Congressional Hearing: Iranian Sleeper Cells Threaten U.S.

It has been said that the first step to solving a problem is to acknowledge the existence of the problem.  It has also been said that where there is a will, there is a way.

The nexus between immigration and terrorism is well established, however, the currently fashionable denial of that nexus by globalists from both parties has prevented the application of remedies to address the vulnerabilities in the immigration system that terror sleeper cells are known to exploit — particularly the lack of resources for the interior enforcement of our immigration laws.

On April 17, 2018 the House Committee on Homeland Security, Counterterrorism and Intelligence Subcommittee, chaired by Congressman Peter King of New York, conducted a hearing on the topic, “State Sponsors Of Terrorism: An Examination Of Iran’s Global Terrorism Network.”

The Subcommittee’s website posted this paragraph in announcing the hearing:

Iran, a State Sponsor of Terrorism, continues to invest in proxy terrorist and militant organizations that threaten the Homeland and US interests and engage in activities that impede US counterterrorism goals. This hearing will examine trends in Iran’s external operations and capabilities and consider the near-term and long-term security implications of Iranian support for Shia militants and terrorist groups operating in the Middle East, Afghanistan and Latin America.

The prepared testimony of one of the witnesses, Dr. Emanuele Ottolenghi of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, included this excerpt:

In recent years, Hezbollah’s Latin American networks have also increasingly cooperated with violent drug cartels and criminal syndicates, often with the assistance of local corrupt political elites. Cooperation includes laundering of drug money; arranging multi-ton shipments of cocaine to the United States and Europe; and directly distributing and selling illicit substances to distant markets. Proceeds from these activities finance Hezbollah’s arms procurement; its terror activities overseas; its hold on Lebanon’s political system; and its efforts, both in Lebanon and overseas, to keep Shi’a communities loyal to its cause and complicit in its endeavors.

This toxic crime-terror nexus is fueling both the rising threat of global jihadism and the collapse of law and order across Latin America that is helping drive drugs and people northward into the United States. It is sustaining Hezbollah’s growing financial needs. It is helping Iran and Hezbollah consolidate a local constituency in multiple countries across Latin America. It is thus facilitating their efforts to build safe havens for terrorists and a continent-wide terror infrastructure that they could use to strike U.S. targets.

I urge you to watch the video of the hearing and read the prepared statements of all four expert witnesses, although you should not do this before bedtime, if you value a good night’s sleep.

The Washington Free Beacon published a report about the hearing with the unambiguous and disconcerting headline, Iranian-Backed ‘Sleeper Cell’ Militants Hibernating in U.S., Positioned for Attack.

Generally “sleeper cells” are comprised of “sleeper agents,” that is to say, foreign nationals (aliens) who enter the United States either legally or illegally maintain a very low profile while they go about their deadly preparations and await instructions to carry out deadly terror attacks inside the United States.

While the four expert witnesses at this hearing were not in complete agreement about all of the issues discussed, particularly expressing somewhat divergent perspectives on U.S. participation in the Iranian nuclear agreement, they all agreed about the threats posed to U.S national security by Iranian sleeper agents and the ability for additional enemy combatants to easily infiltrate into the U.S. to carry out deadly terror attacks.

Now that President Trump has, understandably, withdrawn from the Iran agreement we can’t ignore the possibility that at some point, Iran may activate its sleeper cells in the United States.

However, concerns about terror sleeper cells poised to strike in the United States are anything but new.

Shortly after the terror attacks of 9/11 politicians and journalists frequently made reference to the threat posed by sleeper agents.  However, as efforts mounted by various globalist organizations and immigration anarchists ramped up, the term “sleeper” disappeared almost as quickly as the term “alien” had been expunged from the vernacular in the immigration debate, along with any reference to the 9/11 Report.  The obvious goal has been to obfuscate the nexus between immigration and terrorism. Hence, the disingenuous term “homegrown” frequently describes alien terrorists who, since entry into the United States, acquired lawful immigration status, including United States citizenship.

Page 263 of the 9/11 Commission Report contained references to concerns that al-Qaeda sleeper cells were likely embedded in the United States.

Here is the relevant paragraph:

Clarke mentioned to National Security Advisor Rice at least twice that al Qaeda sleeper cells were likely in the United States. In January 2001, Clarke forwarded a strategy paper to Rice warning that al Qaeda had a presence in the United States. He noted that two key al Qaeda members in the Jordanian cell involved in the millennium plot were naturalized U.S. citizens and that one jihadist suspected in the East Africa bombings had “informed the FBI that an extensive network of al Qida ‘sleeper agents’ currently exists in the US.” He added that Ressam’s abortive December 1999 attack revealed al Qaeda sup- porters in the United States. His analysis, however, was based not on new threat reporting but on past experience.

Not only did Richard Clarke make note of the presence of “sleeper agents” agents in the United States, but also that “two key al Qaeda members in the Jordanian cell involved in the millennium plot were naturalized U.S. citizens[.]”

That naturalized citizens had been involved in terror plots illustrates failures of the vetting process and background investigations that, by law, are supposed to demonstrate that applicants for U.S. Citizenship possess “Good Moral Character.”

In the years after the attacks of 9/11 we have seen other naturalized citizens participate in terror attacks, including one of the Tsarnaev brothers who committed the savage attacks at the Boston Marathon on April 15, 2013.  They had all likely committed fraud in their applications for visas and various immigration benefits that went undetected.

The 9/11 Commission Report and the companion report, 9/11 and Terrorist Travel warned about how international terrorists used immigration and visa fraud as primary methods of entry and embedding into the United States.

A succession of hearings conducted in both the Senate and House of Representatives have also focused on the threats posed to America and Americans by international terrorists.  I have testified before a number of those hearings and I have raised concerns about sleeper agents and how they have exploited vulnerabilities in the immigration system.

My recently published booklet, Immigration Fraud, Lies That Kill explores the issue of immigration fraud in great detail, particularly where such fraud undermines national security and public safety, facilitating the entry and embedding of sleeper agents.

My recent articleJihadis and Drug Cartels At Our Border focused on the threats posed to American national security by the presence of terrorists in Latin America primarily in terror training camps in the Tri-Border Region of Brazil operated by Hamas and Hezbollah and likely includes members of al-Qaeda and perhaps ISIS and by the constant flow of Iranian Quds Forces into Caracas, Venezuela from Tehran.

According to information provided by expert witnesses at the hearing, globally, Hezbollah and Iranian Quds Forces are comprised of more than an astounding 200,000 well-trained, well-equipped and “battle-hardened” members.

Yet, inexplicably, America’s borders still serve as little more than “speed bumps” to human traffickers and drug smugglers (often these criminals are one and the same).  We continue to have an ever-expanding Visa Waiver Program that should have been terminated the afternoon of September 11, 2001 and an abject lack of resources to enforce the immigration laws from within the interior of the United States, while Sanctuary Cities Endanger – National Security and Public Safety.

Even after the publication of the 9/11 Commission Report and other such reports, even after a seemingly endless succession of hearings about the sleeper agents and an extensive list of failures of the immigration system, and even after deadly terror attacks around the United States, nothing of consequence has been done to fix the dysfunctional immigration system.

America still has yet to hire more ICE agents and other personnel to conduct investigations and field operations from within the interior of the U.S. even though the 9/11 Commission identified a lack of effective interior enforcement of the immigration laws as vital to combat terrorism.

Congress has yet to provide funding for construction of a wall to secure our southern border to stop the flow of drugs and international transnational criminals and gang members into the United States.

The only conclusion that can today be reached, is not that our “leaders” are not aware of the threats- but they obviously don’t give a damn!

Since the terror attacks of September 11, 2001 I have testified before more than 15 Congressional hearings on immigration and have often thought that Congress should stop holding “hearings” and begin holding “listenings!”

My mom used to say, “Actions speak louder than words.”

Election Day is coming and with it, the opportunity for us to act, in our own best interests and those of our nation.

RELATED ARTICLE: Walking Away From Iran Deal Could Be Trump Card for Success in North Korea Talks, Experts Say

RELATED VIDEO: Cyrus Moment: Mullahs’ Assassins Arrested in America.

EDITORS NOTE: This column originally appeared in FrontPage Magazine.

6 More Judicial Nominees Advance in Trump Bid to Reshape Judiciary

President Donald Trump is completing a strong week, and is set to kick off a strong next week, in his push to reshape the federal courts, with Senate Republicans forcing votes on six more of his judicial nominees.

Despite the Democrat minority in the Senate using procedures to delay many confirmation votes, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., and Judiciary Committee Chairman Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, have prioritized pushing through appeals court judges, and 2017 was a record year for confirmations.

“This week, the Senate will consider another slate of extremely well-qualified nominees for seats on the federal bench,” McConnell said in a statement Monday. “A thoughtful, independent, and expert judiciary is a cornerstone of our constitutional order. It’s been the case since the very beginning.”

Moreover, six of the 16 of the Trump-nominated circuit court judges confirmed have replaced Democrat appointees, Axios reported.

That’s important because circuit courts are the final stop for a case before it reaches the Supreme Court. In cases the high court declines to hear, the circuit courts are the last word.

Several of the nominees to be voted on this week have has distinguished careers, including working for the White House or for one-time independent counsel Kenneth Starr in the 1990s. Others were federal prosecutors or lower court judges.

“The president is having a particularly significant impact on the 7th Circuit,” Carrie Severino, chief counsel for the Judicial Crisis Network, told The Daily Signal, referring to the Chicago-based federal appeals court. “He’ll almost have a Trump class of appointees on that court.”

The 7th Circuit Court of Appeals hears cases arising in Illinois, Indiana, and Wisconsin.

“Only one circuit, the 3rd Circuit, is shifting the balance of power” from a Democrat majority to a Republican majority, Severino said, referring to the Philadelphia-based appeals court, which handles cases from Delaware, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania.

Still, Severino noted that other circuits are seeing considerable movement.

For example, the New York-based 2nd Circuit, currently with a 7-4 Democrat appointee advantage would move to a 7-6 Democrat edge if all of Trump’s nominees are confirmed, she said. The 2nd Circuit covers Connecticut and Vermont, as well as New York.

The famously liberal 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, based in San Francisco, could go from a 16-6 Democrat advantage to a 16-13 Democrat edge if all of Trump’s nominees are confirmed, Severino said.

The 9th Circuit has jurisdiction over cases arising from not just California, but also Alaska, Guam, Hawaii, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, Oregon, and Washington.

Here are the six judicial nominees expected to be confirmed by the end of the week.

1. Bush White House Lawyer

Senate action is pending this week on Michael Y. Scudder to be a judge on the 7th Circuit Court in Chicago. Trump nominated him in February.

The vote on his nomination was scheduled to Monday.

Scudder has worked at the Washington-based law firm of Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP since 2009.

Scudder spent two years in the White House Counsel’s Office during the administration of President George W. Bush, serving as associate counsel and then as senior associate counsel to the president and legal adviser and general counsel to the National Security Council.

Before that, Scudder spent four years at the Justice Department, first as an assistant U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York and later as counsel to the deputy attorney general on a national security team.

A graduate of Northwestern University Pritzker School of Law,
he previously clerked for Supreme Court Justice Anthony M. Kennedy.

2. Whitewater Prosecutor

As of Thursday, Amy J. St. Eve’s nomination to be a judge for the 7th Circuit in Chicago is still pending. Trump nominated her in February.

Her confirmation vote was also bumped to Monday, but she will bypass a cloture vote.

A Bush appointee to the bench confirmed by the Senate in 2002, St. Eve is currently a U.S. district judge for the Northern District of Illinois.

Before becoming a federal judge, she served as senior counsel for litigation at Abbott Laboratories after a stint as a federal prosecutor for the Northern District of Illinois.

St. Eve served for two years as an associate independent counsel for the Whitewater independent counsel’s investigation in Little Rock, Arkansas, where she helped oversee the successful prosecution of former Arkansas Gov. Jim Guy Tucker and Jim McDougal and Susan McDougal for fraud.

She is a graduate of Cornell Law School.

3. Chief Judge in Louisiana

The Senate voted 62-34 on Wednesday to confirm Kurt Engelhardt to the U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans. Trump nominated him in September to the court, which hears appeals arising from Louisiana, Mississippi, and Texas.

Engelhardt, who has served as the chief judge of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana, was a 2001 appointee of Bush.

While serving as a federal judge, Engelhardt was a member of the Judicial Conference Committee on Federal-State Jurisdiction, first named to the panel by then-Chief Justice William Rehnquist in 2004 and reappointed for a second term by Chief Justice John Roberts in 2007.

He was also president of the New Orleans chapter of the Federal Bar Association from 2011 to 2012.

Before becoming a judge, he was in private practice first at the Metairie, Louisiana-based Hailey, McNamara, Hall, Larmann & Papale LLP. While in private practice, he served on the Louisiana Judiciary Commission, which adjudicates statewide ethics complaints against judges, and became chairman of the commission in 1998.

He is a graduate of Louisiana State University.

4. Federal Judge From New Mexico

The Senate voted Thursday to end debate over the nomination of Joel M. Carson III to be a judge on the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver. Trump nominated Carson in December to the court, whose jurisdiction encompasses Colorado, Kansas, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Utah, and Wyoming.

His confirmation vote is scheduled for Tuesday.

Carson has served as a part-time magistrate judge on the U.S. District Court for the District of New Mexico since 2015 and as a partner in the Roswell, New Mexico-based law firm of Carson Ryan LLC.

Carson previously served for five years as general counsel for Mack Energy Corp. Before that, he was in private practice for nine years with the firm Hinkle Shanor LLP with offices in Roswell, Santa Fe, and Albuquerque, New Mexico.
He is a graduate of the University of New Mexico School of Law.

5. Former Milwaukee Prosecutor

The Senate on Thursday confirmed Michael B. Brennan in a 49-46 party-line vote to be a judge on the U.S. 7th Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago. Trump nominated him to the bench in August.

The controversy was largely over the “blue slip” rule that gives home state senators effective vetoes. Sen. Tammy Baldwin, D-Wis., opposed the nomination.

Brennan is a partner in the Milwaukee law firm Gass Weber Mullins LLC, where he tries cases involving commercial and tort disputes. He also serves as a mediator and an arbitrator.

Before private practice, Brennan served nine years as a judge on the Milwaukee County Circuit Court. Before serving as a judge, he prosecuted cases as an assistant district attorney in Milwaukee County.

Brennan is a graduate of Northwestern University School of Law.

6. State Justice Reformer

The Senate also moved to end debate on John B. Nalbandian to serve on the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati. Trump nominated him in January to the court, which covers Kentucky, Michigan, Ohio, and Tennessee.

The Senate is expected to vote on Nalbandian’s nomination Tuesday.

Nalbandian is a partner in the litigation practice group of the Ohio-based Taft Stettinius & Hollister LLP, where he has worked since 2000, specializing in appellate cases.

In 2010, the Senate confirmed him to serve as a board member of the State Justice Institute, a nonprofit organization established by the federal government to improve the administration of justice in state courts.

In 2007, then-Kentucky Gov. Ernie Fletcher named him as a special justice to the Kentucky Supreme Court in a case where a sitting justice had to recuse.

He has also served on the Magistrate Judge Merit Selection Panel for the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Kentucky, as a board member of the Northern Kentucky Tri-County Economic Development, and as a member of the Telecommunications Board of Northern Kentucky.

Nalbandian is also a board member of the Greater Cincinnati Minority Counsel Program and of the Asian Pacific Bar Association of Southwest Ohio.

He is a graduate the University of Virginia School of Law.

COMMENTARY BY

Portrait of Fred Lucas

Fred Lucas

Fred Lucas is the White House correspondent for The Daily Signal and co-host of “The Right Side of History” podcast. Send an email to Fred. Twitter: @FredLucasWH.

Dear Readers:

With the recent conservative victories related to tax cuts, the Supreme Court, and other major issues, it is easy to become complacent.

However, the liberal Left is not backing down. They are rallying supporters to advance their agenda, moving this nation further from the vision of our founding fathers.

If we are to continue to bring this nation back to our founding principles of limited government and fiscal conservatism, we need to come together as a group of likeminded conservatives.

This is the mission of The Heritage Foundation. We want to continue to develop and present conservative solutions to the nation’s toughest problems. And we cannot do this alone.

We are looking for a select few conservatives to become a Heritage Foundation member. With your membership, you’ll qualify for all associated benefits and you’ll help keep our nation great for future generations.

ACTIVATE YOUR MEMBERSHIP TODAY

Problematic Women: Melania Trump’s Approval Ratings Reach a Personal ‘Best’

Michelle Obama demeans women who voted for President Donald Trump (again), Melania Trump’s favorability ratings reach a personal “best,” and did celebrities at the Met Gala appropriate Catholic culture? Plus: women stand up against the leader of the “resistance,” and a special tribute for Mother’s Day. All that and more in this week’s edition of Problematic Women. Watch in the video above, or listen in the podcast below.

COMMENTARY BY

Portrait of Kelsey Harkness

Kelsey Harkness is a senior news producer at The Daily Signal and co-host of “Problematic Women,” a podcast and Facebook Live show. Send an email to Kelsey. Twitter: .

Portrait of Bre Payton

Bre Payton is the culture and millennial politics reporter for The Federalist. Twitter: .

Dear Readers:

With the recent conservative victories related to tax cuts, the Supreme Court, and other major issues, it is easy to become complacent.

However, the liberal Left is not backing down. They are rallying supporters to advance their agenda, moving this nation further from the vision of our founding fathers.

If we are to continue to bring this nation back to our founding principles of limited government and fiscal conservatism, we need to come together as a group of likeminded conservatives.

This is the mission of The Heritage Foundation. We want to continue to develop and present conservative solutions to the nation’s toughest problems. And we cannot do this alone.

We are looking for a select few conservatives to become a Heritage Foundation member. With your membership, you’ll qualify for all associated benefits and you’ll help keep our nation great for future generations.

ACTIVATE YOUR MEMBERSHIP TODAY

EDITORS NOTE: The featured image is of First Lady Melania Trump announcing her “Be Best” children’s initiative in the Rose Garden of the White House in Washington, DC, May 7, 2018. (Photo by SAUL LOEB / AFP) (Photo credit should read SAUL LOEB/AFP/Getty Images)

Despite The Media, Trump is Winning for We the People

I love the old gospel song, “Peace In the Midst of the Storm.” In the midst of the Deep State’s raging, unprecedented hate-storm against Trump, he remarkably remains at peace, and so should we.

Trump and We the People are winning. Fake news media sells its lie 24/7 that voters regret voting for Trump and he is mere days from impeachment. In truth, Trump’s approval has risen to 51%. Leftists are pulling their hair out in frustration; screaming, how can we stop this freaking outsider amateur politician? The tide is turning in our favor.

The Deep State’s billions, traps and lies continue to fail. Incredibly, Trump repeatedly lands on his feet, confidently pressing forward on making America great again. It’s a God thing folks.

At the 2018 White House Correspondence Dinner, Michelle Wolf wrongly assumed her hate-filled attacks on Trump and women in his administration, along with her callousness against unborn babies would score a home-run for liberalism. Even devout leftists were uncomfortable with Ms Wolf vomiting leftists’ pure hatred for traditional Americans for all the world to see. Ms Wolf’s foulmouthed mean-spirited monologue hit a home-run for Conservatism. We are winning folks.

Pop icon Kanye West’s recent conservative comments and praise for Trump is huge. With Kanye’s 27 million twitter followers, millions of blacks heard conservatism for the first time. Since Kanye’s conservative tweet, black male approval of Trump has doubled. In essence, Kanye’s message mirrors mine; stop weakening yourselves with victim mindsets, make right choices and simply go for your dreams. Liberate yourselves from slavery on Democrats’ government dependency plantation. In Trump and Kanye, God is using unexpected vessels to spread His truth. Conservatism truly is best for all people. Kanye represents a huge crack in leftists’ wall of ignorance enslaving low-info voters.

It was thrilling hearing Trump announce that the United States will withdraw for Obama’s insane Iran Nuke Deal. Trump pulled no punches in explaining why Obama appeasing Iran was dangerous for America and our ally Israel. For crying out loud folks, what idiot president gives $150 billion to a regime which chants, “Death to America!“? 

Israel is despised by most leftists. Trump having the courage to acknowledge Jerusalem as the capitol of Israel and actually move our US embassy to Jerusalem is amazing. Regarding Israel, God said, “I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse.” Genesis 12:3

Remember Sgt Andrew Tahmooressi who was outrageously held in a Mexican jail for 7 months? Obama refused to make a phone call for Tahmooressi’s release. Presidential candidate Trump intervened, successfully freeing Tahmooressi. 

Amazingly, Trump’s Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is headed home from North Korea with 3 previously held hostages; a gesture of good faith for Trump’s meeting with Kim Jong Un. https://bit.ly/2K7CA7m Can you say “Trump: The Art of the Deal” boys and girls?

In essence, Obama received affirmative action Nobel Prizes because he is black and for touring the world apologizing for who we are as Americans and begging forgiveness. Numerous pundits say Trump should win the Nobel Peace Prize the old fashion way — he earned it. 

If Trump successfully ends the 70 year Korean war and Kim Jong Un follows through with his vow to end North Korea’s nuclear program, Trump absolutely deserves the Nobel Prize. If Trump wins the prize, that giant popping sound will be leftists’ heads exploding around the world. Extraordinary great things are happening folks.

Given that leftist activist justices are responsible for day-of-birth abortions and same sex marriage, Trump getting conservative Neil Gorsuch on the Supreme Court is huge for rulings based on what truly is in our Constitution. If Justice Kennedy retires as rumored, Trump could put another Constitutional conservative on the court. Awesome!

Americans suffering with high taxes, low wages and high unemployment was Obama’s proud new normal. Trump has dynamited Obama’s mountain of overreaching tyrannical job-killing regulations; reversing over 800. Trump has unemployment at 3.9%, the lowest since 2000. In his first year, Trump created 2 million jobs. His tax cuts has our economy booming; creating more jobs and Americans smiling again with more money in their pockets. https://bit.ly/2HLDyWf Manufacturing jobs have risen to 304,000 under Trump. Black and Hispanic unemployment is at a historic low. All Americans are winning with Trump in the White House.

In defiance of the fake news media’s 24/7 “destroy Trump” propaganda reporting, here is more good news you probably haven’t heard. Two million fewer Americans are on food stamps. Consumer confidence is near a 17 year high. Business confidence is near 1980’s levels. Three million Americans have received bonuses

The Deep State continues to obstruct Trump’s repeal of Obamacare. Nevertheless, Trump has ended Obama’s outrageous tyrannical individual mandate which demanded that Americans buy health insurance or pay a penalty.

The illegal invasion of our country is down 70%, the lowest in 17 years.  Trump has started the border wall

Folks, I could go on and on with Trump’s long list of wins for We the People in a remarkably short amount of time

Bottom line: Be of good cheer folks. As a Christian, I believe the prayers of millions of Americans saved us from anti-God, anti-America and anti-freedom liberal destructive tyranny under Hillary Clinton. God gave us Trump, and he is winning for We the People.

VIDEO: Alleged Child Molester Paid Off in Michigan Teachers Union Negotiation

Project Veritas has released undercover footage and documents obtained from the American Federation of Teachers Michigan affiliate office in Lake City, which reveals that the union protected a teacher after accusations of sexual misconduct with a seven- or eight-year-old girl arose.

This long-awaited release comes after a federal judge ruled in favor of Project Veritas and the First Amendment after Michigan AFT tried twice – and failed twice – to halt the release of the video.

Despite the damning evidence against him, Project Veritas decided to redact the identity of the now former teacher because he was never charged or arrested.

Undercover footage of AFT Union Representative, Johnny Mickles, reveals how AFT and the Lake City Michigan school district defended the alleged child molesting teacher. Redacted documents from the AFT office, available here, corroborate the events.

The alleged charges against the teacher, as memorialized in a Lake City Area Schools document, read:

“It is alleged that [REDACTED] engaged in a course of inappropriate conduct with one of the District’s female students. (Jane Doe) who was aged 7 or 8 at the time…”

According to the police report, the incident occurred some time in 2006, but was not reported until 2013 when the alleged victim happened to become a student of the teacher. Mickles, who represented the teacher, corroborates this in a meeting with a Project Veritas undercover journalist:

“When the student got to his class… apparently all these memories she had suppressed came out… And she went to the superintendent and basically spilled her guts and the superintendent terminated the teacher.”

According to Mickles, the superintendent wanted to terminate the teacher, but the union negotiated a resignation with the district which allowed him to keep his teaching certificate, and included six weeks’ pay and $50,000:

“He was terminated but we negotiated a resignation for him… he didn’t lose his [teaching] certification.”

“… he got to be on leave until they drew up the settlement and then he got, like, the rest of the school year’s pay out… He got about six weeks of pay I think… and then he got a $50,000 pay out.”

In conversations with a separate undercover journalist, the former teacher admitted to the validity of the accusations and the union’s help:

“There was a situation where somebody accused me of something that I didn’t do… So I finally said, you know what, I’m just going to retire…There were no charges. Nothing ever came of it.”

“There was an incident, they said there was a gal that I had dated and she had a daughter and there was an accusation that had something to do with her daughter which wasn’t true.”

The former teacher also explains his experience in dealing with the union’s attorney:

“I mean the attorney told me, ‘hey, in situations where somebody accuses you of something, you might as well- you know what? Chances are they’ll find a way to make it convenient for you to leave.’ That’s what he said.”

James O’Keefe, founder and President of Project Veritas said of the investigation:

“For the record, this former teacher was never charged and never arrested in this case. All we know is that the union, AFT Michigan, and the Lake City Area schools had a problem: A teacher was accused of a serious crime and the solution they came up with was to pay the teacher a bucket of money so he would just go away. If he wanted to go teach somewhere else, so be it. It would be someone else’s problem, and the parent’s would be none the wiser.”

This video comes after the release of two undercover videos of NJEA officials which led to the suspensions of Dr. David Perry, President of the Hamilton Township Education Association and Kathleen Valencia, President of the Union City Education Association. NJ State Democrats including Governor Phil Murphy have called for hearings to investigate the practices of the NJEA.

View the new video HERE.

NY Times Bites off More than It Can Skew

Fake news is alive and well — and thriving on the pages of America’s biggest newspapers. No wonder more people are tuning out the media. They don’t trust it. And outlets like the New York Times aren’t giving them any reason to try.At some point, the Times’s editorial board must have gotten together and decided to reprint every lie ever told about abstinence education. The result was Saturday’s work of fiction, a breathtakingly dishonest, 602-word crime scene of journalism that justifies America’s growing distrust of the press. About the only thing that was accurate about the column was its placement: on the opinion page, where it can’t be passed off as legitimate news.

Still, the editors’ agenda was obvious – discrediting a sex-ed approach that’s popular, effective, and grossly underfunded. They barely got the byline in before the absurdities began, starting with the Times’s insistence that HHS is somehow “advancing an anti-science, ideological agenda” by trying to level the funding field for abstinence. “The department last year prematurely ended grants to some teen pregnancy prevention programs, claiming weak evidence of success. More recently, it set new funding rules that favor an abstinence-only approach,” they complain.

If anyone’s ignoring science, it’s the Times. Barack Obama’s own HHS admitted outright that his contraception-first strategy was a billion-dollar failure. More than 80 percent of the students in his programs fared either worse or no better than their peers. Hardly the stuff of “weak evidence.” According to the last administration, Obama’s approach was a disaster — resulting in more pregnancies, more sexual initiation, and more oral sex1.

Not surprisingly, the Trump administration doesn’t think programs that encourage pregnancy are the wisest use of federal funds. So it rewrote the rules, shifting a very modest amount of money (10 cents of every sex-ed dollar) to the strategy the CDC agrees is working. But even now, HHS’s investment in abstinence isn’t close to what the Times’s preferred programs are getting. Liberal sex-ed still rakes in about $980 million, compared to $100 million for sexual risk avoidance (SRA). Even with the president’s changes, that’s still about a 10:1 ratio in favor of programs that taxpayers don’t want – and more importantly, don’t work!

The editors claim that “The administration’s approach defies all common sense. There is no good evidence that abstinence-only education prevents or delays young people from having sex, leads them to have fewer sexual partners, or reduces rates of teen pregnancy or sexually transmitted infections.” Did the Times fire all of its fact-checkers? The CDC blew that myth to bits in 2016, explaining that not only does the abstinence message work — it positively affects every area of kids’ lives. “High school students who are virgins rate significantly and consistently better in nearly all health-related behaviors and measures than their sexually active peers.” That includes everything from “bike helmet and seat belt use to substance abuse, diet, doctor’s visits, exercise, and even tanning bed use.” Abstinence education is like one-stop shopping for healthier behavior.

Unfortunately, the Left is too beholden to its culture of permissiveness to listen. For some of them, it’s self-indulgence at all costs — so much so that they’re willing to help kids off a cliff that leads to teen pregnancy and everything that comes with it: financial hardshipschool failure, and depression. They refuse to treat sex like every other risk behavior and discourage it. And ironically, that’s what teenagers want.

In a survey of 18- and 19-year-olds, the Barna Group found that what kids care about is learning how to “understand healthy and unhealthy relationships (65 percent), avoiding sexual assault (64 percent), how alcohol impairs judgment (61 percent), and how to say ‘no’ to sex without losing a relationship (57 percent).” They’re relationship-driven, not sex obsessed. Most of them agree that today’s curriculum pressures them too much to have sex. And those who’ve given in regret it. They don’t think lessons on sexual pleasuring (26 percent) are nearly as important as having the skills to say “no” (63 percent).

That’s another thing the editors misjudge: teenagers’ desire to wait. “[G]iven that almost all Americans engage in premarital sex,” they argue, “this vision of an abstinent-outside-of-marriage world simply at odds with reality.” That’s ridiculous. All Americans don’t engage in premarital sex – and certainly all teenagers don’t. Even the Washington Post points out just how sharply teen sex is declining. Would you believe that about 60 percent of teens haven’t had sex? Most Americans are surprised to hear it – thanks in part to the misinformation campaigns of newspapers like this one. Once they know, Republicans, Democrats, and everyone in between agree: it’s time to teach abstinence.

And the Trump administration is listening. They’re pursuing a bipartisan, evidence-based approach — which is more than I can say for the New York Times.

REFERENCE:

[1] Office of Adolescent Health (2016), Summary of Findings from the TPP Program Grantees (FY2010-2014). Washington, D.C.: HHS. Special issue of American Journal of Public Health, September 2016. 106 (S1):29-S15.


Tony Perkins’ Washington Update is written with the aid of FRC senior writers.


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The Left’s War On Guns Becomes A War On Women

New York City and other leftist cities and states are making it almost impossible for a woman to purchase even the most minimal of defensive measures — leaving them exposed and at the mercy of violent, stronger male criminals with no way to even the odds.

This may not be the intent, but the recoiling of leftists at allowing Americans to own anything that might resemble a weapon is creating the perverse result that women have a hard time finding any defensive tools.

This is where the nonsense notion of keeping all “weaponry” out of the hands of law-abiding citizens has gone — and it is led there by the overwrought reactions to guns.

A friend whose daughter recently graduated from college in New York and moved into the City, realized she was not in a very good neighborhood. She wanted to find some way of protecting herself, so she tried to order online some mace or pepper spray — anything of that nature — and was told they cannot deliver to New York City. Mace is illegal period. Pepper spray is not totally illegal, but New York makes such items very difficult to get through myriad regulations.

There are few things as inherently defensive in nature as pepper spray. Yet it turns out there are several states that have the same types of laws in place, including Illinois, Massachusetts, Hawaii, Rhode Island, Wisconsin and New Jersey. This list also includes cities such as Baltimore, Chicago, Washington, D.C. and Philadelphia — all of which have high rates of violent crimes being committed by men and yet leave their women in challenging situations to protect themselves.

Because again, pepper spray is not only inherently defensive, it is largely purchased and carried by women for self-defense. And yet the loudest paragons of the #MeToo movement put up major roadblocks for women to obtain such basic self-defense.

So this talented, pretty young woman moving to NYC is completely at the mercy of men (armed or not) bent on evil, and on the response time of police — once they are called. Like so many other women in all these cities and states, she too easily can find herself at the mercy of powerful criminals, and her own government deprives her of the reasonable ability to defend herself.

There are many examples of vulnerable women in these cities turning to wasp spray and other items for defense, despite the bulky size of those canisters. That’s how desperate they are to be able to defend themselves. Of course by reporting this, places like New York may decide that only licensed pest control professionals can buy and operate wasp spray.

Even if you grant the best of intentions by the Democratic lawmakers running these states and cities, it’s almost as though they purposely ignore the most obvious weapon most men have on women: superior size and strength. If every weapon of every kind were magically removed from planet, most men would still have the ability to physically take advantage of most women at any time.

The leftist retort to this is the police. Well that thin blue line that stands between the bad guys and the rest of us is imperative and most of them do yeoman’s work. But they are definitionally not for individual self-defense unless there is a cop for each person. They are by necessity reactive. It’s what 911 is for. You call, they respond.

So the police cannot be the self-defense that women need, meaning most women are left defenseless in these cities and states.

The equalizers for women have always been weapons, from guns to mace to pepper spray. Yet these equalizers are either banned or made very difficult to obtain.

These items are not protected by the Second Amendment, so they can be — constitutionally, if foolishly — banned or made very difficult to obtain. Guns cannot be banned. But they can be made so difficult to obtain that they are practically speaking banned — for law-abiding residents.

That will be Part II: One man’s ultimately fruitless journey into the endless bowels of obtaining a gun permit in New York City.

PLEASE READ: The Left’s War On Guns Becomes A War On Women (Part II)

EDITORS NOTE: This column originally appeared in The Revolutionary Act. The featured image is of  Corelle Owens posing for a portrait in Decatur, Ga., while holding a Glock 40. Owens is a 45-year-old resident of Mableton, Ga., and flight attendant. She’s among the ranks of the nation’s black women who are learning how to use a firearm, deciding to go to the range and learn how to shoot after her car, phone, tablet and wallet were stolen in March. She’s thinking of purchasing a revolver, considering it an ideal firearm for home protection. Thieves, she said, “they’re armed too so what are you going to do if you don’t have a gun?” She’s intent on perfecting her skills and learning as much as she can on the safest ways to handle a firearm. “I work in a job where safety is paramount and I want to do it the right way.” (AP Photo/Lisa Marie Pane). Please subscribe to The Revolutionary Act’s YouTube channel.

The Fiscal Cost of Resettling Refugees in the United States

Report by Matthew O’Brien and Spencer Raley.

Executive Summary

At the end of 2016, the United Nations estimates that a record-setting 65.3 million people had been forcibly displaced from their homes due to conflict or persecution. Many of those people will seek refuge in the developed countries of the West, including the United States. Reflecting America’s long tradition of providing refuge to the oppressed, we have admitted over 3.5 million people since 1980 and 96,900 refugees just in the last year in 2016.

As the nation considers what levels of immigration we can fiscally and environmentally sustain, it is important to understand the costs of resettling both refugees (people seeking refugee status abroad) and political asylum seekers (those applying for refugee status from within the United States).

According to a new study released by FAIR, the annual cost to U.S. taxpayers is $1.8 billion and over five years, that financial burden skyrockets to $8.8 billion.

Those figures are only estimates because refugees will access welfare and other government assistance at different rates and the number of refugees entering the U.S also changes from year-to-year.

Using the most recent admissions figures, data on federal and state public assistance programs, and information from the Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR), our analysis found:

  • The cost per refugee to American taxpayers just under $79,600 every year in the first five years after a refugee is resettled in the U.S.;
  • In 2016, the State Department spent nearly $545 million to process and resettle refugees, including $140,389,177 on transportation costs;
  • Of the $1.8 billion in resettlement costs, $867 billion was spent on welfare alone;
  • In their first five years, approximately 54 percent of all refugees will hold jobs that pay less than $11 an hour;
  • $71 million will be spent to educate refugees and asylum-seekers, a majority of which will be paid by state and local governments.
  • Over five years, an estimated 15.7 percent of all refugees will need housing assistance, which is roughly $7,600 per household in 2014 dollars.

It is important to note that this analysis does not address the costs associated with any incurred national security and law enforcement costs associated with some refugees who pose a threat. The total price of additional vetting and screening expenditures, law enforcement and criminal justice costs, and federal homeland security assistance to state and local agencies is hard to quantify.

Introduction

At present, the United Nations estimates that there are approximately 65.3 million people who have been forcibly displaced from their homes by conflict or persecution1. Many of those people will seek refuge in the developed countries of the West, including the United States.

America has a long tradition of providing refuge to the oppressed. We admit both refugees (people seeking refugee status abroad) and political asylees (people requesting refugee status from within the United States).2 And doing so is consistent with our history and our values. But the way in which we integrate refugees/political asylees into our society has changed drastically over the years.

The largest groups of refugees arrived in United States the aftermath of World War II.3 Significant numbers of anti-communist dissidents sought political asylum during the Cold War.4 However, the admission of WWII refugees, and Cold War asylees, took place in an overall context of very low immigration.5 And, until the 1980’s most refugee assistance was provided through private networks of charitable ethnic and religious groups that provided both financial assistance and help in assimilating to the American way of life.6 Many Americans contributed generously to those groups but their contributions were voluntary. Under the current model, taxpayers are involuntarily bankrolling the significant costs that resettling refugees and asylees imposes on the citizens of the United States.

Since 1980, the United States has admitted over 3.5 million people seeking refuge.7 We continue to admit refugees at a rate of roughly 50,000 to 100,000 refugees per year8 and 20,000-50,000 political asylees per year.9 Most of this cohort arrives here without financial resources and possessing few marketable job skills. And the American taxpayer is being asked to feed, clothe and shelter them, in addition to funding job training programs.10

Most refugee/asylee resettlement expenditures come in the form of cash assistance, welfare programs and other social services. Federal welfare programs that refugees and asylees can access include the following:

  • Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) formerly known as AFDC
  • Medicaid
  • Food Stamps
  • Public Housing
  • Supplemental Security Income (SSI)
  • Social Security Disability Insurance
  • Child Care and Development Fund
  • Job Opportunities for Low Income Individuals (JOLI)
  • Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP)
  • Postsecondary Education Loans and Grants
  • Refugee Assistance Programs
  • Earned Income Tax Credit and Additional Child Tax Credit11

State and local welfare programs that refugees and asylees can apply for include but are not limited to:

  • Housing assistance
  • English as a Second Language programs
  • Special education programs
  • Job training and employment search assistance
  • Social services programs
  • Immigration assistance programs (aiding asylees in filing green card applications, citizenship applications, and petitions for relatives to immigrate to the U.S.)12

Eligibility for some of these programs expires seven years after an individual is admitted to the United States as a refugee or asylee. However, many welfare programs are available for as long as a refugee/asylee resides in the United States.13

Additionally, the U.S. incurs significant expenses before refugees even get here: vetting applicants for refugee status, processing immigration applications and transporting approved applicants to the United States. Asylum seekers may cost taxpayers even more, considering they are present in the United States when they apply for protection. Because of this, they are entitled, as a matter of law, to a hearing on their asylum claim before U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, an additional hearing before the U.S. Immigration Court if the government intends to deny their claim, and an appeal to the Board of Immigration Appeals.

Funding all of these programs places a heavy burden on the public treasury. Below is FAIR’s estimate of the calculable cost, per refugee/asylee, for their first five years in the United States.

NB: Both refugees and political asylees are admitted to the United States based on the definition of refugee found at 8 U.S.C. § 1101(a). The major difference between the two statuses is that applicants for refugee status are abroad, applicants for political asylum are at the U.S. border or within the United States. Hereinafter, for the sake of convenience, FAIR uses the term “refugee” to refer to both traditional refugees and political asylees (unless otherwise specified).

Methodology

When calculating refugee costs, it is important to understand that the usage of various federal assistance and benefit programs is far from static. Welfare usage by refugees typically decreases the longer they reside in the country. However, even after five years, the rate at which refugees use public assistance programs is still much higher than the overall national average. The Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) releases up to five years’ worth data on the use of welfare programs by refugees in their annual report to Congress. To find a consistent annual rate, we calculate the average rate of usage based on the available data during that allotted five-year period.

In addition to varying welfare usage rates, the number of refugees entering the U.S also changes from year-to-year. We base our calculations on the most recent admissions data. As such, if the United States decides to increase the total number refugees it admits on an annual basis, these costs will increase. Unanticipated surges in the number of individuals admitted as refugees commonly occur in response to geopolitical events.

After determining how many refugees are likely to use a welfare benefit, we then multiply this number by the annual average benefit to find the mean yearly cost to U.S taxpayers. We conservatively estimate that amount of public assistance received by refugees each year is roughly equal to the overall national average.

In contrast to welfare expenses, the majority of specifically budgeted federal costs associated with refugees occurs during the initial resettlement phase. This includes costs such as transportation, processing, reception, placement, and programs designed to help entrants find employment and welfare benefits. For simplicity, we break these costs up and include them in the annual cost over five years.

Unless otherwise noted, we draw all statistics relating to the overall number of refugees utilizing specific welfare programs from ORR’s latest Annual Report to Congress, compiled at the end of fiscal year 2015.14The total number of refugees and asylees is also derived from the ORR’s latest figures.

Federal Budgeted Costs to Refugees/Asylees – $777,443,000

Education Costs for Refugees/Asylees $71,275,000

In 2015, FAIR estimated that education costs for students with limited English proficiency (LEP) averaged out to $12,128 across the nation, compared to $10,763 for non-LEP students.24 Nearly 90 percent of all refugees and asylees who entered the United States in FY2011 were not fluent in English. That number improved to 58 percent by the end of FY2015, averaging out to approximately 75 percent throughout the FY2011 – FY2015 period.25

Based on immigration data from The Migration Policy Institute, and understanding that most (but not all) UAMs are covered by funding that is separate from the refugee program, it appears that approximately 10 percent of admitted refugees will enroll in a public school.26 Assuming the cost to educate LEP students in the United States remains mostly unchanged since 2015, that would make the cost of educating new refugees approximately $71,275,000 annually over their first five years in country.

Taxation Calculations-$215,386,500

According to ORR, refugee’s earnings are meager throughout their first five years in the United States, increasing from $10.22/hour to $10.86/ hour – only a 6.3 percent increase over five years, on average. This means they are unlikely to pay any federal income taxes, and could end up receiving a net credit from the federal government when programs like the Earned Income Tax Credit and Additional Child Tax Credit are considered.

Furthermore, their state and local income tax contributions will be also negligible, after any returns. This is largely because approximately 15 percent of all recent refugees have been settled in states with no income tax, and more than half come from states where the state tax rate for low-income filers is 4.5 percent or lower, based on data from the Pew Research Center27 and the Tax Foundation.28

However, based on unemployment and labor participation data from ORR, an average of approximately 54 percent of all refugees will participate in the workplace during their first five years in the country. Their average income will come out to just over $21,000 per year, based on ORR data.

Accordingly, we estimate that the average state and local income tax contribution per working refugee comes out to $843, annually, or just over $4,200 over five years. This totals roughly $215.4 million in state income tax payments overall. However, these relatively low payments do not cover the costs of cash programs and services received by refugees.

There are other, less substantial rebates and credits for which refugees are eligible. Additionally, there many more state and local assistance programs through which refugees may receive taxpayer-funded payouts, especially once they’ve resided within the United States for an extended period of time. It is also likely that there are certain other state and local taxes that refugees pay. However, due to the lack of available data, we are unable to integrate those numbers into our overall calculations. And, in any case, it is virtually certain that such data would simply show that the refugee program is even more expensive than is presumed by most estimates.

The purpose of our benefits vs. taxation calculations is not to provide an exact cost associated with the admission of large numbers of refugees (even if it were possible to do so). Rather, our intention is to demonstrate that the majority of readily available data clearly indicates that the refugee program, as it is currently constructed, is a net drain on the United States’ economy and represents an ever-increasing burden on the American taxpayer.

Conclusions

    • Based on the above data, refugees (including recipients of political asylum) cost American taxpayers nearly $1.8 billion, annually, or approximately $8.8 billion over five years.
  • This totals $15,900 per refugee, annually, or just under $79,600 per refugee over their first five years in America.

While the United States certainly has an interest in assisting those who are truly in dire straights, it is now doing so in a manner that is increasing the already crushing burden that state, local and federal governments impose on American taxpayers. Most of the charitable ethnic and religious groups which once helped to assimilate refugees into our way of life have morphed into contractors who earn significant sums of money by billing the government for services provided to refugees. Therefore, these groups have a vested interest in keeping refugee numbers high. And taxpayers are footing the bill.

In addition, refugees are often resettled in small to mid-sized communities without any attempt to consult with local political officials, educational administrators or public safety officers. This results in additional strains on already tight school, public health and social services budgets as communities attempt to cope with a rapid influx of individuals who may lack the language, cultural and job skills needed to integrate into the life of American cities and towns.

Increasingly, some refugees also pose national security and public safety costs that are difficult to quantify. These include vetting and screening expenditures, law enforcement and criminal justice costs, and federal homeland security assistance to state and local agencies. They also include funding for intelligence community agencies, which play an increasingly important role in checking the background of refugees who come from countries with significant terrorist activity.

America is currently faced with massive budget deficits, a tense global security climate, and an economy that, while improving, is still experiencing growing pains. Accordingly, government policy should shift away from relocating refugees to the United States. The costs, both fiscal and social, outweigh the benefits provided to a relatively small portion of the overall refugee population in the world.

Instead, the U.S. should begin using its considerable economic, diplomatic and military influence to de-escalate the conflicts that give rise to refugees. In situations where de-escalation is not possible, the U.S. should provide direct assistance to refugees within, or nearby, their country of origin, rather than relocating them to the United States. These alternatives are both more cost-effective – up to 10 times cheaper29 – and safer for the American public, than resettling refugees in the United States. They would also allow the United States to compassionately help hundreds of thousands more refugees on an annual basis, without continuing to add to the already high costs of immigration currently being borne by American taxpayers.

RELATED ARTICLE: Catholic Charities of Minnesota drops refugee program; will take care of poor and homeless already among us

Footnotes and endnotes

[1] Adrian Edwards, “Global Forced Displacement Hits Record High,” United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, June 20, 2016, http://www.unhcr.org/en-us/news/latest/2016/6/5763b65a4/global-forced-displacement-hits-record-high.html
[2] Both refugees and political asylees are admitted to the United States based on the definition of refugee found at 8 U.S.C. § 1101(a). The major difference between the two statuses is that applicants for refugee status are abroad, applicants for political asylum are at the U.S. border or within the United States. Accordingly, for the sake of convenience, unless otherwise specified, FAIR uses the term “refugee” to refer to both traditional refugees and political asylees.
[3] Milan Kubic, “A Refugee Looks Back: What the 1940’s Teach Us About Today’s Crisis,” Wilson Quarterly, Winter 2016, https://wilsonquarterly.com/quarterly/the-post-obama-world/a-refugee-looks-back-what-the-1940s-teach-us-about-todays-crisis/
[4] Lisa Reynolds Wolfe, “Immigration to the U.S. During the Cold War,” Cold War Studies, September 22, 2016, https://coldwarstudies.com/2016/09/22/immigration-to-the-us-during-the-cold-war/
[5] U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, “Agency History: Post-War Years,” https://www.uscis.gov/history-and-genealogy/our-history/agency-history/post-war-years
[6] Xiaojin Zhao, “Immigration to the United States After 1945,” Oxford Research Encyclopedia of American History, July 2016, http://americanhistory.oxfordre.com/view/10.1093/acrefore/9780199329175.001.0001/acrefore-9780199329175-e-72#ref_acrefore-9780199329175-e-72-note-12
[7] Office of Immigration Statistics, “2015 Yearbook of Immigration Statistics,” U.S. Department of Homeland Security, December 2016, p. 43, https://www.dhs.gov/sites/default/files/publications/Yearbook_Immigration_Statistics_2015.pdf
[8] Jens Manuel Krogstad, Jynnah Radford, “Key Facts About Refugees to the U.S.,” Pew Research Center – Fact Tank, January 30,2017, http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/01/30/key-facts-about-refugees-to-the-u-s/
[9] Jie Zong, Jeanne Batalova, “Refugees and Asylees in the United States,” MPI – Migration Information Source, June 7 2017, https://www.migrationpolicy.org/article/refugees-and-asylees-united-states
[10] Kerry Picket, “U.S. Government to Offer Each New Refugee Thousands of Dollars in Social Services and Cash,” The Daily Caller, September 18, 2015, http://dailycaller.com/2015/09/18/each-refugee-to-be-offered-thousands-of-dollars-in-tax-payer-assistance-and-welfare-for-years/
[11] Jennifer Mayorga, Ann Morse, “The U.S. Refugee Resettlement Program: A Primer for Policy Makers,” National Conference of State Legislatures, December 4, 2017, http://www.ncsl.org/research/immigration/the-u-s-refugee-resettlement-program-a-primer-for-policymakers.aspx#6
[12] For a complete list of programs and services, by state, see: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services – Office of Refugee Resettlement, “Find Resources and Contacts in Your State,” https://www.acf.hhs.gov/orr/state-programs-annual-overview
[13] “Refugee Resettlement Fact Sheet,” Refugee Resettlement Watch, June 20, 2013, https://refugeeresettlementwatch.wordpress.com/refugee-resettlement-fact-sheets/
[14] Office of Refugee Resettlement, “Annual Report to Congress,” Fiscal Year 2015, https://www.acf.hhs.gov/sites/default/files/orr/arc_15_final_508.pdf
[15] Ibid
[16] Bureau of Population, Refugees and Migration, “FY 2016 Summary of Major Activities,” https://www.state.gov/documents/organization/265231.pdf
[17] International Organization for Migration, United States, “Refugee Travel Loans,” https://www.iom.int/countries/united-states-america#rtl
[18] The Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation, “Medicaid Spending per Enrollee (Full or Partial Benefit,” FY 2014, https://www.kff.org/medicaid/state-indicator/medicaid-spending-per-enrollee/?currentTimeframe=0&sortModel=%7B%22colId%22:%22Location%22,%22sort%22:%22asc%22%7D
[19] Ife Floyd, “TANF Cash Benefits Have Fallen by More than 20 percent in Most States and Continue to Erode,” Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, October, 2017, https://www.cbpp.org/research/family-income-support/tanf-cash-benefits-have-fallen-by-more-than-20-percent-in-most-states
[20] Social Security Administration, “SSI Federal Payment amounts for 2018,” FY 2018, https://www.ssa.gov/oact/cola/SSI.html
[21] Washington State Department of Social and Health Services, “Refugee Cash Assistance,” https://www.dshs.wa.gov/esa/community-services-offices/refugee-cash-assistance
[22] Liz Schott, “State General Assistance Programs are Weakening Despite Increased Need,” Center for Budge and Policy Priorities, July, 2015, https://www.cbpp.org/research/family-income-support/state-general-assistance-programs-are-weakening-despite-increased
[23] Congressional Budget Office, “Federal Housing Assistance for Low-Income Households,” September, 2015, https://www.cbo.gov/sites/default/files/114th-congress-2015-2016/reports/50782-lowincomehousing-onecolumn.pdf
[24] Spencer Raley, Marc Ferris, “The Elephant in the Classroom: Mass Immigration’s Impact on Public Education,” The Federation for American Immigration Reform, September, 2016, https://fairus.org/issue/publications-resources/elephant-classroom-mass-immigrations-impact-public-education
[25] Op. Cite. ORR Budget
[26] Jie Zong, Jeanne Batalova, “Frequently Requested Statistics on Immigrants and Immigration in the United States,” Migration Policy Institute, March, 2017, https://www.migrationpolicy.org/article/frequently-requested-statistics-immigrants-and-immigration-united-states#Demographic
[27] Jynnah Radford, Phillip Connor, “Just 10 States Resettled More than Half of Recent Refugees to U.S.,” Pew Research Center, December, 2016, http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/12/06/just-10-states-resettled-more-than-half-of-recent-refugees-to-u-s/
[28] Nicole Kaeding, “State Individual Income Tax Rates and Brackets for 2016,” Tax Foundation, February, 2016, a href=”https://taxfoundation.org/state-individual-income-tax-rates-and-brackets-2016/”>https://taxfoundation.org/state-individual-income-tax-rates-and-brackets-2016/
[29] Rob Williams, “Syrian Refugees Will Cost Ten Times More to Care for in Europe than in Neighboring Countries,” The Independent, March, 2016, http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/syrian-refugees-will-cost-ten-times-more-to-care-for-in-europe-than-in-neighboring-countries-a6928676.html

Israel strikes back at Iranian aggression, while Iran lies and pretends it won a victory

Israel responded forcefully early Thursday to about 20 Iranian missiles launched from Syria just after midnight local time against the Jewish state – and handed Iran a painful lesson in strategic deterrence.

Israeli warplanes and missiles hit about 70 Iranian military targets in Syria and killed an undetermined number of Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps fighters and Syrian soldiers, according to early reports.

Iranian boasts about the invincibility and power of their forces were exposed as one more lie in the long series of lies by the Islamic Republic.

Targets of the Israeli counterattack against the unprovoked Iranian aggression included the main Iranian Revolutionary Guards base near Damascus, military positions of Hezbollah terrorist fighters, Syrian air bases used by Iran to launch drone and missile attacks against Israel, and much more.

As far as we know so far, no Israeli aircraft were hit, nor did Syria launch its Russian-supplied S-300 air defense missiles against Israeli jets. That may have been the result of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s trip to Moscow on Wednesday, where he spent 10 hours with Russian President Vladimir Putin, ostensibly to commemorate the allied victory over the Nazis in World War II.

When the smoke clears, Israel’s coordinated strike will be compared to its June 1982 pre-emptive strike against Syria’s air force and air defense systems in Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley.

That earlier battle was the first time Israel used the F-4 “Wild Weasel” and was the first modern air battle using electronic warfare. The result: Israel destroyed Syria’s air defenses and shot down 85 Syrian aircraft, while losing none.

For weeks, Iran has been threatening military strikes on Israel. In mid-April, the commander of Iran’s regular army, Brig. Gen. Kioumars Heydari, proclaimed that “the date has already been set” by the Iranian leadership for the destruction of Israel.

Many Iran “experts” typically dismiss such warmongering bombast, since Iran’s leaders have been making empty boasts about their military might for years.

But given the enormous military buildup over the past two years by Iran in Syria, Lebanon, and in Gaza – resulting in Iranian-backed forces and the Iranian Revolutionary Guards now bracketing Israel on all three sides – Israel’s leaders have been taking such warnings seriously.

Over the past few days, Israel picked up indications of unusual Iranian and Hezbollah military activity in Syria, and rushed additional missile interception systems to the Galilee and the Golan Heights.

The Iranians were warning that they intended to strike back against Israel in retaliation for isolated Israeli strikes against Iranian positions in Syria over the past two weeks.

On Tuesday Israel issued a partial call-up of reservists, a move it rarely takes unless it believes hostilities are imminent.

When the Iranian missiles struck Thursday morning, Israel was well-prepared. According to the Israel Defense Force, Israel’s Iron Dome anti-missile system intercepted several of the Iranian missiles, while others fell harmlessly to the ground inside Syria.

So far, the reaction in Tehran to the new outbreak of fighting has been strangely muted.

There is always the possibility that Iran could strike out massively against Israel – unleashing the 150,000 rockets it has supplied to Hezbollah in Lebanon and ordering its proxies in Gaza to launch waves of children to assault Israel border posts in the hopes of provoking a massacre. However, I suspect that fear of a massive Israeli attack on Iran itself will keep the Iranians in check.

Why? Because Israel has been laying the groundwork through strategic deterrence well before this latest skirmish.

The astonishing intelligence coup of Israel’s Mossad foreign intelligence service in spiriting away Iran’s Atomic Archive from highly secure vaults in downtown Tehran spooked Iran’s leaders. That Mossad could strike in Tehran itself, at the most carefully guarded secrets of the regime, has shaken Iran’s leaders to the core.

The intelligence triumph also made Iranian leaders appear weak in front of their own people. Israel’s new strikes inside Syria have accentuated that impression of weakness.

Iranian Quds Force commander Maj. Gen. Qassem Suleymani is trying to spin the attacks on Israel as a great Iranian victory. This is absurd.

An artistic rendering on his Instagram page, which is very popular in Iran, shows Suleymani punching Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in the face while carrying an Iranian flag.

I believe the fantasy cartoon is a tell. And what it shows is that the Iranian regime is desperately looking for ways to declare victory, cover up its weakness and go home.

Iranian government leaders understand that they remain in power for one reason only: the Iranian people believe they are powerless to overthrow them.

Israel has struck Iran where it is most vulnerable. The Mossad coup, coupled to the Thursday morning Israeli strikes in Syria, have sent an unmistakable message to Iran’s leaders and to the Iranian people: the Iranian regime is weak. It is vulnerable. It can be toppled.

So how will the Iranian regime respond? Will it lash out in a desperate attempt to show that it retains its power, that it remains invincible? Or, fearing Israel’s military might, will Iran’s leaders cower in fear?

If I were a betting man, I’d put my money on them cowering. After all, no Iranian leader has yet to die from committing suicide, even though they have urged others to do so. They are survivors.

EDITORS NOTE: This op-ed column first appeared on Fox News.

Tennessee Refugee Resettlement Decision Appealed — A Fight For State Sovereignty

ANN ARBOR, MI – Informed by Supreme Court Chief Justice Roberts’ observation that, “The States are separate and independent sovereigns. Sometimes they have to act like it,” Tennessee has authorized the Thomas More Law Center (“TMLC”) to appeal the dismissal of its lawsuit which challenged the constitutionality of the federal refugee resettlement program. Although Tennessee officially withdrew from this federal program in 2007, the federal government continues, to this day, to commandeer state tax dollars to fund it.

The Thomas More Law Center, a national public interest law firm based in Ann Arbor, Michigan, announced today that it has filed an appeal of the federal district court decision which dismissed its case. The lawsuit, filed on behalf of the State of Tennessee, the Tennessee General Assembly, and state legislators Terri Lynn Weaver and John Stevens, challenged the constitutionality of the federal refugee resettlement program as a violation of the principles of State sovereignty under the Tenth Amendment. The Notice of Appeal was filed this morning with the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Tennessee. The appeal will be heard by a panel of the United States Circuit Court of Appeals For The Sixth Circuit.

Richard Thompson, President and Chief Counsel of the Thomas More Law Center, stated: “We are grateful to the designated representatives of the General Assembly, State Representatives Terri Lynn Weaver and William Lamberth and State Senator John Stevens, for authorizing us to continue this significant legal battle. This case involves critical constitutional issues regarding the appropriate balance between the powers of the federal government and the states. The district court decision dismissing this case conflicts with several U.S. Supreme Court opinions upholding State sovereignty against overreach by the federal government.”

TMLC’s original lawsuit, which sought to permanently ban the federal government from forcing Tennessee to fund the refugee resettlement program out of its own treasury, was filed in March 2017 in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Tennessee. The lawsuit was authorized by Senate Joint Resolution 467, which passed both the House and Senate by overwhelming majorities. On March 19, 2018, a federal district court judge granted the Department of Justice motion to dismiss the case. State Representatives Terri Lynn Weaver and William Lamberth and State Senator John Stevens, as the designated representatives of the General Assembly, after consultation with the Thomas More Law Center lawyers, authorized an appeal of the decision. All the Law Center’s legal services are without charge.

Tennessee has a history of supporting the Tenth Amendment and State sovereignty.  In 2009, House Joint Resolution 108, which passed in the Senate 31-0 and in the House by 85-2, demanded that the federal government halt its practice of imposing mandates upon the states for purposes not enumerated by the U.S. Constitution.

As Tennessee’s own President Andrew Jackson declared in his March 4, 1837 Farewell Address: “[E]very friend of our free institutions should be always prepared to maintain unimpaired and in full vigor the rights and sovereignty of the States and to confine the action of the General Government strictly to the sphere of its appropriate duties.”

When Congress enacted the Refugee Resettlement Act of 1980, the explicit intent was to assure full federal reimbursement of the costs for each refugee resettled and participating in benefit programs provided by the states. Eventually, however, federal reimbursements to the states for these benefit programs were reduced and, by 1991, eliminated entirely.  The states thereby became responsible for the immense costs of the programs originally covered by the federal government.

Tennessee officially withdrew from participation in the refugee resettlement program in 2007. However, instead of honoring Tennessee’s decision to withdraw from the program, the federal government merely bypassed the State and appointed Catholic Charities of Tennessee, a private, non-governmental organization to administer the program. Catholic Charities receives revenue based upon the number of refugees it brings into the State.

Currently, Tennessee State revenues that could otherwise be used for State programs to help Tennesseans are appropriated by the federal government to support the federal refugee resettlement program. This arrangement displaces Tennessee’s constitutionally mandated funding prerogatives and appropriations process.

EDITORS NOTE: Copyright © 2018 Thomas More Law Center, All rights reserved.

U.S. says no to Iranians and Somalis in refugee deal with Australia

I’ve been having computer problems so this is going to be a quickie update on the “dumb” Australia refugee deal that we should never have entered in to with the Australian government.
Trump and Turnbull

In January of 2017, Trump should have said NO! to the outrageous Obama arrangement for us to take off the Australians’ hands 1,250 of their detained refugee wannabes.

So now this is all dragging out with the Lefty press taking shots at the US each step of the way.

Here is the latest at The Guardian:

Australia’s refugee deal ‘a farce’ after US rejects all Iranian and Somali asylum seekers

Donald Trump’s Muslim travel ban is influencing Australia’s offshore processing system – with all Iranian and Somali refugees rejected for resettlement in the US.

The third version of Donald Trump’s travel ban bars or limits entry to citizens of five Muslim-majority countries – Iran, Libya, Somalia, Syria and Yemen – as well as North Korea. The ban’s constitutionality is currently being considered by the supreme court but is currently in effect.

About 150 refugees held in offshore processing on the island of Nauru have appointments with US officials this week, where they will discover final assessments of whether they have been accepted by America. So far, every Iranian and Somali applicant has been rejected.

But, remember dear readers the fake refugees we are taking in the Australian deal are mostly single men from Afghanistan, Pakistan and Burma (Rohingya Muslims).

The Australian government has promoted the US resettlement deal as its solution to offshore processing but, for more than a year, it has conceded that the US deal cannot clear the camps.

Thus far, 85 refugees have been resettled from Manus and 162 from Nauru. US officials hope to finalise the resettlement deal by October, when its annual resettlement quota restarts.
ian Rintoul.jpgMore than 500 refugees are expected to be left on the island of Nauru even if the US fulfils its entire commitment of 1,250 places.

[….]

Ian Rintoul from the Refugee Action Coalition said the US resettlement had been “revealed to be a farce”.

“Iranian refugees account for around a third of all refugees on Nauru,” he said. “It is just not possible for all Iranians to be rejected on any legitimate basis.

“While Trump says there is no official ban on Iranians and Somalis, it is now very clear that the US administration is imposing an unofficial ban. It is not a coincidence that all Iranians are being rejected.

“Turnbull’s phone call to Trump is coming back to haunt him. Turnbull told Trump that he didn’t have to accept anyone; now Trump is taking him at his word.”

That phone call is haunting all of us!

Continue reading here.

See my archive on the “dumb” Australia deal by clicking here.  If anyone is interested in following this topic to its very beginning, you will find the information archived here at RRW.

What you can do!

You have probably done it already, but it can’t hurt to let the President know again that he can still shut this down! He is setting a terrible precedent with this highly unorthodox arrangement for refugee resettlement, plus he isn’t keeping us safe by simply blocking the Iranians and Somalis while taking the Afghans, Pakistanis and Rohingya Muslims!

And, to top it off, just as this article makes clear, the media is going to use this whole dumb deal to further bash Trump!

See how to contact the White House in the upper right hand column of RRW.

RELATED ARTICLE: Organization of Islamic Cooperation wants international pressure on Burma over Rohingya Muslims

Three Americans Free! Free at last!

President Donald J. Trump, First Lady Milania, Vice President Pence and Mrs. Pence greeted three Americans freed by North Korea at 3:00 a.m. EST on Thursday, May 10, 2018.

Below is biographical information about the three American citizens released by North Korea courtesy of The Daily Mail. Who are the Americans freed by North Korea today? The common trait is all are devout Christians.

Kim Dong Chul

Kim Dong Chul weeping while being held by North Korea in 2016

Kim Dong Chul. Kim Dong Chul weeping while being held by North Korea in 2016.

A naturalised US citizen born in South Korea, Kim Dong Chul was seized in North Korea on October 2, 2015, and accused of spying.

Though a resident of Virginia – he became a US citizen in 1987 – Kim had been living with his wife in Yanji, China since 2001.

He worked just across the border in North Korea at the Rason-Sonbong special economic zone, where he ran a hotel services company. He was also a pastor.

Very little was known about his status until, in January 2016, he was interviewed by a CNN news crew that was visiting Pyongyang.

Two months later, he told reporters at a news conference organised by the dictatorship that he was a spy, explaining that he ‘apologised for trying to steal military secrets in collusion with South Koreans’ and calling his actions ‘unpardonable’.

The North accused him of receiving a USB drive as well as various papers containing nuclear secrets during a meeting with a defector from the regime.

After a one-day trial in April, he was sentenced to 10 years of hard labour for his supposed espionage.

But previous victims of the regime have explained that they were forced to make similar public declarations of their guilt after being tortured, despite being innocent.

Kim Hak-song

Kim, who is in his mid 50s, was born in Jilin, China, and educated at a university in California

Kim Hak-song. Kim, who is in his mid 50s, was born in Jilin, China, and educated at a university in California.

Kim Hak-song – also known as Jin Xue Song – had been working for the Pyongyang University of Science and Technology (PUST), undertaking agricultural development work with the school’s farm.

He was arrested at Pyongyang railway station in May 2017 on suspicion of committing ‘hostile acts’ against the government, as he was boarding a train headed for his home in Dandong, China.

Kim, who is in his mid 50s, was born in Jilin, China, and educated at a university in California, CNN reported, citing a man who had studied with him.

He said Kim returned to China after about 10 years of living in the US, where he is a citizen.

PUST was founded by evangelical overseas Christians and opened in 2010, and is known to have a number of American faculty members.

Pupils are generally children from the North’s elite.

It is not known whether Kim was sentenced for his supposed ‘hostile acts’.

Kim Sang-duk

Kim is a former professor at Yanbian University of Science and Technology in China, close to the Korean border

Kim Sang-duk. Kim is a former professor at Yanbian University of Science and Technology in China, close to the Korean border.

Korean-American Kim Sang-duk, or Tony Kim, was arrested in April 2017 at the capital’s main airport as he tried to leave the country after teaching for several weeks as a guest lecturer, also at PUST.

Kim is a former professor at Yanbian University of Science and Technology in China, close to the Korean border.

Its website lists his speciality as accounting.

He graduated from the University of California Riverside in 1990, gaining a master’s degree in business administration.

South Korea’s Yonhap news agency has reported Kim as being in his late 50s and said he had been involved in relief activities for children in rural parts of North Korea.

It cited a source who described him as a ‘religiously devoted man’.

He was detained with his wife at Sunan International Airport in Pyongyang on April 22 last year while waiting for a flight.

Police later arrested Kim but did not explain why – but his wife was allowed to leave the country.

PUST said the arrest was not related to his work at the university.

In a Facebook post, Kim’s son said since his arrest his family has had no contact with him.

His family said Kim will soon become a grandfather.

Read more…

RELATED ARTICLE: North Korea’s Prisoner Release: 3 Down, 119,997 to Go

RELATED VIDEO: Trump Welcomes Prisoners Home from North Korea – Agenda-Free TV.

Socialism Is Slavery

Robert Heller in a column titled “Communism’s attack on America never died — It just changed tactics” wrote:

The West thought they had defeated Communism with the fall of the Berlin Wall. Nothing could be further from the truth. What changed was the Left’s tactics.

The Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation published the following commentary and video:

What’s the fundamental design flaw within socialism that makes creating equality impossible? Why does socialism’s quest for equality always end in slavery?

As Ms Melanie Phillips clearly points out in her column “The Tory Jacobins“:

“What they [leaders in the West] never understood – at least, most of them – was that the left-wing war to destroy the west had not in fact ended but merely shifted its strategy. Instead of the workers seizing control of the levers of the economy, the left would now seize control of the levers of the culture – the universities, media, civil service, churches, the legal profession – and subvert them from within”.

RELATED ARTICLES: 

VIDEO: Debunking Communism from ‘The School of Life’ — A Rebuttal of Karl Marx

The Right Side of History: The Media Continues to Whitewash the Legacy of Communism

Trump White House Recognizes 100 Years of Victims of Communism [+Podcast]

Even by Its Own Standards, Communism Has Failed Miserably

 

What Can We Expect From Generation Z?

For far too long we have belabored the strengths and weaknesses of the Millennials (a.k.a. Generation Y), but what about their successors, Generation Z?

This is the Generation born between the late 1990’s and the middle of this decade. This is a generation who is now getting ready to graduate from High School and enter college, but what can we expect from them?

Whereas the Baby Boomers were responsible for the Millennials, Generation X begat Gen Z, and hopefully they will do a better job than the Boomers who, frankly, dropped the ball along the way.

Generation Z has no recollection of Bill Clinton or the scandals surrounding him, or George W. Bush for that matter. They were also too young to truly remember 911. They primarily remember Barack Obama, Donald Trump, Syria, Afghanistan, and Iraq. More recently, they have heard about North Korea, Iran, and Cuba, but have no recollection of the events surrounding them, such as the Korean Armistice, the American hostages in Iran under President Carter, or the Cuban Missile Crisis and Bay of Pigs under President Kennedy. They have also heard of numerous terrorist attacks and school shootings. In terms of academics, they have grown up in an age of testing and technology. Just about all of them are intimate with smart phones, social media, eCommerce, and other features of the Internet, much more so than the Millennials.

In school, they have excelled in the areas of math, science, and foreign language (primarily Spanish). Unfortunately, they are weak in terms of their knowledge of government, history, and speech. Their sense of socialization is different than their predecessors, as the media has been highly influential in their lives since infancy. I am also concerned about their interest in reading as paper books, newspapers, and magazines are disappearing. They may not be too informed about current events or history, but they are perhaps the most educated generation to date.

Whereas prior generations were hungry and understood the value of a dollar and an education, it is yet unclear the priorities Generation Z possesses. The recent shootings in Parkland, Florida triggered an outburst of outrage, but it is uncertain how much of this was sincere, and how much was orchestrated by politicians. Nevertheless, it was the first such political reaction by high-schoolers since the 1970’s.

The proof in the pudding will be in November which represents the generation’s first opportunity to vote in a major American election. If the turnout is low, we will know we have produced another generation of apathetic voters, but I am not yet convinced it will turn out this way.

I have been reading there are significant differences between the Millennials and Generation Z. From what I’ve heard, Gen Z looks upon the Millennials as irresponsible and foolish. Whereas, the Millennials have shown signs of embracing liberal doctrine, Gen Z is more conservative in nature.

According to a 2015 report from Goldman Sachs, “Gen-Z is more conservative, more money-oriented, and more entrepreneurial than the millennials were.”

This was echoed by another report in 2016, “My College Options and the Hispanic Heritage Foundation (HHF) today presented the results of a new national survey of approximately 50,000 ‘Generation Z’ high school students (ages 14-18) attitudes on the 2016 presidential election which found that the majority identify as Republicans – in sharp contrast to Millennials – and overall would vote for Donald Trump.”

If this is true, it is likely Generation Z will become more politically and economically influential than the Millennials.

Maybe Generation Z represents a correction in society, just as we experience in the stock market. Whereas the Millennials may have gone too far left, it appears Generation Z is turning to the right instead.

Keep the Faith!

RELATED ARTICLE: Generation Z and The Next Wave

VIDEO: The Fighting President

Finally, the USA has a President who has the courage to fight for what is right.

RELATED ARTICLE: Is Robert Mueller Going to Investigate George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and Andrew Jackson, Too?

EDITORS NOTE: The featured image is of a painting by Jon McNaughton an established artist from Utah.