UN High Commissioner for Refugees in US to lobby
Trump Admin; needs more of your money, by
Ann Corcoran 6/2/17
There is nothing unexpected about
this interview of UNHCR Filippo Grandi during his trip to Washington this week
in hopes of getting a commitment by the Trump Administration for more refugees
to be sent to your towns and more money for the UNHCR’s ‘vital’ work. But, what prompted me to bother
writing about it, is a strange omission in the subtitles (the original video
this morning had subtitles) and text transcript of the PBS youtube clip.
LOL! The title of the interview
is: U.N.
refugee chief hopes for ‘robust’ resettlement programs in U.S. They
love that word “robust” in relation to refugee resettlement. Pay attention
going forward and you will see it used everywhere in the Leftwing media.
For new readers, it is the UNHCR
which picks the majority of the refugees coming to the US. (BTW, UNHCR refers
both to the man and to the agency).
Here is a snip of the text from PBS: JUDY WOODRUFF: Brutal
wars in the Middle East, Africa and Asia have forced the world’s populations of
refugees and displaced persons to near record highs.
Meanwhile, the Trump administration
has signaled its intention to substantially change U.S. refugee policy. Filippo Grandi, who is the United Nations’ top official leading the
response to the refugee crisis, is in Washington this week for meetings at the
White House and Pentagon. Our William Brangham sat down with
him earlier this evening. WILLIAM BRANGHAM: Hi, Commissioner Filippo Grandi.
Welcome.
At this point they yak about
security screening, blah, blah, blah and Grandi says how excited he is by words
Ambassador Nikki Haley recently uttered in favor of more refugee protection by
the US. Then this:WILLIAM BRANGHAM: Lastly,
a quick question on funding.
UN High Commissioner for Refugees
glass-fronted building in posh Geneva. Imagine what this costs to staff and run
in Switzerland! American taxpayers pay 37% of it! ($1.5 billion of an annual $4
billion budget).
I know this is obviously
an enormous challenge for the U.N. Do you have enough money to do the work you
need to do? FILIPPO GRANDI: Certainly
not.
Our budget last year was calculated at 7 billion U.S. dollars, 2016. We
got billion U.S. dollars. So about 55 percent of our needs the covered. This means that we do a lot of prioritization. And we prioritize,
evidently. With so many refugee crises, with 65 million refugees and displaced
people around the world, we have to prioritize lifesaving activities.
What does that mean? Why is the
sentence in red missing some facts? Was his accent so thick that PBS
couldn’t accurately transcribe what he said?
In fact, when I checked the video (you can see it here at about 4:58), there is a key word missing.
What is the key word (a number)—he said: We got $4 billion U.S. dollars (and
his English is very good). So why did PBS leave out such an important bit
of news?
Are they saying that the US supplies
$4 billion? No, see here. The $7 billion figure Grandi throws out is just their DREAM
budget. They get about $4 billion from all sources and the US ponies up $1.5
billion (Obama dollars) of that. My suggestion for
trimming the budget! Get rid of that grandiose building in Switzerland!
Endnote: Watch for it—a photo of Grandi
with Senator John McCain (and or Lindsey Graham) will show up. Both Senators
can be counted on to pressure Trump (the meany) for more refugee spending and
for more refugee laborers for your towns and cities.
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