Saturday, July 1, 2017

RRW - For-profit 'refugee' contractors will be suing Trump over travel ban--as we taxpayers pour money into them --tma







Posted by Ann Corcoran on July 1, 2017
So far, the US Department of State says no….
Justice Clarence Thomas (Alito and Gorsuch) were right that the Supreme Court’s effort to ‘split the baby,’ with its decision on Trump’s ‘travel ban’ and refugee moratorium, will invite litigation through the remainder of the summer.
I wasn’t planning to write today (except maybe a post about this being RRW’s Tenth Anniversary) because it is Saturday of a big holiday weekend, but I want you to see that, yes, the contractors*** are getting in gear to sue the feds claiming that since refugees are assigned to them for placement in your towns, they are bona fide entities.
They sue while we pay their salaries!
Longtime readers know that it is my contention that the system in place for decades, where a federal contractor is hired to place refugees in your towns and the contractor is ostensibly a non-profit (some are ‘religious’) charitable organization being paid with your tax dollars yet can file lawsuits and lobby Congress, is an outrage.
Congress could do something about this, if it had the will (the Labrador bill is insufficient), but since leading Congressional Republicans are in the pockets of lobbyists (Tyson Foods for instance!) and the Chamber of Commerce in need of cheap labor, no real reform ever happens.
Carving itself out as the leader of the pack for political advocacy is the politically aggressive Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society (HIAS). HIAS was a litigant in one of the cases before the Court.
I just checked USA Spending and found that HIAS got over $104 MILLION from taxpayers since FY08. 
And, what do you know, the feds paid them over $4.1 million in the 5 days before Donald Trump was inaugurated.
Here, about 3 weeks later, HIAS organized a NYC  rally against Trump featuring speaker Rep. Keith Ellison.  How much of your money was used for their protest?
Yesterday we learned a lot about what they plan to do next—sue!
And, LOL!, the Christian Post says not one word about how the do-gooder organizations are paid per refugee head to do their good works!
Refugees with connections to the nine refugee resettlement organizations in the United States should be allowed to enter the country in accordance with the Supreme Court’s ruling Monday that allowed a limited version of President Donald Trump’s travel ban to go into effect, advocates argue.
[….]
After the nation’s high court decided Monday that it would allow a scaled-back version of Trump’s March 6 executive order on immigration to be enacted, opponents of the travel ban were left wondering whether the the Supreme Court considers relationships with a refugee resettlement organization to be the type of “bona fide” relationships necessary to allow them to enter the country, once the 50,000 refugee cap set for fiscal year 2017 is met in July.
In 2016, Nezer of the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society was the chair of the Refugee Council USA (this lobbying consortium of the refugee industry has revolving chairmanship). RCUSA in August of 2016 said they wanted Obama to set a ceiling of 200,000 for FY17. 
https://refugeeresettlementwatch.wordpress.com/2016/08/02/lobbying-arm-for-refugee-resettlement-contractors-wants-us-to-take-200000-refugees-in-fy2017/
As the travel ban — which bans immigration from six Muslim majority countries for 90 days and refugee resettlement for 120 days — took effect on Thursday, the Trump administration explained in guidelines sent to U.S. embassies and consulates what it considers to a “bona fide relationship.”
[….]
As for entities, the guidelines state that people seeking access to the United States must show formal proof of their relationship with the a business or educational institution. However, an administration official declared in a press call Thursday that “the fact that a resettlement agency in the United States has provided a formal assurance for refugees seeking admission is not sufficient, in and of itself, to establish a bona fide relationship under the ruling.”
[….]
Legal action has already been filed to seek clarity on the Supreme Court’s order, which was somewhat vague about what constitutes a “bona fide” relationship. On Thursday, the state of Hawaii asked a federal judge to clarify the ruling and argued that the administration’s interpretation is too narrow and violates the ruling.
On a press call Friday, leaders of resettlement agencies authorized to resettle refugees in the United States decried the administration’s interpretation of the ruling.  [You see how deceptive the press is—“authorized”—how about “contracted and paid!”—ed]
“Our argument is that under an interpretation of a clear reading of the Supreme Court decision is that a relationship with a resettlement agency does establish a ‘bona fide’ relationship for purposes of the ban,” said Melanie Nezer, the senior vice president of public affairs for HIAS, which was founded as the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society.  [They dumped “Hebrew” from their name a few years ago. I guess when you are resettling large numbers of Muslim refugees, the word Hebrew was an impediment.—ed]
[….]
“We also imagine the debate about this in the administration, thinking that there was significant debate among people who really do understand resettlement in the administration and those who don’t,” Nezer said. “It seems pretty clear that this decision was made by people who don’t know or don’t much care about how resettlement works.”
[By the way, I don’t think the Supreme Court knew much about resettlement either or perhaps they wouldn’t have been rewriting refugee law, but that would be the fault of whoever presented the case for the Justice Department.—ed]
[….]
Director of the lobbying arm of the refugee industry Naomi Steinberg says 26,000 refugees are in the pipeline. What a convenient number. We are at 50,000 and Congress has appropriated enough money to admit 75,000 this fiscal year. If we hit 75,000, it will be about 10,000 ABOVE the average for the last ten years!
Steinberg
Around July 6 is when the United States is expected to hit the 50,000 refugee cap for fiscal year 2017 that Trump set in his executive order. After that, the “bona fide” standard will be going into effect for refugees, Nezer explained.
See my post yesterday about July 6th.
As of today we are at 49,225 refugees admitted this fiscal year.  We may not see new numbers reported at Wrapsnet until the 5th or 6th.
[….]
Naomi Steinberg, the director of Refugee Council USA, added that there are over 26,000 refugees total who have gone through security vetting and have been approved to the come the United States and be resettled around the United States.
All of my posts related to what the Supreme Court ruled last week are archived in my category—Supreme Court.
*** For new readers, these are the nine contractors that monopolize refugee resettlement in America. Saying they are “authorized” to resettle refugees is a media deception.  They are paid out of the US Treasury per head for every refugee they resettle. The incentive is always to bring more while they pretend to be doing this work completely from humanitarian motives!
The UN/US Refugee Admissions Program will never be reformed until we stop paying non-profit groups to advocate and lobby for their vested (Leftist!) interests.
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