Posted by Ann Corcoran on July 21, 2017
As I pointed out in my previous post, the open borders activists and the contractors*** are looking ahead to October when they think the UN/US Refugee Admissions Program will be back and moving full steam ahead.
This news from Charleston, WV confirms one of two things—-either the contractors know something we don’t know, or they are setting up a media opportunity to bash the Trump Administration for dashing their hopes (again) should the Trump team keep the refugee flow low (or even halt it altogether!) come September.
Before I give you this news from an Episcopal Migration Ministries (99.5% funded by taxpayers!) wannabe subcontractor in the capitol city of West Virginia, I need to once again remind readers (and tell new readers) about the process.
Scoping meeting….
Normally in May of each year there is a “scoping meeting” held by the US State Department to seek input from the public about the ‘size and scope’ of the refugee admissions program for the coming fiscal year. They pretend it is to get public input, but it is mostly an appeal to the contractors to send in their wish lists.
I don’t have time to go over the whole history of our involvement with these phony ‘hearings,’ but suffice it to say, they do not want to hear from the general public. In fact, I don’t think there was even a “scoping meeting” at all this year.
R & P Abstracts….
Along about May, all of the contractors’ subcontractor offices go to work on their R & P Abstracts. These documents, discussed many times on these pages, are wish lists of sorts. The subcontractor will decide how many refugees a community has the capacity to take, from where in the world they will come from, and what amenities your town has for them—housing, jobs, health care, schools etc.
The best Abstract I ever saw was for Reno, Nevada, see here.
Big no-no! Do not read RRW!
And, surprise (not!), a couple of years ago, World Relief actually sent a letter to its subcontractors alerting them to the fact that I told listeners on a Minnesota radio show to “get your abstracts.” The leadership at WR told it’s subcontractors (they call them “affiliates”) to not give the abstracts out when people call. Oh, and this is funny, they told their staff to not read RRW! The leadership would screen my writing and inform the underlings if they needed to know about something we said at RRW!
As of July 3, 2017, the US State Department has an up-to-date affiliates list, go here, find an office near you (even within a hundred miles), call them and ask for the FY18 Abstract they have prepared for the US State Department!
Be prepared to be told such a document doesn’t exist (one of their tricks) and for those who admit there is such a plan for your town, they will tell you that you can’t have it anyway! But, it is a good exercise for you, to be told that THEY have plans for your community that YOU can’t see!
Presidential Determination…..
The R & P Abstracts are the basis for making the “determination” to be announced in September about how many refugees the Trump Administration is going to ‘welcome’ to America for FY2018 which begins on October 1, 2017.
The process appears to be going forward just like any other year (not surprising since Trump has no people in the DOS refugee office).
The President sends his ‘determination’ (which includes how much of your money he wants Congress to appropriate) to The Hill for “consultation.” Consultation traditionally involves rubber stamping whatever the President wants. The majority of the power for refugee resettlement is vested in the President.
Now that I have gone way too long (I hope you are still reading!), here (below) is a bit of the Charleston Gazette-Mail story that would indicate that the US State Department is welcoming in the abstracts just like in a normal year and this wannabe resettlement agency is acting like it is a done deal and that Charleston will be getting 85 refugees from Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan.
Why this particular Episcopal office wants only these particular (mostly Muslim) ethnic groups is a puzzle. What! No impoverished Africans? No Somalis, no Christians from the DR Congo? Hmmm!
It is by no means a done deal! But, by making it sound like it is, if they don’t get their hypothetical refugees, at least they can blame Trump in the end.
(There is a Catholic resettlement agency already working in Charleston, this would be a new competitor as the contractors ‘bid for bodies.’)
A Charleston-based refugee resettlement office will assist in placing 85 refugees in the area during the Oct. 2017- Sept. 2018 fiscal year, according to the director of the group organizing the effort.
The West Virginia Interfaith Refugee Ministry, a group that has been working to bring refugees to West Virginia, plans to open the office of a refugee resettlement agency affiliate on the third floor of St. John’s Episcopal Church in Charleston on Aug. 1, according to Lynn Clarke, director of the group.
Antigone Mehani, who previously served as the employment services manager at another resettlement agency in Louisville, Kentucky, also begins Aug. 1. Clarke anticipates Mehani will hire one part-time employee. The agency is an affiliate of Episcopal Migration Ministries, one of nine national refugee resettlement agencies that work with the federal government and local groups to place refugees. [We learned here that EMM is closing offices elsewhere, so why open a new and controversial office in Charleston?—ed]
Episcopal Migration Ministries has about 30 offices nationwide. In the ministry’s “resettlement communities,” local organizers assist refugees with finding health care and work, translation and other services.
Mehani will be an employee of the Episcopal Diocese of West Virginia, which will assist with administrative tasks. [One important criticism of EMM is that it keeps no separate accounting available to the public because its federal money flows directly to the church, come on Congress, where are you?—ed]
The group has raised about $100,000 in pledges, donations and grants, according to Clarke.
The refugees — people who have had to flee their homes because of war, persecution or other violence — will likely come from Syria, Iraq, and Afghanistan. Clarke said half will be children.
[….]
Clarke said the refugees likely won’t have ties to the region, so they won’t begin arriving until the ban is no longer in effect. She anticipates arrivals in November.
“I always believed this would happen for Charleston,” she said. “There’s always been concern that things would change, but I don’t remember ever thinking that this office wouldn’t open.”
There is more, continue reading here.
(This “new” office of EMM is not listed on the recent update of State Department subcontractors.)
Again, as I said in my previous post, you must focus your energy on getting the Trump Administration to come in with a zero ‘determination’ in September for FY18. It is my view that if they go back to some normal number—like 50,000—there will never be any incentive to EVER reform the UN/US Refugee Admissions Program!
I have written on many previous occasions about the controversy in Charleston, WV and visited there on my 6,000 mile tour of refugee hot spots last summer.
***Federal contractors/middlemen/lobbyists/community organizers paid by you to place refugees in your towns and cities. At this minute they are sending ‘abstracts’ to Washington which are their personal wish lists and plans for who will be ‘welcomed’ to your towns.
Because their income is largely dependent on taxpayer dollars based on the number of refugees admitted to the US, the only way for real reform of how the US admits refugees is to remove the contractors from the process. I have ideas on how to do that, but no one in Congress ever asks!
- Church World Service (CWS)
- Ethiopian Community Development Council (ECDC) (secular)
- Episcopal Migration Ministries (EMM)
- Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society (HIAS)
- International Rescue Committee (IRC) (secular)
- US Committee for Refugees and Immigrants (USCRI) (secular)
- Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Services (LIRS)
- United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB)
- World Relief Corporation (WR) ...