Tag Archive for: Office of Refugee Resettlement

GAO: Obama’s Office of Refugee Resettlement ‘puts Unaccompanied Alien Children at Risk’

….and it puts you at risk because they are not being properly monitored!

Hot off the press this morning is this Washington Post story about a GAO report released today that is highly critical of HHS’s Office of Refugee Resettlement’s care of the ‘children’ who have been flooding our borders for many years now (the numbers are expected to rise, see here).

UAC children

UAC ‘children’ in Texas in 2014.

No surprise for those of us who have been following the Refugee Program for years that the contractors hired to take care of the kids are doing a rotten job.

BTW, the UACs are NOT refugees even if Obama and the contractors want them to be. They want them to be designated as refugees so they can get in line for welfare goodies and apply to bring their families to America.

Here is one recent story about how the contractors are squabbling over Obama payola for legal services for the UACs (mostly teenage boys!).

According to the WaPo story 125,000 ‘children’ have been distributed around the US since 2011.

I don’t know if any contractors are mentioned by name in the report, but we know that the US Conference of Catholic Bishops and Lutheran Immigration and Refugees Services, both federal refugee contractors, receive millions of dollars to care for the ‘children.’ Also, we learned in 2014 that there were two other HUGE contractors: Southwest Key Programs and Baptist Child & Family Service.  

Senator Grassley initially wanted answers from HHS here in 2014.

This is the Washington Post story this morning.  I’ve just snipped a bit of it, but you should read it all.

The government agency tasked with placing thousands of Central American children into communities while they await immigration court decisions has no system for tracking the children, does not keep complete case files and has allowed contractors to operate with little oversight, according to a report released Monday by the Government Accountability Office.

“Based on the findings in this report, it’s no wonder that we are hearing of children being mistreated or simply falling off the grid once they are turned over to sponsors,” said Sen. Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa). “The Obama administration isn’t adequately monitoring the grantees or sponsors whom we are entrusting to provide basic care for unaccompanied children.”

[….]

The report also criticized the agency’s oversight of nonprofit groups that it pays to operate shelters for the children and locate sponsors.

[….]

Grassley sharply criticized the lack of follow-up for released children.

“Beyond the risks to the children created by these shortcomings, our communities are left to cope with the crime and violence from gang members and other delinquents who are not identified or tracked because of HHS’s haphazard and porous practices,” he said.

BTW, it is still a mystery about why the Director of the Office of Refugee Resettlement (Eskinder Negash) resignedabruptly in December 2014.  Rumors are flying that it had something to do with the UACs.

Tomorrow the Senate Judiciary Committee will hold a hearing on this report.  Go here for more information.

For more reading pleasure, all of our posts going back many years on the UACs are archived using the words‘unaccompanied minors.’

And you will see there (among those posts) that Europe is having the same problem with ‘unaccompanied children’ flooding the Continent. In their case, they are mostly from the Middle East and Africa. One of the children recently murdered a care giver in Sweden.

RELATED ARTICLES: 

Syrians only trickling in, but Obama State Dept. says they will get to 10,000 this year

CAIR organizes anti-Islamophobia march in Minneapolis

Syrians coming to New Jersey, Church World Service to hold gathering to educate citizens

After New Year’s Eve sex assaults by Muslim migrants, European Catholic bishops warn of rise of “right-wing” & “Islamophobia”

Aleppo bishop says ‘moderate’ Muslim Syrian rebels are killing civilians

Every second schoolchild in Vienna not a native speaker

The Rise of Intolerant Liberals

Killers came in as ‘unaccompanied alien children’

Killers, gangbangers and other assorted criminals came across the US Southern border in recent years and are beginning to ‘show’ themselves such as in this dreadful case reported by Leo Hohmann writing at World Net Daily:

Two Central American teens charged in the recent execution-style killing of a Massachusetts man came to the U.S. as unaccompanied alien children or UACs under President Obama’s “open-border free-for-all,” according to a Judicial Watch report.

unaccompanied alien children

This is a 2014 photo of some of the apprehended “children.” Obama and the religious refugee contractors want them to be legitimate asylum seekers. Lawyers ready and willing to make them Americans!

The two 17-year-old boys also have ties to the notorious MS-13 gang, according to the Boston Herald.

Upward of 130,000 women and children from El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras have poured across the U.S.-Mexico border since the summer of 2014 and the administration has distributed them into communities nationwide with the help of the Catholic, Lutheran, Baptist and various evangelical churches.

WND reported Wednesday that a new study by a Catholic organization found that nearly 80 percent of those coming from Honduras were not fleeing violence but merely seeking economic opportunities.

Lawmakers want answers from the Office of Refugee Resettlement (the lead agency responsible for the whereabouts and the care of the “children” most of whom are teenage boys!)

This week two federal lawmakers – a senator and a congressman – sent a letter to the administration demanding answers on exactly how and when the teens entered the U.S. The lawmakers, Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, and Rep. Bob Goodlatte, R-Va., chair of the House Judiciary Committee, also want to know if the administration had knowledge about the suspects’ gang connections.

“Please provide a complete copy of the alien file for Jose Vasquez Ardon and Cristian Nunez-Flores,” the lawmakers state in a letter to the Department of Homeland Security and Health and Human Services, the agency that’s mostly handled the barrage of UACs and the relocation process.

There is much more, continue reading here.

We have an extensive archive on so-called ‘unaccompanied alien children’ here.  Thousands of these teenage boys have been secretively distributed throughout the US.  Many more are on the way in 2016!

Be sure to see this post about the squabbling resettlement agencies trying to get their cut of the federal boodle for the “children.”

RELATED ARTICLES: 

Pittsburgh: Jewish agency and Islamic Center working together to bring more Syrians to the city

Angry Turkish Prez: We will open our gates and let them go through to Europe

Greenwich, CT not getting refugees anytime soon (so they think!)

DNI Clapper on Hill today: ISIS will attack US;refugee flow infiltrated

Lutheran refugee contractor convinces SD legislator to withdraw bill

Obama administration threatens Governors who reject Syrian Muslims

Looks like the ACLU and the Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) are on the same page.

The way to solve the latest argument by the Obama Administration and the NO borders gang is to defund all refugee resettlement in the upcoming ‘omnibus’ and not single-out the Syrians for special treatment.

First Reema (from Jeh Johnson) and now this as the administration pulls out all the stops to get those 10,000 mostly Muslim Syrians resettled in your towns.

All of this activity demonstrates that the UN/US State Department Refugee Admissions Program is in the greatest crisis it has ever faced in 35 years since Senators Ted Kennedy and Joe Biden, among others, sent the bill to Jimmy Carter for his signature.

The revolving door!

Bob_Carey (1)

ORR Chief Bob Carey

Before I get to ORR chief Bob Carey’s letter to governors, a little background on the revolving door for new readers (also go here to our recent fact sheet for general overview of program):

The UN High Commissioner for Refugees chooses most of our refugees.  The US State Department admits them and Homeland Security screens them (as best they can).  The State Department PRM (Bureau of Population, Refugees and Migration) contracts withnine supposedly non-profit group contractors*** to resettle them through about 312 subcontractors (at one point the State Department was throwing the number 350 around) to most US states.

PRM is overseen by Anne Richard who was a former vice President of contractor—International Rescue Committee.

The Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) is in the Dept. of Health and Human Services and is the major dispenser of your money to the contractors through myriad federal grants.

The present director of ORR is Robert Carey who came over from one of the nine contractors (wait for it!)—International Rescue Committee (IRC)—where he served as a vice President.  His predecessor at ORR was Eskinder Negash who had come over from another contractor the US Committee for Refugees and Immigrants.

Negash has since returned to a perch at his former employer—US Committee for Refugees and Immigrants (USCRI).

Are you still following me?

Negash’s boss at USCRI, Lavinia Limon, was Bill Clinton’s director of ORR before she left to become President of USCRI.  LOL! did you get that!

Both Carey and Anne Richard came from the International Rescue Committee headed by BRITISH former foreign secretary David Miliband, bff Clinton, Soros and Samantha Power.  (We have an extensive archive on Miliband, brother of Britain’s “Red Ed.”)

Contractors enter government and become the dispenser of your tax dollars and then they leave government when administrations change and become the recipients of your tax dollars—and around and around they go!

Back to the Bob Carey letter to governors (remember he is relatively new at ORR and was pulling down a six-figure salary from the IRC before becoming the big shot now threatening governors).

From Breitbart:

The Obama administration has warned states to comply with federal efforts to resettle Syrian refugees in communities around the U.S. or else find their states subject to enforcement action.

In a letter this week, the Office of Refugee Resettlement threatens states concerned about resettling Syrians with punitive responses if they refuse to accept the refugees. ORR explains that states may not refuse ORR-funded benefits for refugees on the basis of religion and national origin.

“Accordingly, states may not categorically deny ORR-funded benefits and services to Syrian refugees,” ORR Director Robert Carey wrote in the letter. “Any state with such a policy would not be in compliance with the State Plan requirements, applicable statutes, and their own assurances, and could be subject to enforcement action, including suspension and termination.” [I’m afraid of overloading you, but beware of termination because the feds and contractors may well make your state a Wilson-Fish stateif it isn’t already.  They would like nothing better!—ed]

The agency also pointed to the Civil Rights Act of 1964, prohibiting discrimination for federally funded assistance benefits. Refugees are immediately eligible for welfare and other benefits upon admission to the U.S.

“Thus, it is not permissible to deny federally funded benefits such as Medicaid or [Temporary Assistance for Needy Families] to refugees who otherwise meet the eligibilities requirements,” the letter reads. “ORR is committed to ensuring that all refugees receive assistance and services vital to achieving their potential in the United States and becoming self-sufficient, integrated members of our communities.”

If nothing else comes out of this, we are pleased to say that the American taxpaying public is being educated about the huge costs this program places on our welfare system—nationally and locally!  The contractor’s job is to get refugees their welfare benefits and then they move on to the next paying batch of refugee CLIENTS.

NOTE: Nine major federal contractors which like to call themselves VOLAGs (Voluntary agencies) which is such a joke considering how much federal money they receive:

RELATED ARTICLES:

Omnibus spending bill is the most important target to rein-in refugee program!

Contractor says governors can find out which refugees are being resettled; White House said NO

U.S. Liberal Jews pushing for more Syrian refugees. Why?

At one time I was a member of the national board of the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society (HIAS) in the early 1980’s when the priority was helping Jews escape from tyranny in Russia, Ethiopia and Syria. There are reported to be less than a dozen elderly Jews left in Syria. HIAS was also involved in processing Vietnamese boat people refugees in the US.  That was over three decades ago.  HIAS is one of the 11 Voluntary Agencies (VOLAGS) under the State Department’s Bureau of Population, Refugees and Migration (PRM) and Department of Health and Human Services Office of Refugee Resettlement pushing to bring to the US 100,000 Syrian refugees streaming out of the more than 5 million displaced internally and in external camps in Turkey, Lebanon and Jordan.

HIAS has joined with Arab American advocacy groups and immigration lawyers, some controlled by Muslim Brotherhood leaders, like those on the Syrian American Council, to bring predominately Muslim Syrian refugees to America. As we have seen in the flood of an estimated  400,000 Syrian refugees, a vanguard of whom have entered the broken open borders of the Shengen system of EU countries, the predominate demographics are young men,. Among who may be ISIS sympathizers that may add to the already daunting problems that FBI Director Comey had said already faces us in all 50 states.

President Obama announced last week an increase in the annual allotment of 10,000 Syrian refugees to be resettled here. The current total PRM allotment under the Refugee Act of 1980 is 70,000. The PRM updated a list of local resettlement agencies in more than 180 communities throughout the US being screened as potential recipients of these Syrian and other UN designated refugees. One of those on the PRM listed is Catholic Charities in my community of Pensacola in northwest Florida.

A Pew Trust study revealed that 1.7 Muslim immigrants were admitted to the US over the US over the period from 1992 to 2010. Upwards of 250,000 Muslim refugees have already been admitted under the US Refugee Resettlement Program from conflict zones in the Middle East, Eastern and sub-Sahara Africa and South Asia since 1990. One refugee family assisted by the program in Boston were the Chechen Tsarneavs, whose sons, Tamerlane and Dzhokhar, who became Jihadist terrorists who perpetrated the heinous Boston Marathon bombing. We have written extensively about assimilation and national security problems of Somali refugees in the U.S., especially the problems in the Twin Cities of Minneapolis-St. Paul, Columbus, Ohio and other émigré communities. Some of these communities have spawned émigré fundamentalist fighters who joined terrorist groups Al Shabaab in Somalia and ISIS in Syria and Iraq. Some of these émigré jihadis have returned to the U.S. and been arrested and convicted for material support for terrorism. Now the threat may be self motivated jihadists who perpetrated attacks such as in Garland, Texas and the deadly attack on Marine and Naval reservists in Chattanooga, Tennessee.

On 9/11 the Jewish Telegraph Association (JTA) reported these developments in an article, “Arab Americans look to Jews for help on Syrian refugees:”

Over the last few days, HIAS, the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society, launched a petition drive calling on President Barack Obama to swiftly open America’s gates to an additional 100,000 Syrians, and the president of the Union for Reform Judaism wrote to the president and congressional leaders calling for a coordinated international response.

“Our great nation must respond immediately by providing safety, food, shelter, refuge, and dignity,” wrote the Reform leader, Rabbi Rick Jacobs. “How can a nation built by refugees from political persecution turn our back on refugees fleeing religious and political persecution?”

Omar Hossino, the Washington-based Syrian American Council’s public relations director, singled out HIAS as being particularly helpful.

“HIAS has been consistently calling for more resettlement and pushing back against the discriminatory rhetoric opposing opening the doors to Syrian refugees,” he said.

This week, HIAS president Mark Hetfield held a conference call with American Jewish organizational officials to talk about his agency’s decision to join with Arab-American leaders in critiquing U.S. policies that limit the numbers of refugees settled in the United States to about 70,000 per year.

Only about 1,500 Syrian refugees have been admitted since the start of the civil war in 2011. Obama announced Thursday that the United States soon would take in 10,000 refugees, but Hetfield said that number was inadequate.

“We are dealing with a global humanitarian crisis to which the entire world must respond,” he said in a statement issued within hours of Obama’s announcement. “If Germany can open its doors to 800,000 asylum seekers, the U.S., with a population four times the size of Germany’s and a history as a nation of immigrants and refugees, can take 100,000.”

Hetfield appealed to regional Jewish groups to act on the grassroots level to help absorb refugees.

Akram Abusharar, a Gaza-born U.S. immigration attorney who handles approximately 80 Syrian asylum cases per month, said HIAS’s involvement was a boost to his cause.

“The Jewish community has more capacity to move the politicians on this issue than the Arab-American community,” he told JTA in an interview.

But more recently Hossino has tracked an uptick in opposition to bringing Muslim immigrants to the United States — especially among Republican candidates and members of congress. In television appearances last weekend, Republican presidential candidate Carly Fiorina said the United States has “done its fair share” when it comes to the refugee crisis. Sen. Rand Paul asserted that the U.S. “can’t accept the whole world” and should adopt a cautious stance towards resettlement.

Hetfield, in the conference call, said concerns about the Muslim and Arab identity of the refugees are misplaced, reminding listeners of similar reasoning when some nations in the 1930s blocked Jewish immigration from Germany.

So why is HIAS joining with other willing NGOs like the US Conference of Catholic Bishops, Lutheran World Refugee and Immigration Services, Church World Services and the International Rescue Committee promoting a flood of Syrian Refugees to come to the U.S.?  Is it a humanitarian gesture of openness?  Or is it the fees they receive  from processing refugees and asylees who fit the UN and US Citizenship and Immigration Service definitionthat determines who  qualifies to be admitted  for asylum under the Refugee Act of 1980? Those refugees that are admitted under the US resettlement programs receive a smorgasbord of federal and state welfare, medical, housing and other benefits that some migration specialists’ estimate could exceed 10 to 12 billion dollars annually. That taxpayer burden might double if HIAS and other VOLAGs, with the assistance of the Obama White House, succeed in dramatically increasing the allotments for Syrian Refugees over the next several years.

Syrian Christian refugees(1)

Syrian Christian Refugees.

If anyone among the displaced Syrian refugees deserves priority it is the Syriac Christians and other non-Muslim religious minorities with existing Diaspora communities in the US. Communities that might provide private sponsorship assistance. Those traditional private sponsorship programs like the Canadian federal effort have demonstrated the ability to rapidly absorb refugees who share basic values traditional with our society.  We also have the examples of Jewish philanthropists like the venerable UK publisher, 95 year old Lord George Weidenfeld, a holocaust survivor, spearheading the Safe Havens Fund actively supporting efforts to spare a fraction of these threatened Christian and non-Muslim Middle East minorities. HIAS could expand upon Weidenfeld’s example.

HIAS, Jewish Federations and the leaders of the  Reform Movement should carefully vet Arab American ‘partners’ before sallying forth on humanitarian grounds to admit more Syrian and predominately Muslim refugees. Especially, when there are threatened Middle East Christians and other non-Muslim minorities that deserve preference. That is demonstrated by the Safe Havens Fund of Lord Weidenfeld, who received the Theodore Herzl Award of the World Jewish Congress.

EDITORS NOTE: This column originally appeared in the New English Review.

President to decide on Muslim refugee quota for FY2016 NOW! Will Congress lift a finger to protect America?

It is September and as we speak, the Obama Administration (US State Department) is putting its final touches on their annual Determination Letter and accompanying report to Congress.

The new fiscal year begins on October 1 and by the 30th of this month Obama will send to Congress for “consultation” a document which states how many refugees and from what regions of the world we will be “welcoming” refugees to America.

This so-called “consultation” with Congress is a legal requirement. However, it is common knowledge that the House and Senate Committees responsible for analyzing this information have in the past been silent.

In fact, Ken Tota (who recently served as the interim director of the Office of Refugee Resettlement) was overheard saying that “in his entire almost 30-year career, Congress has never questioned the numbers.”

State Department scoping meetings

For our many new readers, this year there was no US State Department hearing on the “size and scope” of the refugee program (or, LOL! they kept it very secret!).  We can only assume that was because in the three previous years they heard testimony that they didn’t like from citizens that were concerned about the program.  Here is one post of dozens on the topic.  Readers of RRW had flooded the State Department with negative testimony about the program.  In fact, we testified that there should be a moratorium on the program.  See my 2014 testimony here.

I mention this because the Presidential Determination being prepared now is the culmination of the annual process that began with those late spring ‘hearings’ (and again there was no public opportunity to comment this year that we were aware of).

Also, regular readers know that we have been discussing, and attempting to obtain, R & P abstracts the subcontractors located around the country prepare for Washington—those are part of the process as well. Just as taxpaying citizens had no opportunity to testify to the State Department this year, taxpaying citizens have no input in the abstract preparation process either.

Presumably one final check in the system to protect America is the “consultation” with Congress in September of each year.

However, if this year is like all others, our elected representatives in Washington will not lift a finger to question the size and scope of this year’s proposed refugee quota!

And, this could be the year that plans to resettle tens of thousands of Syrians will be announced!

Click here for last year’s Presidential Determination, and here for the lengthy report which was sent to Congress on September 18th last year. The report begins:

This Proposed Refugee Admissions for Fiscal Year 2015: Report to the Congress is submitted in compliance with Sections 207(d)(1) and (e) of the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA). The Act requires that before the start of the fiscal year and, to the extent possible, at least two weeks prior to consultations on refugee admissions, members of the Committees on the Judiciary of the Senate and the House of Representatives be provided with the following information….

Note that the report goes to the House and Senate Judiciary Committees.  Chairmen of the full committees are Bob Goodlatte and Chuck Grassley respectively.  Subcommittee Chairmen responsible for Refugee Resettlement are Trey Gowdy and Jeff Sessions.

Will those chairmen help protect America this year by holding hearings when the Presidential Determination for FY2016 arrives on the Hill which by law should be in about two weeks!  Or, will they (yet again!) simply rubber stamp what Obama wants?

RELATED ARTICLE: States with large number of mosques correlates with top refugee resettlement states

Rising Concerns over Muslim Refugee Resettlement in U.S. [Video]

Ann Corcoran’s brief video on Muslim Refugee Resettlement in the U.S. has gone viral since being put up on YouTube on April 20, 2015 by the Center for Security Policy. It has had over 200,735 hits to date climbing every day. Clearly, Corcoran’s message has resonated among concerned Americans. Watch it on YouTube:

Refugee Resettlement and Hijra jpgThe CSP YouTube video is a complement to her recently published book on the problems confronting America over the threat of mass Muslim migration that has transformed Europe and now troubles grass roots America, “Refugee Resettlement and the Hijra to America .

Corcoran and her team chronicle news and developments about this issue on the blog where she is editor, Refugee Resettlement Watch. You may have read our interview with Erick Stakelbeck, ISIS Threat to America  in the current edition of the NER where he drew attention to the Somali refugee communities in the American heartland sending jihadi terrorists in Somali and Syria.  He spoke of young Somali émigré men who have joined up with, first Al Shabaab in Somalia, and now increasingly, join the Islamic State to fight for the self-declared Caliphate in Syria and Iraq.   We have drawn attention to the problems of Somali refugee resettlement in NER articles and Iconoclast posts over the past eight years.  They have  covered  severe cultural and integration problems in the American heartland  in places like Shelbyville, TennesseeEmporia, KansasGreeley , ColoradoMinneapolis, Minnesota,  Columbus, Ohio, and Lewiston, Maine.

The Somali émigré jihadis aren’t the only terrorists among admitted refugees. Think of the brothers Tsarneav who perpetrated the Boston Marathon Bombing in 2013. See our NER article, “Refugee Jihad Terror in Boston.”  An ABC investigation reported that dozens of terrorists have been admitted fraudulently under the U.S. Refugee Admission Program.

 One example was two Iraqi refugees, al Qaeda operatives, arrested in Bowling Green, Kentucky in 2011 convicted in 2013. They were charged with sending weapons and cash to Al Qaeda. They lied on their Federal Refugee Admission forms about their prior terrorist involvements in Iraq. One had constructed IEDs, involved in killing four members of a Pennsylvania National guard unit in 2006 in Iraq. A check of fingerprints on the shards of the IED caught the perpetrator. Watch this 2013 ABC Report. Recently, one of those convicted, Mohanad Shareef Hammadi, filed a motion seeking to overturn his conviction because his counsel said he wouldn’t get life.  That episode briefly raised the criticism of Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY).

In excess of 250,000 Somali and Iraqis have been admitted to the U.S. as refugees.  An estimated one million have immigrated to the U.S. from Muslim lands. Through births and admittance of relatives under the problematic P-3 Family Reunification Visa program the impact could mean millions of additional Muslim émigrés in the U.S.  Virtually all of the Somali and Iraqi refugees were Muslim.  Endangered Christians and other minority religion accounted for less than 8 percent of Syrian Refugees admitted under the State Department administered U.S. Refugee Admissions Program. Eleven Christian, Jewish and special interest NGOs or voluntary agencies (VOLAGS) are paid by the billion dollar State Department refugee program to process and place refugees in American communities. VOLAGS like Catholic Charities, Lutheran World Services, Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society and the International Rescue Committee. The total annual federal and state program costs of refugee resettlement are estimated to range in excess of $12 to $20 billion annually.

The UN High Commissioner for Refugees  establishes priorities for U.S. Admissions under the Refugee Act of 1980. An Act co-sponsored by the late Edward Kennedy and then Senator, now Vice President in the Obama Administration, Joe Biden. The U.S. may be poised to accept another wave of over 75,000 Syrian refugees over the next five years.   Doubtless they and growing number of  Muslim refugees from  elsewhere in the Middle East, Africa and South Asia will be “seeded”  in American cities under the Fostering Community Engagement  and Welcoming Communities Project of  the Office of Refugee  Resettlement with the Soros-backed  NGO, “Welcoming America“.

 But now there is pushback by American cities, as witnessed by concerns expressed in letters to Secretary of State Kerry by Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-SC), chairman of the House Judiciary Sub Committee on Immigration and Border Security. Both The House Subcommittee and the Senate Subcommittee on Immigration and the National Interest, chaired by Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL) hold annual hearings over refugee allotments. Gowdy’s letter of April 13, 2015 was prompted by constituent complaints in Spartanburg, South Carolina of the establishment of a VOLAG office to processing Muslim refugees. He wrote Secretary Kerry seeking answers as to why the office was being established and had not been reviewed with state and local agencies. He ended his letter:

I request that any plans to resettle refugees in the Spartanburg, South Carolina, area be placed on hold until my constituents and I receive your substantive responses to the questions and information requested in this letter. Additionally, before moving forward, both the Spartanburg community and I should have time to substantively review the information and be comfortable with the information provided.

As previously stated, I am troubled by the lack of notice and coordination with my office and the Spartanburg community, particularly local officials, regarding the plans to resettle refugees in the area. In that vein, I request at least one month’s notice prior to the arrival of the first refugee[s] in the Spartanburg area.

To find out more about what could become an important issue for evaluation of 2016 Presidential candidates, be sure to listen to an interview with Ann Corcoran of RRW by Jerry Gordon and Mike Bates on 1330am WEBY “Your Turn.” The program will air at 5:30 PM CDT (6:30 PM EDT), Tuesday, May 12th.  You may Listen Live here. The recorded program will be archived and posted following the broadcast.  A transcript of the interview may appear in the June edition of the NER.

RELATED ARTICLES:

U.S. Welcomes Millions of Aliens ‘Sight Unseen’

“A Growing Threat”: You’ll be Amazed at the Number of Immigrants Who Have Come to America From Muslim Countries Since 9/11

EDITORS NOTE: This column originally appeared in the New English Review.

Let the Little Children Come Unto Me: What is Behind the Humanitarian Crisis on our Southern Border?

This morning on Fox and Friends I watched  a segment  with Texas Governor, Rick Perry.  He  drew  attention to the spike in Central American, Syrian and other Middle Eastern illegal immigrants seeking asylum . The Washington Times quoted as  saying:

That the Obama administration has dropped the ball on border security and must improve diplomatic relations with Central American nations to stem the surge of illegal immigrants trying to cross the nation’s southern border.

This president is totally and absolutely either inept, or making some decisions that are not in the interest of American citizens, particularly from the public safety standpoint.

The federal government must step up because Texas does not have the money or manpower to protect its 1,200 mile southern border.

Then Perry went on to express an abiding concern about illegal immigrants harboring possible terrorist threats:

There are a record number of illegal immigrants that are being apprehended at the border that come from countries that are home to groups that pose a threat to the United States.

These people are coming from states like Syria that have substantial connections back to terrorist regimes and terrorist operations. It is a huge problem and a great concern.

Last week Fox Latino there was a report on radioactive materials in Mexico stolen by armed gun men at  the National Construction Lab. They seized Cesium 37 and  americium-beryllium  that could be used for  creation of  a terrorist device. Last December some thieves in Mexico stole a vehicle with deadly Cobalt 60 virtually assuring their demise from radiation sickness.  Then we recall the 2011 episode involving  a Mexican drug cartel,  Iran’s Qud Force working with an Iranian American plotting to kill the Saudi Ambassador to Washington.  The Iranian American was convicted in June 2013 to 25 years for his role in the assassination plot.

Governor Perry’s comments come in the face of a veritable onslaught of unaccompanied alien minors and women and small children from Central America swarming our borders.  There are daily reports news stories about youngsters being warehoused, and given medical treatment.  They are given bus tickets to stay with alleged relatives on the promise to show up for a Immigration court  to hear  their petition for asylum.  They are threatened with physical harm by the rampant drug related murders in Central American countries like Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala.

The Wall Street Journal investigated the concerns expressed by Texas Governor  Perry in an article yesterday, “Migrant Surge Jams Border”.

Frustration is mounting along the Texas border as federal officials struggle to check a surge of Central Americans illegally crossing into the state—an influx critics say is being aggravated because the Obama administration is allowing more migrants, primarily women traveling with children, to be released into the U.S. pending deportation proceedings.

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) hasn’t disclosed statistics on how many immigrants it has released. But the agency has confirmed that due to a shortage of detention space in Texas, it has shipped hundreds of immigrants recently apprehended in Texas to Arizona for processing, and subsequently dropped some off at bus stations there, allowing them to travel to locations around the country until they can be deported.

Texas US Democrat Congressman Henry Cuellar  was cited in the WSJ report  pointed  to the  11,000 illegals who were effectively let go in the Rio Grande Valley and other border locations.  The numbers are staggering.  The DHS has stepped up deportations from 235,093  last fiscal year, up from 151,893 four years earlier.

The major concern are those unaccompanied alien minors as the federal Office of Refugee Resettlement calls them.  The number doubled over the previous fiscal year to more than 47,017 and federal officials expect that to double to in excess of 90,000.  Last Tuesday, the Senate Appropriation Committee authorized  $2 Billion to address the problem,  a billion more than the Obama Administration requested.  The Federal government has an obligation to handle unaccompanied minors separately.

The reality is the current surge is literally swamping the Immigration Courts system used to handle asylum and deportation matters.  Currently the backlog exceeds 350,000 pending cases.

Watch this CNN news video on the crisis in unaccompanied minors illegal immigrants on the Southern border:

The Refugee Act of 1980 was enacted to comply with international standards for handling humanitarian refugees which meant complying with the UN High Commissioner for Refugees program.  The Act has resulting in over 3 million refugees  being settled in the US,  granting them temporary cash benefits, Medicaid eligibility and a Green Card leading to US citizenship in five years. The refugee resettlement program has been fraught with fraud especially among Somali and other African refugees. It has allowed asylum for Iraqi terrorists in Kentucky  and on April 15, 2013, the refugee  Tsarneav Brothers  from Dagestan committed the Boston Marathon Massacre. Then there are Somali émigrés who  returned to their country to fight and die for Al Shebaab, an Al Qaeda affiliate.  The current crisis in the Middle East looms large on the refugee program with the prospect of more than 20,000 Syrian refugee eligible for settlement here.

The Refugee Act is overdue for an overhaul that a number of critics have suggested requires Congressionally sponsored Government Accountability Office audits and  special investigative hearings. The estimated administrative cost of the Refugee Resettlement program exceeds $2 billion annually, not counting the recent Senate Appropriations aimed at dealing with the influx unaccompanied alien minors.  Add to that state welfare and Medicaid costs and some immigration experts maintain that the annual costs could well exceed $10 to 12 billion annually.

The late Sen. Ted Kennedy was a sponsor of the 1980 Refugee Act.  The co-sponsor of that was then Sen. Joe Biden. Vice President Biden  was on  a trip  this week to Central American countries endeavoring to stem the tide. As the WSJ article noted one Administration official said “that they were looking at ways to “enhance”  their support to these Central American countries.   Further they are urging parents to ‘think twice’ about sending children on such a dangerous journey that doesn’t result in long-term residency in the U.S.”

So who is fomenting the current humanitarian crisis on our southern border? Ann Corcoran of Refugee Resettlement Watch suggested in a recent article that may be the same religious groups that were behind the so-called Sanctuary Movement of the 1980’s in the Southwestern US that sent illegals across the country, “Invasion on the border: religious groups telling them to come!

Corcoran cites a Border Patrol officer reflecting the comments of unaccompanied alien minors as to who told them to come here:

Cueto (Art Del Cueto, president of the National Border Patrol Council Local 2544 in Tucson) says when he asked a group of children about their motivation, they spoke of the “announcer on the radio” who encouraged them to head for the United States. Cueto says Central American radio, television, other media, and religious groups have all encouraged people to move north to the United States.

Who are those religious groups suggesting that these Central American children come here? The beneficiaries of the recent Senate emergency appropriation to take care of these children, Voluntary Agencies authorized by the federal Refugee Resettlement programs. They are:

This surge is indicative of the Cloward Piven strategy espoused by two Columbia University social work theorists in the 1960’s. Their thesis was swamping the system would result in a crisis and force transformation to benefit the least able among us.  Thus, the voluntary agencies in the Refugee Resettlement community are simply following the Parable of Matthew 14:19 : Let the little children come unto me. Jim Holt of the Gateway Pundit blog tells the whole story with this headline, “Obama’s Cloward Piven Strategy floods Southern US with Illegal Immigrant Children.

RELATED ARTICLE: Texas Ranchers Under Attack, Overrun by Illegal Immigrants

EDITORS NOTE: This column originally appeared on The New English Review.