Federal Office of Refugee Resettlement playing
hardball with immigration lawyers it funds, by Ann Corcoran 2/16/18
A
little background first….The Office
of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) in
the Department of Health and Human Services somehow, awhile ago, was tasked
with taking care of the Unaccompanied Alien Children entering the US illegally.
In fact, their involvement created a huge new money stream to at least two
refugee contractors—the US Conference of Catholic Bishops and Lutheran
Immigration and Refugee Service—which received government grants and contracts to care for the
‘children.’
Director of ORR Scot Lloyd had to face
some really witchy Congresswomen over the issue of abortion for the illegal
alien children.
But, in yet another demonstration of the expanding taxpayer
funding to care for illegals, the ORR also has a grant program to provide the
‘children’ with legal services.
Keep in mind, however, that the ‘children’ (mostly teenage boys)
are not refugees. Refugees must prove they will be persecuted if returned to
their home country. The Central American lawbreakers may be running from
crime and poverty, but those are not criteria for receiving asylum (refugee
status).
In recent months a controversy has exploded for ORR because some
of the illegal alien ‘children’ claim they have a constitutional right to an
abortion and ORR is saying, NO! They do not.
You fund the Open Borders industry!
ORR is warning a large legal aid contractor that they could be removed from the federal dole if they instruct the ‘children’ about abortion rights.
Who knew ORR would have such gumption! The Leftwing WaPo clearly is disconcerted by
this move….A major legal services group for immigrant children told its
lawyers nationwide not to discuss abortion access, even if minors in custody
ask for help understanding their legal rights, for fear it would jeopardize a
multimillion-dollar contract with the Department of Health and Human Services.
The constraints on what government-funded lawyers can say to
young detainees was contained in an email from the nonprofit Vera Institute of
Justice, which said it acted after a phone call with an HHS employee. Vera’s
instruction to lawyers comes as the Trump administration has tried in court to
block access to abortion procedures for undocumented teens in federal custody.
“We know for a fact that there is a very real risk
to the entire legal services program for children in [Office of Refugee
Resettlement] custody if issues other than immigration are addressed in
consultations or representation, the abortion issue in particular,” a Vera official cautioned in a Feb. 2 email obtained by The
Washington Post.
In an internal e-mail
someone forwarded to the WaPo, Mulcahy says that VERA does not want to risk
losing the millions of dollars taxpayers give them to represent the
Unaccompanied Alien Children.
The
government pays $57 million a year under a five-year contract to Vera, which
works with 38 organizations in six regions to provide legal help to minors who
have crossed the border illegally and without their parents.
In the email, Vera official Anne Marie Mulcahy said she was sending it after a
conversation with the government analyst who manages the program within the
Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) at HHS.
During the call, the employee “directed us to ensure that Vera’s
legal services providers are not talking to children in HHS custody about
abortion,” wrote Mulcahy, who is the director of Vera’s unaccompanied minors
program.
Mulcahy instructed lawyers to immediately strip references to
abortion from “Know Your Rights” legal pamphlets and said lawyers could refer
children with abortion-related questions to other attorneys.
The office is responsible for the care of
approximately 7,700 minors in custody, nearly 70 percent of whom are boys, according to HHS. The
minors are facing possible deportation to countries such as El Salvador and
Honduras…..There is much more here at the WaPo.
Below is a screenshot page of a recent Form 990 for VERA, note that the vast
majority of their income comes from you—US taxpayers. In order to view
the 990, go to ProPublica here and follow links.
If you visit their Form 990, don’t miss the salaries page!
You paid VERA lawyers
$41.5 million in 2014 to represent the illegal alien children. Obviously VERA
could not exist without federal funding!
Immigration
is big business in America, not just for the global corporations greedy for
cheap labor, but for the extensive industry the federal government runs through
its grants and contracts like those to VERA—Institute of Justice.
Go for it!
ORR should cut off their taxpayer-funded money stream.
Norb Leahy, Dunwoody GA Tea Party Leader
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