Dept. of State coordinating with its refugee
contractors to try to keep refugees coming for two more weeks, by Ann Corcoran 2/5/17
So look for another big rush of refugees in the coming days. And, if they don’t materialize,
contractors will have to start reducing their federally-funded staffs.
Washington (CNN): For the second weekend in a row, nonprofits tasked
with welcoming refugees to the United States are reacting to a sudden, major
shift in the policies that govern their work.
A week ago, President Donald Trump
signed an executive order suspending resettlement for 120 days and initiating a
review of the vetting procedures used to approve applicants to come to the
United States.
Then Friday, a more welcome surprise
for refugee groups: A federal judge in Washington reversed several key
provisions of the executive order, paving the way some refugees to enter the
country.
US Together is the Ohio subcontractor
for the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society. I feel like our
whole world has been turned upside-down,” Danielle Drake, community relations
manager at the Cleveland*** nonprofit US Together, told CNN Saturday. “The
executive order came in so quickly, no one was prepared for it,” she said. “We
had zero notice.”
Why can’t leftwing media like CNN be completely honest about this
funding and explain how contractors are paid by the head out of the federal
treasury to do their ‘work.’ As
subcontractors of the big nine contractors, groups like US Together are almost
exclusively funded by taxpayer dollars! I am sure that the average American reading this has no understanding
that they are talking about mom and pop taxpayer paying for all of this.
Henshaw is a career federal employee
obviously running the show and giving guidance to the DOS refugee contractors.
Trump must appoint his replacement.
Funding for resettlement groups is
also in question as the administration and the courts each consider the future
of the US refugee program.
If the administration is given the
go-ahead to move forward with its four-month suspension, Drake estimates US
Together will have to lay off at least half its staff.
“One of the other very difficult aspects of the executive order was the
financial implications faced by the local resettlement offices,” Sarah Krause,
a senior director for the national resettlement agency Church World Service,
told CNN. [See my funding
analysis of CWS, here.—ed]
Busy, busy bureaucrats! The State Department has been coordinating with CWS and other agencies to
provide guidance on what Friday’s court ruling means for them in practical
terms.
As of Saturday afternoon,
CWS had been advised that flights were expected to resume early next week and
continue for at least the next two weeks.
The cap of 50,000 refugees for this
fiscal year remains in effect. See here where we explained why this was still too high! Bush had 4
years under 50,000, so this does not represent any big slowdown! Even 50,000 is
going to cost taxpayers several billion dollars!
But for refugees still awaiting
approval to go to the United States, the uncertainty created by the executive
order and subsequent legal challenges has left them in limbo.
That’s due, in part, to a provision
of the Trump administration’s order that was not overturned in Friday’s court
ruling — a provision capping total refugee admissions at 50,000 for the 2017
fiscal year, which ends October 1.
More than 30,000 refugees had already been admitted to the US before
the new policy went into effect, according to State Department data, leaving
just under 20,000 spots open. Continue reading here.
Church World Service and the Hebrew
Immigrant Aid Society are organizing
demonstrations against
Trump. There
should be a federal law prohibiting federal contractors from such overtly
political activities. Interested readers might want to
visit my 2013 post about when ‘Welcoming America’ came to Cleveland to
push for changing the city by seeding it with more third-worlders.
No comments:
Post a Comment