Failure of US State Department's Family Reunification Program?

07/22/201909/21/2019 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ 9 Comments

If you have been following the controversy swirling around the charge that Rep. Ilhan Omar might have committed fraud by marrying her brother, there might have been a fraud committed years before that even.

Omar and Elmi.png — Omar or Elmi? Hmmmm….

Back in 2008 I began a series of reports on the so-called P-3 program that permits already resettled refugees in the US to apply to bring in ‘family’ members.
All of that was chronicled at Refugee Resettlement Watch that WordPress suspended.
However, here John Binder writing at Breitbart sums up the State Department scandal and points to an important report by a former ICE attorney who says of the fraud that tens of thousands of Somalis got into the US and once the fraud was revealed there there were no repercussions for the cheaters.

“This was staggering irresponsibility, possibly the biggest blunder in immigration history.”

Here is what Binder says at Breitbart:

A refugee program that allowed foreign relatives of already-arrived foreign refugees to the United States was halted, altogether, more than a decade ago due to mass fraud among applicants.
This week, Powerline blog’s David Steinberg suggested that Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) entered the U.S. in the mid-1990s as a third-priority, known as P-3, refugee — that is, a refugee who is admitted to the country due to their ties to an already-resettled refugee.
Steinberg’s report also claims that Omar committed immigration fraud when she falsely entered the country as a member of the “Omar” family that had already resettled in the U.S.
In 2008, after thousands of foreign nationals had entered as P-3 refugees, the program was halted by the *Bush administration* due to mass fraud wherein the State Department, through DNA testing, was able to confirm family relations between the program’s applicants in less than 20 percent of cases.
Overall, about 87 percent of P-3 refugees’ family relation claims turned out to be fraudulent.

BTW, guess who opposed DNA testing for family reunification?
If you guessed the nine federal resettlement contractors—groups like the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society, Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service and so forth, you would be correct!
Why? They claimed that the definition of ‘family’ is different in African culture and we should respect their ideas of family.
Binder continues….

Charles Thaddeus Fillinger, a former federal immigration official, has detailed the enormous fraud that has occurred among P-3 refugees in his 30-page policy paper, calling the program “the greatest refugee fraud crisis in modern times.”

More here.
Here is a screenshot of the opening page of Fillinger’s treatise on the massive fraud perpetrated mostly by Africans for possibly decades.
Screenshot (1036)

I am so glad to see that this era of fraud has not been swept under the rug. Interesting that it would take a scandal swirling around a member of Congress to help bring it to light.
I had to laugh when I saw a guest on Fox News yesterday say that Rep. Ilhan Omar (or whatever her name is) did it right by entering the US legally!
Wonder if we can go back and identify the thousands of immigration cheats. Just dreaming!
See all of my previous posts on Rep. Ilhan Omar by clicking here.