NTF Issue Paper: cong126.doc. 8-15.
NEBRASKA TAXPAYERS FOR FREEDOM ISSUE PAPER:
STOP THE RESETTLEMENT OF REFUGEE HORDES.
BACKGROUND. The U.S. welcomes more than twice as many refugees as the rest of the industrialized world combined. The Obama Regime is escalating the U.S. refugee resettlement program so rapidly that it poses both economic and national security threats. The regime White House Task Force on New Americans is making a concerted national effort to quickly remove barriers to citizenship from these refugees and finance the integration of illegal alien children from Central America. Continuing at an unchecked pace, the admission of 70,000 new refugees annually, a cap installed in 2013, has not tabulated the economic and social costs to American communities. The U.S. refugee admission database shows that almost 500,000 new immigrants have entered the U.S. since Obama assumed office. America has offered a beacon of freedom for millions who have come since WWII to escape tyranny and to seek a better life here, their American Dream. These refugees have contributed mightily to our culture and economy. However, this ruse to inundate America with Third World immigrants is an insidious Obama plan to reconfigure the demographic population of our country, by importing hundreds of thousands who will support him politically. Ironically, the State of Delaware has resettled fewer than 10 refugees annually, though then Sen. Joe Biden was a sponsor of the 1980 Refugee Act, the law which defines the Obama refugee program. Until the late 90’s, the U.S. selected the large majority of refugees for resettlement in the U.S. Obama has adopted UN High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) criteria for selection of refugees, resettlement decisions placed almost wholly with private and religious charity contractors, with no regard for feelings of local residents. These contractors ignore cultural and security issues that confront local communities. In recent years, up to 95% of refugees coming to the U.S. were referred by the UN or relatives of UN-picked refugees. Considering that the refugee influx causes increases in all legal and illegal immigration, as family and social networks establish in the U.S., the U.N. effectively dictates much of U.S. immigration policy.
THE BILL. Congress for the past 25 yrs. has not questioned the refugee quota proposed by presidents, though, legally, Congress must consent to the annual quota but obviously refuses to take this role seriously. Conservative Rep. Brian Babin (TX) introduced HR 3314, the Resettlement Accountability National Security Act, which immediately would suspend immigration into the U.S. under the refugee resettlement program until the Government Accountability Office (GAO) completes an examination of its cost for federal, state, and local governments. This unaccountable program would undergo strict audit. The bill would force a common sense pause in the program to allow examination of potential national security issues, especially as law enforcement increasingly worries about lone wolf and home-grown terrorists, those who have immigrated to the U.S. as children or adults. Congress could reauthorize the program only by joint resolution.
THE PROBLEMS. During the Obama presidency, similar to the other tenets of our immigration system, the refugee resettlement program has become a nefarious tool used by leftist elites to reconfigure American society and burden states like Nebraska with huge fiscal costs. A network of private, nonprofit agencies select the communities where refugees will live. The agencies have headquarters in Washington, D.C. or have lobbying offices there. Local communities, including schools and welfare agencies, not notified. Local affiliate funding bases on the number of refugees served, so private contractors have an incentive to maintain or increase the number of refugees they resettle each year rather than allowing the number to decrease. Refugee resettlement is a self-perpetuating enterprise. Staff and management of hundreds of these taxpayer- supported agencies are refugee immigrants themselves, whose purpose is to gain entry for more refugees, usually for their co-ethnics. Agencies lobby Congress effectively to increase the number of refugees admitted for permanent resettlement each year, conflicts of interest never mentioned. The Obama Regime steadily has defined downward the definition of self-sufficiency, making it virtually meaningless. A refugee now is “self-sufficient” while using many welfare programs. A refugee seeking asylum formerly must have shown a “well-founded” fear of persecution because of a political view or membership in an aggrieved racial, ethnic, religious, or social group. Under Obama, people may seek asylum based upon domestic abuse, sexual orientation persecution, or lack of services for the disabled. The administration has placed a priority on homosexual and lesbian asylum seekers and refugees, causing an upsurge of asylum requests on this basis. One refugee contractor demanded that Medicaid pay for sex change operations if needed by new refugees.
MONEY GRUBBING RACKET. Refugee resettlement is hugely profitable to sponsor organizations. They receive federal money for each refugee they bring here, with almost no responsibility for them. After 4 initial months, these organizations have no obligation to account for where the refugees live. Catholic Charities and Lutheran Social Services are 2 of the largest religious contractors receiving federal monies for settling 3rd World refugees. Other sponsors include U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, Lutheran Immigrant Aid Society, Church World Services, Episcopal Migration Service, World Relief, and the International Rescue Committee. These agencies describe themselves as nonprofit “charitable” organizations, yet federal grants fill the majority of their budgets. Sponsors receive up to $2,200 for every refugee imported, expenses and overhead at their D.C. headquarters paid by the feds. The program is so lucrative that in some cities the Catholic Church has lessened support for traditional charity works to put more effort into resettlement. It uses collection offerings to promote the refugee resettlement program. The program is rotten with fraud and corruption at all levels. UN personnel often sell access to the program and, once in the U.S., refugees make false claims of family relationships in order to bring family and relatives here. Government grant fraud is common among local refugee service providers. These agencies meet weekly to review refugee lists and decide in which one of our communities to deposit refugees. Citizen and local officials have no input. When citizens contact a resettlement agency to obtain information about incoming refugees, their numbers, their origin, and their impact on welfare, schools, and the employment market, they receive no answers.
Agencies are secretive and sneaky, and communities suffering accelerating crime, unemployment, and welfare costs increasingly vent their outrage.
TAXPAYER COSTS. The Obama resettlement costs have reached $1 billion annually, according to the State Dept. This figure includes only the cost of grants to administer this program and excludes the cost of welfare programs for which refugees soon qualify. There now exists an explosion of Muslim refugees, whole Muslim communities sprouting in Emporia, KS., Nashville, TN, and Greeley and Ft. Morgan, CO., where they saturate and drain city resources and cause subsequent hikes in property taxes. Many other cities have suffered under the weight of 3rd World refugees. They arrive here with no English or occupational skills, and the resettlement agencies that receive the federal cash for depositing these refugees work with and provide financial aid to the refugees for only 3-5 months. Mayors across the nation plead with the federal government to not send more refugees to their communities because of outrageous costs to taxpayers and complain that imported Muslims refuse to accept our culture.
WELFARE WAGON. Main contractors contract with over 350 smaller agencies and liberal church groups to settle refugees into subsidized housing, sign them up for Medicaid, and enroll their kids in public schools. These refugees become eligible for all federal, state, and local welfare programs 30 days after arriving, making the U.S. a global welfare magnet. Included are Temporary Assistance to Needy Families, Medicaid, Food Stamps, subsidized housing, Supplemental Security Income, Social Security Disability, Low-Income Home Energy Assistance, Post-Secondary Education Loans and Grants, Foster Care & Adoption Assistance, and Social Services Block Grants. Yet, the feds never count these as part of program costs. Included, the total cost of the refugee program reaches $20 billion annually. While some Americans become subject to time-limited welfare programs, refugees receive lifetime cash assistance programs. The rate of usage for SSI by the latter is 400% higher than that among citizens. Permanent and intergenerational welfare dependence is endemic in several refugee groups. 47% of loans made to refugees for transportation purposes go unpaid, leaving a bill of $450 million. This total does not include interest or amounts written off. Welfare services provide refugees with employment, language, and case management services as a part of the resettlement process, and assist them in becoming acclimated to their new surroundings, schools, housing, transportation, and medical care, etc. The U.S. State Dept. deposited massive numbers of Somalis in Lewiston, Maine, where they have become a public welfare nightmare.
Third World refugees become eligible for numbers of grants. $1 million to begin community gardens. $6.1 million for ethnic community building and cultural adjustment. $4.6 million for health screening and preventive care. $4.3 million for savings accounts to help them save for purchases…free Obama money. $4.4 million to help them expand and maintain new businesses. $12.5 million for special needs populations. $80 million for child care needs, interpreters, and social adjustments. $103 million to ensure that elderly refugees have access to elder care services in their communities.
DISEASE CARRIERS. These refugees have no testing for many diseases like TB and AIDs. TB among them total about 40% of the TB in the U.S. Emporia, Kansas, a Tyson Foods community with a large Somali work force, experienced an outbreak of latent TB with one death and hundreds of cases screened positive.
EDUCATION PROBLEMS. Somalis have difficulties with women in supervisory educational roles. These refugees have no respect for these educators. Somalis have unrealistic expectations of what a school system provides. Apparently, someone had told them that the schools furnish free child care, and when the Somalis learn otherwise, they become very aggressive and demanding, insisting that the school system provide it. The Omaha Public Schools now must educate 2,000 refugee children, double the number from 2009, the tab paid by local and State of NE taxpayers.
IMPORTED MURDERERS. A U.S. marine from Georgia was among 5 service members murdered by a Muslim whose family emigrated to Tennessee courtesy of refugee asylum. The same program brought to Boston the entire family of the Boston Marathon bomber.
BOON FOR OTHER NATIONS. This policy encourages foreign nations to rid themselves of unwanted minorities or shut their borders to asylum seekers, understanding that the U.S. will accept them.
RESISTANCE GROWS. Refugees seek jobs in cities crippled by high unemployment and poverty. Outraged residents of Georgia and Maryland are resisting refugees dumped in their towns and cities. Tennessee and New Hampshire legislatures, pressed by citizens, are trying to stop refugee resettlement. Taxpayer backlashes and outright revolts against this resettlement program have arisen in several localities. Conservative opponents of the Obama refugee resettlements should expect agitation from the Left and must mobilize other conservatives to stand tough and not back down in face of leftist intolerance. Destabilization of local communities increasingly sees irate citizens smeared and demonized by radical community organizers who want to destroy the fabric of our nation. Former Rep. Michelle Bachmann is actively helping communities that she once represented in Congress to fight additional resettlement.
LEFTIST COUNTER-ATTACK. To quash conservative opposition, immigrant rights lawyers, community organizers, and the Rockefeller Foundation authored a proclamation. This document advises refugee activists to research the backgrounds of local people who oppose resettlement and forward this information to the leftist Southern Poverty Law Center for public shaming as racists and anti-Muslim bigots. This strategy is already active in Spartanburg, S.C. and St. Cloud, Minn., after angry residents there organized and demanded answers about how many refugees will continue to arrive, from what countries, and the tax effect on school systems, health care, welfare, and housing. In response to outraged taxpayers, the Obama Regime has dispensed millions in federal grants to leftist organizations to propagandize local officials and communities before refugees arrive. Leftist George Soros bankrolled several of these grants with seed money. This program promulgates strategies to use with uncooperative officials who insist on defending the concerns of their constituents. Georgia Gov. Nathan Deal in 2011 ordered an embargo on federal money going to refugee contractors there pending a review of the program, after one city loudly complained of a deluge of refugees. Leftist community organizers immediately sprang into action and formed a coalition to lobby the Governor and other state officials who then relented. Obama has given millions in grants to organizations like Welcoming America, a leftist group supported by the George Soros foundation, to propagandize Americans to welcome refugees. This group funds TV and radio ads and billboards in communities that have risen against floods of penniless refugees. The Office of Refugee Resettlement in the Dept. of Health and Human Services hired a community organizing contractor to stamp out pockets of resistance to the seeding of refugees in towns and cities. He developed a rapid-response team plan that can respond to backlash quickly in communities facing or at risk of facing rising anti-refugee sentiment.
THIRD WORLD PROBLEMS. Somalis used pits for toilets and are totally unfamiliar with U.S. bathroom facilities and common sanitation items like diapers and feminine care products. Modern kitchens are entirely foreign to them. Consequently, they require frequent visits by maintenance personnel to clean and repair bathrooms and kitchens. Citizens report that Muslim Somalis have no respect for their apartment neighbors, their foul cooking and other odors drifting into hallways and other apartments. Warned repeatedly about residential rules, they continue to break them indifferently, feeling entitled to special treatment. Horror stories abound. Somalis in Maine turned kitchen cabinets into chicken coops, slaughtered goats inside their apartments and threw the carcasses into the yard to rot, jammed sinks, toilets, and bathtubs with refuse, and left huge bills and code violations for landlords. One Springfield, Mass. refugee, not understanding plumbing, left his water running constantly, creating a $13,000 water bill for his landlord. Somalis have an extreme sense of entitlement in their dealings with the general public. A number of store owners tell that these refugees become angry if not allowed to haggle on the price of an item.
THE MUSLIM FACTOR. 14 liberal senators from the “Jihad Caucus” asked the president to dramatically increase the number of refugees allowed into the U.S. from Syria, 65,000 by the end of 2016, to ignore immigration caps or exclude other more acceptable refugees. The FBI has stated that it cannot vet all these prospective refugees for terrorist ties. The FBI, responsible for screening refugees for connections to foreign terrorist groups, states that it is impossible to screen refugees from failed and anarchic states like Syria and Somalia, which have no viable central governments, where the U.S. has no access to reliable law enforcement data. Of the Syrians allowed in so far, 92% are Muslim, less than 7% Christian. The refugee program gradually has shifted towards the resettlement of refugees from Muslim countries. Some individuals from Muslim countries are Christians or other minorities, but most are Muslims. In the early 1990s, the percentage of Muslim refugees was near 0; by 2000, the program was 44% Muslim. The Muslim component decreased after 9-11 but today is at about 40% and rising. The Iraqi refugee program causes alarm, because both Shia and Sunnis have emigrated here, still hating each other, thus posing a law enforcement risk. Membership in a U.S.-registered Islamic terrorist group is not a bar to entry on the program, if the refugee was not a direct participant in terrorist activity. Muslim Hijra is the model for jihadist Muslims who seek to populate and dominate new lands. They do not migrate to assimilate peacefully into a host nation, adopting our traditions and legal systems, but seek to colonize and transform non-Muslim target societies through either violent means or stealth.1 They mean to destroy American civilization from within in an incremental process. Witness shocking accounts and chilling undercover audio and video shown in the DVD “Jihad In America.” Locales like Emporia, Kansas, with a Somali meatpacker work force witness problems regarding public health, drug dealing, petty crime, in some cases massive unemployment, and federal Medicare and Medicaid fraud. In Tennessee, hundreds of Somalis with a strong tribal background and stern Muslim faith came to small communities. They lack public health standards, have little education, and reject U.S. cultural norms. Given that Tennessee is known for its southern hospitality, the behavior of rude Somalis has angered many people in the community, even those who would typically welcome people from other cultures. What really infuriates many residents is that the groups who bring the Somalis into the country appear to expect the local community to practice the same type of moral and cultural relativism as refugees. Law enforcement reports a similar lack of respect for its authority, and many officers hesitate to patrol after dark the apartment complexes where Somalis live. Officers pull over drivers and warn them what they did wrong, but they argue that they were right. Their total lack of respect for the rules and law enforcement rubs officers the wrong way. Much gang activity arrives with the Somalis, supposedly imported from Nashville, where about 5,000 settled. They abuse the system. When Portland, Maine Somalis failed their drivers tests, no coaching to improve their driving skills. They embarked on a publicity campaign criticizing the test administrator who failed them. Soon, they all passed their drivers exams, no questions asked. Lewiston, Maine Somalis call for an ambulance, complaining of horrible illnesses. Once at the downtown shopping district, their ailments magically disappear. Ambulance services who refused to service them found themselves sued by leftist lawyers. Somalis have not adapted to American culture or laws, These refugees have little interest in assimilating.
TERRORISM THREAT. Fear of terrorism is one primary reason why residents dislike Muslim refugees settling in their communities. The recruitment of young Somalis by terrorist cells and the arrest of 2 resettled Iraqi refugees in Kentucky on terrorism charges have proved these fears valid. Many more Somali refugees have faced arrest for providing material support to overseas Islamic terror groups such as al-Shabab. Others have left the U.S. to fight for ISIS and al-Shabab. Last month, the FBI arrested 6 Somalis from Minnesota for trying repeatedly to fly to Turkey and join ISIS, leading U.S. Attorney Andrew Luger to proclaim, “We have a terror recruitment problem in Minnesota.” The FBI has tagged Somali refugees as prime targets for terrorist cells nationwide. Conservative Texas Rep. Michael McCaul, chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, fears that Syrian refugees will merely become “a federal jihadi pipeline” for Islamic State operatives. Some from Muslim countries view immigration as a subversive means to invade a foreign nation and demonstrate a willingness to either support or engage in terrorism both in America and abroad. It is literally an offensive to erase American laws, traditions, and culture, and replace them with a pliable, multi-cultural society that will vote the Left into the permanent majority it seeks.2
TAKE ACTION NOW. Hatched by the U.N. and the American Left, the Obama resettlement agenda is dedicated to erasing our culture, traditions and laws, and creating a compliant, welfare-dependent multicultural society that dismantle our constitutional framework. The program lacks accountability and transparency. The Obama Regime purposely welcomes thousands of national security risks from predominantly Muslim countries in radical Islamic parts of the world, with no concrete vetting system in place. This refugee resettlement program has transformed from offering refuge to the deserving to a steady stream of 3rd World populations disconnected from our American culture and political heritage.
Contact your congressman today to co-sponsor and support HR 3314. Public hearings and social and economic impact studies must occur before a locality becomes a receiving community for these refugees.
Research, analysis, and documentation for this issue paper done by Nebraska Taxpayers for Freedom. This material copyrighted by Nebraska Taxpayers for Freedom, with prior permission granted for its use by other groups in the NE Conservative Coalition Network. 8-15. C