Tag Archive for: Springfield

‘A Self-Feeding Circle’: How A Web Of NGOs Enabled By Biden-Harris Is Fueling The Migrant Crisis

A web of NGOs is collaborating with government agencies to facilitate the resettlement of refugees – and Biden-Harris policies have only exacerbated the migrant crisis, sources told the Caller.

Immigration was thrust into the public spotlight as towns in America were overwhelmed with migrants, from Springfield, Ohio to Aurora, Colorado. Bureaucracies and non-profits often work in tandem to resettle refugees, and NGOs have only grown in influence under the Biden-Harris administration, experts said.

“It’s undeniable that the Biden Administration’s border policy has benefited the network of immigration NGOs that receive massive government contracts and grants to deal with the logistical and humanitarian problems that mass illegal immigration has caused,” the Capital Research Center’s Parker Thayer told the Caller in a statement.

While it’s difficult to quantify precisely how much NGOs have benefited, Thayer pointed to a USA Spending database. It shows that since 2020, federal spending on loans, grants, and contracts with the keyword “immigrant” has skyrocketed by almost tenfold.

Screenshot from USA Spending.gov

Kevin Lynn, Executive Director of the Institute for Sound Public Policy, told the Caller there is a process in place for resettling refugees, and NGOs work with government agencies to further that goal.

He pointed to the Biden-Harris administration’s Welcome Corps.

The Welcome Corps is a refugee sponsorship program where “groups of at least five people” can sponsor a refugee, according to the initiative’s site. The State Department’s Office of the Spokesperson claimed last year the program “is the boldest innovation in refugee resettlement in four decades.”

“Welcome Corps was launched the Biden administration under the refugee resettlement program, and it basically allows private individuals to select their own refugees and future American citizens,” Lynn told the Caller.

Kevin Lynn, Executive Director of the Institute for Sound Public Policy, told the Caller there is a process in place for resettling refugees, and NGOs work with government agencies to further that goal.

He pointed to the Biden-Harris administration’s Welcome Corps.

The Welcome Corps is a refugee sponsorship program where “groups of at least five people” can sponsor a refugee, according to the initiative’s site. The State Department’s Office of the Spokesperson claimed last year the program “is the boldest innovation in refugee resettlement in four decades.”

“Welcome Corps was launched the Biden administration under the refugee resettlement program, and it basically allows private individuals to select their own refugees and future American citizens,” Lynn told the Caller.

The program’s partners include the Department of State and its Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration (PRM). It also partnered with the Church World Service (CWS) in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, which transformed the city into the “refugee capital of the world,” according to Lynn.

The city’s website denotes itself as “America’s refugee capital” and explains that it assists in resettling refugees.

fact sheet from the U.S. Department of Housing and Development for landlords and property managers states the federal government collaborates with 10 resettlement agencies that have over 340 affiliates nationwide. The documents list various financial assistance and support that refugees receive, including employment services.

The U.S. Department of Health & Human Services has an agency called the Administration for Children & Families, and under its purview is the Office of Refugee Resettlement which partners with nonprofits in states that participate in the U.S. Refugee Resettlement Program. The only state not listed is Wyoming.

In fact, the site even has a tool for people to locate various refugee resettlement NGOs in their area.

Rather than trying to figure out how to stop the administration from resettling more aliens in OH, perhaps OH should consider reducing the incentives for them to come. Here’s a starting point:

1) Mandatory E-Verify;
2) Restrictions on welfare benefits;
3) Enforcement of…

— Immigration Accountability Project (@I_A_Project) September 10, 2024

Thayer noted many of these NGOs would not exist without government support. “It’s hard to call them grassroots,” he told the Caller.

He pointed to The Vera Institute for Justice as an example of governments funneling taxpayer dollars into nonprofits.

The Institute gets millions in federal dollars to represent illegal immigrants in immigration court while it pushes for soft-on-crime and open borders polices that lead to larger government contracts, Thayer said.

“It’s a self-feeding circle,” he concluded.

Over the last 40 years, the corporatocracy has created massive networks supported by business, NGOs and governments at the federal, state and local levels to prioritize the hiring of both legal and illegal immigrants over Americans.

The education system and corporate media… https://t.co/5J8i13bcdr

— Project for Immigration Reform (@PFIRorg) September 19, 2024

One group listed on HHS’s site is Catholic Charities Southwestern Ohio, a non-profit that partners with the State Department for Refugee Resettlement. According to a 2023 audit of the group’s finances, one of its main sources of revenue is grants and fees from the government, to the tune of several million dollars.

A facility in Springfield opened up earlier this year to assist with immigration services, and it’s directed by Catholic Charities Southwest Ohio, the Springfield News-Sun reported. CEO Tony Stieritz said the organization has been giving aid in the city for over a year, according to the outlet.

However, the organization states on its website that it “had no role in bringing migrants to the Springfield area,” and it does not provide “resettlement services in Springfield.”

The national organization Catholic Charities recently came under fire on social media after reports showed the Galveston, Texas, chapter substantially increased its revenue under the Biden Administration.

🚨QUESTION: How does the Revenue for the NGO the Catholic Charities nearly quadruple since the Biden Administration took over?

In 2018 the Catholic Charities of the Archdiocese of Galveston only brought in $44 million

In 2021. the revenue for NGO blossomed to $217 million. pic.twitter.com/m5mGfNY12l

— Merissa Hansen⚡️ (@merissahansen17) September 9, 2024

Illegal immigration to the U.S. has accelerated rapidly under Biden.

The Biden-Harris administration is attempting to make open borders “a part of the infrastructure,” according to Chris Chmielenski, President of the Immigration Accountability Project.

“And just to be clear, all of these people are technically in the country illegally, because they’ve been paroled by the administration,” he emphasized.

Kevin Lynn pointed to Biden’s CBP One app, arguing that it expedites illegal immigration. “They’re granting these blanket paroles, where the whole intention of parole was to be determined on a case-by-case basis.”

He explained the initial intent of parole was to grant travelers temporary status if they needed to come to the U.S. for a specific reason, such as for an emergency medical procedure.

The app was originally created during COVID-19 in Oct. 2020 to reduce the amount of time that travelers spent in person with CBP officers to schedule appointments, according to the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS).

Now, the Biden-Harris administration uses it to allow people without the necessary documentation to enter into the U.S. interior, according to CIS. The app allows migrants to make appointments in Central America and Mexico, which CIS argues incentivizes illegal immigrants to use smugglers.

There is another parole process specifically for Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans, and Venezuelans, Lynn told the Caller. A person in the U.S. can sponsor someone from these nations – but the sponsor doesn’t have to be an American citizen, according to the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.

The agency’s definition of a supporter includes “asylees, refugees, and parolees” along with Temporary Protected Status (TPS) individuals. In June, the Biden administration granted TPS for 300,000 Haitians.

“Now these refugees parolees can sponsor people, people who are here on temporary protected status,” Lynn said.

Chmielenski told the Caller that NGOs are facilitating the resettlement process for migrants. “They’re helping [migrants] go through the process of applying for their work permit,” he stated, adding they could be eligible for public benefits.

“Essentially, the administration is having the NGOs do their dirty work for them,” Chmielenski said.

AUTHOR

Eireann Van Natta

General assignment reporter.

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EDITORS NOTE: This Daily Caller column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

Trump Pledges to Visit Ohio Town Suffering from Immigration Crisis

“In the next two weeks, I’m going to Springfield and then to Aurora,” former President Donald Trump announced at a campaign rally in Long Island, New York, this week. “We’re going to take care of Ohio, and we’re going to take care of Colorado, and we’re going to take care of every single state in the union. They’re all under siege,” he continued. Trump joked, “You may never see me again, but that’s okay. I gotta do what I gotta do. ‘Whatever happened to Trump? Well, he never got out of Springfield.’”

Over the past three years, the sleepy Ohio town of Springfield has seen an influx of approximately 20,000 Haitian immigrants, who were granted a “Temporary Protected Status” by the Biden-Harris administration. The administration’s immigrant dump has been responsible for increased traffic accidents, skyrocketing rent and housing prices, overwhelmed and crippled social services, and, in at least one instance, the death of an 11-year-old American boy. Schools and health centers have been burdened, with both spending tens of thousands — and in some cases hundreds of thousands — of dollars annually on Haitian-Creole interpreters.

Trump addressed this point, saying, “So the mayor of Springfield … instead of saying, ‘We’re getting them all out! We’re getting them out!’ He says very simply, ‘We’re hiring teachers to teach them English.’ Could you believe it? ‘We are hiring interpreters so when they go to school and take the place of our children in school, we have an interpreter.’” The former president asked, “What the hell is wrong with our country?”

The crisis in Springfield has garnered national attention thanks to Trump and his native Ohioan running mate, Senator J.D. Vance (R). During last week’s presidential debate against Vice President Kamala Harris, Trump mentioned reports of Haitian immigrants stealing and eating household pets. “In Springfield, they’re eating the dogs, the people that came in, they’re eating the cats,” the 45th president declared. He continued, “They’re eating the pets of the people that live there.” While Harris and mainstream media pundits dismissed Trump’s claim that cats and dogs were being eaten — debate moderators from ABC News “fact-checked” Trump on this point during the debate — video evidence has been found of skinned cats being barbecued, and recordings have been released of multiple reports to police, complaining of immigrants eating pets or slaughtering ducks and geese in local parks.

Vance commented, “Housing shortages have caused rents to skyrocket, hospitals are overrun, schools are ill-equipped to teach students who don’t speak English, and the roads are unsafe as unlicensed drivers have caused a massive increase in roadway accidents.” He continued, “The American media didn’t give a damn about any of this until President Donald Trump mentioned Springfield at the debate. … I’m going to continue speaking up for my constituents and the disastrous effects that Kamala Harris’s open border policies are having on their lives.”

Trump also pledged to visit Aurora, Colorado, where Venezuelan gang members have been taking over entire apartment complexes and shutting down streets. Armed members of the Tren de Aragua gang were reported to have forced property managers out of buildings and gone door to door themselves collecting rent money from terrified residents.

Aurora Mayor Mike Coffman (R) faulted the Biden-Harris administration for the illegal immigrants’ rampage, noting that Aurora had refused “to participate in the migrant crisis; we were not going to provide taxpayer support, and we were not even going to be a conduit for federal dollars.” He added, “These people didn’t just go there on their own; somebody put them there. Who made this decision to put them there?” He speculated that the Denver suburb was being targeted by the “federal government, perhaps using some of our local nonprofit partners as a conduit.”

At his Long Island rally this week, Trump said, “We’re getting them of our country. They came in illegally. They’re destroying our country. We’re getting them out. They’re going to be brought back to the country from which they came. I will protect our country. I will protect our country.” According to a recent survey, 54% of Americans (including Republicans, Democrats, and Independent voters) support Trump’s mass deportation proposals. This is up from 51% earlier this year.

Meanwhile, Harris has refused to address the immigration crisis that she and President Joe Biden have facilitated. Asked what “struck” him about Harris’s response when Politico White House correspondent Eugene Daniels probed the vice president in an interview on how to handle the Springfield situation, Daniels said, “That she didn’t answer. I think that was probably the thing that struck me the most. Because I was trying to get at, there is an underlying concern that people who live in Springfield have that has nothing to do with race, right?” He continued, “So, I was trying to see if she believed that the federal government had a role in it. And, instead, she took the opportunity to talk about the racist conspiracy theories that have been spread by both former President Donald Trump and his running mate.” Daniels also quipped that Harris is “pretty good at dodging” questions.

AUTHOR

S.A. McCarthy

S.A. McCarthy serves as a news writer at The Washington Stand.

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EDITORS NOTE: This Washington Stand column is republished with permission. All rights reserved. ©2024 Family Research Council.


The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.

EXCLUSIVE: Shoplifting And Vehicle Thefts Soared As Haitian Migrants Poured Into Ohio Town, Police Data Shows

Reports of shoplifting and vehicle theft increased considerably in Springfield, Ohio, following the arrival of thousands of Haitian refugees, according to data obtained by the Daily Caller News Foundation through a records request.

The town, which had a population of 58,622 in 2020, has taken in between 12,000 and 20,000 Haitian refugees over the past three years, marking a population increase of between 20.4% and 34.1%. From 2021 to 2023, Springfield also saw a 51.5% jump in motor vehicle theft reports and a 112.8% spike in reports of shoplifting, data provided by the Springfield Police Division shows.

Springfield residents previously told the DCNF that the influx of Haitians has resulted in an uptick in car accidents, increased housing prices and strained public services. Bryan Heck, Springfield’s city manager, sent a letter to Democratic Ohio Sen. Sherrod Brown, Republican Ohio Sen. J.D. Vance and Republican South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott in July requesting federal assistance to deal with the pressure migrants had placed on the housing supply.

Inhabitants of the town also told the DCNF that they had observed Haitians engaging in sex acts and other vices in public. The DCNF was unable to verify claims made by the town’s residents about Haitians engaging in public debauchery.

Springfield’s police department declined to comment on the crime data, which does not include information on the immigration status or demographics of offenders.

Springfield had a higher crime rate than the nation at large even before Haitians began moving there in large numbers. In 2019, for instance, the town had a violent crime rate of 493.8 per 100,000 residents, compared to the United States’ rate of 366.7 per 100,000, according to data compiled by the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

The number of motor vehicle thefts reported in Springfield increased from 324 in 2021 to 491 in 2023, according to police data. Shoplifting reports, meanwhile, jumped from 295 cases in 2021 to 628 in 2023.

Large numbers of Haitians began arriving in Springfield to meet the demand for labor after the city’s chamber of commerce successfully attracted new businesses to the city, according to The New York Times. While the migrants have attracted the ire of some residents, many are paying taxes to support the community.

Republican Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine has set aside $2.5 million to help Springfield deal with the migrant surge and announced Wednesday that he would deploy the Ohio State Highway Patrol to assist with traffic enforcement in the municipality. The issue of poor driving among refugees became a flashpoint in the community after a Haitian national driving a minivan without a license swerved in front of a school bus in August 2023, killing an 11-year-old boy and injuring roughly a dozen other students.

One Springfield resident, a pastor, told the DCNF that the town had accidents every day as a result of the influx of Haitians. A local towing employee confirmed that there had been an uptick in wrecks.

Police recorded just two reported cases of animal cruelty in 2021 and none in 2022 or 2023, failing to provide evidence for rumors of Haitians stealing and eating residents’ pets. The number of reported murders and assaults in the town went more or less unchanged between 2021 and 2023.

Immigration authorities have had over 7 million encounters with migrants at the southern border since President Joe Biden took office in January 2021, according to Customs and Border Protection data. Beyond small towns like Springfield, the large number of migrants entering the country has caused budgetary strains in major cities like New York and Chicago as they attempt to accommodate the new arrivals, Bloomberg reported.

The Biden-Harris administration awarded Haitians Temporary Protected Status for the first time in 2021 and later extended that designation until 2026, protecting them from deportation and allowing them to work legally. The number of people on government benefits also increased considerably as Haitians moved into Springfield, Reuters reported.

As of April, the Biden-Harris administration had flown over 400,000 migrants into the United States, 154,000 of whom originated in Haiti. The administration halted the flight program after an internal report uncovered rampant fraud but has since allowed it to resume.

“We’re tired — help,” one Springfield resident told the DCNF when asked what message he wanted to send to the country. “Send help. Help us fix this.”

AUTHORS

Megan Brock and Robert Schmad

Contributors.

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EDITORS NOTE: This Daily Caller column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.


All content created by the Daily Caller News Foundation, an independent and nonpartisan newswire service, is available without charge to any legitimate news publisher that can provide a large audience. All republished articles must include our logo, our reporter’s byline and their DCNF affiliation. For any questions about our guidelines or partnering with us, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.

Bomb Threats Overwhelm Springfield, Ohio as Nationwide Firestorm over Migrants Continues

Americans in Springfield, Ohio, are still suffering after the Biden-Harris administration dumped tens of thousands of third-world immigrants into their once-quiet city. Springfield resident and former teacher Diana Daniels told Fox News that life has been a “dystopian nightmare” since the arrival of nearly 20,000 Haitian immigrants over the past three years. “You hope you wake up and it’s 2019 again, and then you realize it’s 2024, and it’s the same thing over and over again, day after day,” Daniels said. “It’s hard sometimes to get up in the morning and hear residents that I’ve known for years struggle. This is a paycheck-to-paycheck … kind of town … working class.”

In a sobering reminder of the national attention Springfield has received, multiple bomb threats have forced the evacuation of the town’s city hall, two schools, and the DMV in the last few days. On Saturday, the terror spread to local hospitals as both Kettering and Mercy Health Springfield were put on lockdown while authorities scoured the floors with security teams. As of Saturday afternoon, there was no indication who was behind the threats, though city officials say they are working with the FBI to track down the culprits.  On Sunday, local community college Clark State announced that, “due to recent events,” all classes and activities would be conducted virtually for the coming week.

Meanwhile, Springfield’s most famous native, singer John Legend, appealed to his hometown to embrace the overwhelming migrant population. The hard-core Democrat posted a video addressing the nationwide news. “We had about 15,000 or so immigrants move to my town of 60,000,” he explained. “Now you might say, ‘Wow that’s a lot of people for a town that only had 60,000 before. That’s a 25% increase.’ That is correct.” He goes on to urge locals to accept the inconveniences without protest. “You might imagine there are some challenges with, you know, integrating a new population. New language, new culture, new dietary preferences. All kinds of reasons why there might be growing pains.”

“How about we love one another?” Legend urged. “I grew up in the Christian tradition. We said to love our neighbor as we love ourselves and treat strangers as though they might be Christ.”

His admonition sparked immediate backlash from residents, who fired back, “He’s just like you. Except he doesn’t live in Springfield. He lives in a multi-million-dollar mansion in Beverly Hills,” one person wrote on social media. Others couldn’t believe his nonchalance about the upheaval in the Champion City. “You should totally listen to John Legend lecture you on his hometown of Springfield, and how 15,000 Haitian immigrants into a town of 60,000 is totally normal,” another user replied, attaching a video of Legend and Teigen showing off their “lavish palace.”

“Why don’t you house some of [these] illegal immigrants in your huge privileged mansion?” one person fumed. “…You cool with that? Come on big guy. Take care of these migrants.” Not to mention, another argued, Legend believes the people of Springfield “should just accept the Haitians and their weird ‘dietary preferences,’” referring to the headlines that Haitians are eating geese and ducks.

Despite the legacy media’s attempt to discredit the story, investigative reporter Christopher Rufo posted Saturday morning that he believes the reports of migrants eating pets are true. “EXCLUSIVE,” he writes with photo evidence. “We have discovered that migrants are, in fact, eating cats in Ohio. We have verified, with multiple witnesses and visual cross-references, that African migrants in Dayton, the next city over from Springfield, barbecued these cats last summer.”

Residents and other news outlets, including The Federalist and The Daily Mail, have corroborated the stories that even captured the attention of the September 10 presidential debate. “In Springfield, they’re eating the dogs, the people that came in. They’re eating the cats. They’re eating, they’re eating the pets of the people that live there,” Trump exclaimed, “and this is what’s happening in our country, and it’s a shame.”

Since Springfield has come into the national spotlight, reports have also surfaced of Haitians showering and bathing in Walmart bathrooms and Haitian men engaging in sex acts on the street.

In addition to weighing down the community’s social services, the immigrants have also caused a significant number of traffic accidents. “The driving in town is horrendous. We do have a really abnormal number of car accidents that are happening,” former Ohio State Representative Kyle Koehler told Fox News. “And it’s not only the number, but the severity of them. When you go on a street that is a 35-mile-an-hour speed limit and there’s a car sitting on its hood, and I’m not talking about one, I’m talking about five or six accidents a week like that, you begin to wonder.”

Douglass Mackey, who had been targeted and jailed by the Biden-Harris administration for sharing political memes, explained that struggling businesses in the area may be giving immigrants preference for jobs over Americans. “An American citizen gets paid $16.50 per hour. No food stamps. No Social Security. No cash assistance. No rent assistance. No free car. No free car insurance,” Mackey said. “A Haitian gets paid $9 per hour and they get everything else paid for. After considering all the federal benefits, it’s likely that the Haitian is making double, or perhaps much more than that, of what an American worker would make.”

Ohio native Senator J.D. Vance (R), former President Donald Trump’s running mate, wrote on social media, “In Springfield, Ohio, there has been a massive rise in communicable diseases, rent prices, car insurance rates, and crime. This is what happens when you drop 20,000 people into a small community. Kamala Harris’s immigration policy aims to do this to every town in our country.” He added, “Don’t let biased media shame you into not discussing this slow moving humanitarian crisis in a small Ohio town. We should talk about it every single day. Kamala Harris did this. And she’ll keep doing it unless we stop her.”

On Friday, Trump reiterated his plans to deport most of the 10 million illegals imported under Biden. “We’re going to start with Springfield,” the former president insisted, adding the town had been “destroyed” by immigration.

Asked about the firestorm engulfing his small town, Mayor Rob Rue (R) shook his head. “Springfield is a community that needs help,” he told The Washington Post. “We are hurting.”

AUTHORS

S.A. McCarthy

September 14, 2024

S.A. McCarthy serves as a news writer at The Washington Stand.

Suzanne Bowdey

Suzanne Bowdey serves as editorial director and senior writer at The Washington Stand.

RELATED ARTICLE: Ohio sheriff asks residents to ‘write down’ Harris supporter addresses for migrant housing

EDITORS NOTE: This Washington Stand column is republished with permission. All rights reserved. ©2024 Family Research Council.


The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.