HuffPo: Refugee processing pipeline being
restarted, contractors optimistic, by
Ann Corcoran 5/31/17
When I looked at this article (Huffington Post) more carefully, I see it only sends a garbled message
about whether the refugee pipeline is being geared up to start seriously flowing
again or is only trickling.
But, it does appear that the
resettlement contractors are getting excited that it will flow with gusto soon
since they are rehiring staff they let go shortly after Trump put out his first
Executive Order.
Limbaugh: “Does he know that it’s
the Republicans that are the roadblock here?” I think the Trump team made a big
mistake by placing the refugee moratorium (to assess the adequacy of our
security screening) and a reduction in the CEILING for refugee admissions in an
Executive Order with the so-called travel ban for all those coming from the
terror hot-spot countries. It is my view, that Trump
did not need an EO to slow the flow of refugees across the board!
By combining the two (the ceiling
cap and the ban) and the subsequent rogue court decisions, Trump has lost
(given up?) his power (the power the President is given in the Refugee Act of 1980 to set the
admissions limit on refugees). And, thus everyone is confused, apparently
even within his Administration.
To add to the confusion the Republicans in Congress funded the US
Refugee Admissions Program at a level for 75,000 refugees to be admitted by
September 30th (the last day of this fiscal year), AND Trump signed it!
75,000 would be the second highest admission number in ten years! (see
chart below) Indeed, Rush Limbaugh was right
yesterday when he asked (on a different issue): “Does he know that it’s the Republicans that
are the roadblock here?”
Again, the President has the power
to set the ceiling in “consultation” with Congress. If Trump wanted to take
them on he could ask for a rescission of those funds to admit the numbers he
wants—which he said would be UNDER 50,000! Every day that the White
House is silent on the stunning news we
heard last week says to me that the White House agrees with the 75,000
admissions this year.
Why do the Republicans in Congress want to keep the pipeline going? It is because most of them work for their big business donors and the
Chamber of Commerce to guarantee a steady supply of cheap immigrant labor!
Adding insult to injury, your tax dollars support refugee families through the
welfare system because wages are too low! You pay for the importation of the
labor and for the laborers’ support once here!
It is really quite a difficult
obstacle for us (who wish to see the USRAP reformed) to overcome—big businesses
and global corporations pushing cheap labor in conjunction with so-called
‘religious’ charities (paid by taxpayers!) claiming this is all about
humanitarianism while essentially acting as ‘head hunters’ for big business.
Anyway, here is
the HuffPo’s latest on the pipeline flowing: The United States appears to be resuming its longstanding efforts to
resettle refugees after the program was derailed and almost completely upended
abroad for several months. U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services “has begun to expand its
interview schedule in the 3rd quarter of the fiscal year,” public affairs
officer Marilu Cabrera told HuffPost in a statement on Friday. The Department of Homeland Security is working with the
State Department to plan for a “further expansion” through the end of fiscal
year 2017, she added.
Jen Smyers is a lobbyist for Church
World Service in Washington, DC. “Director of Advocacy” is just a fancy name
for lobbyist. https://cwsglobal.org/jen-smyers/
Even though both orders were blocked
in federal court, the administration quietly pumped the brakes on various steps
of the resettlement process that occur overseas. Vetting and screening refugees
is an 18- to 24-month process, involving interviews with many branches of the
U.S. government as well as various security and medical clearances. USCIS noted in its statement that
circuit rides ― a technical term that refers to DHS agent travel to different
countries to conduct refugee interviews ― were suspended on Jan. 25, just prior
to Trump’s first executive order, and continued on a reduced schedule from
January through March.
In addition to stalled DHS
interviews, security and medical checks expire after several months and “none
of them [were] being re-run, said Jen Smyers, the associate director of
immigration and refugee policy at Church World Service*** one of nine domestic
resettlement agencies. “Also, our understanding is that for a while, [medical
clearances] were not happening, with some exceptions for emergency cases.” [BTW, I don’t think they do any mental health
screening as we learned here! —ed]
Because both of Trump’s executive
orders attempted to lower the refugee admissions quota from 110,00 to 50,000
for the 2017 fiscal year, “the State Department and USCIS assessed that it was
not necessary to interview large numbers of refugee applicants in order to meet
the new ceiling,” the USCIS statement said.
Resettlement experts said they’re cautiously optimistic about the
expanded interview schedule. “We’re waiting to celebrate until we see the pipeline of refugee
processing look healthier,” Smyers said. “All of this is really preliminary.” But they are already in
the process of hiring back some of the almost 600 staffers they had to lay off
worldwide during the executive order legal limbo.
Congress recently passed
a budget with enough funding to resettle a total of 75,000 refugees through the
end of the fiscal year. This should mean significant increases in the number of
refugee arrivals in the coming weeks. More here. By the way, in a report on Trump’s original idea of choosing Christian
refugees as a first priority, Smyers called it “shameful.”
See my most recent post on Church World Service finances. 67% of
their budget comes from you—taxpayers!
No refugee “clients”
means no payola for them! For new readers here are the nine contractors:
https://refugeeresettlementwatch.wordpress.com/2017/05/31/huffpo-refugee-processing-pipeline-being-restarted-contractors-optimistic/
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